The Georgia Public Policy Foundation, an independent "think tank" that can generally be relied upon to take the wrong side of almost any situation, sends me a weekly email called "Friday Facts." This week's email included the following item:

"One down, 19 to go: The state Department of Transportation is closing a rest area at I-85 North near Suwanee in Gwinnett County at the end of October. The rest area opened in 1972 when the area was rural, but the DOT says the traffic merge there has become a challenge. The move cuts costs, too. The private sector provides numerous options for truckers and motorists, and the closing will save taxpayers at least $300,000 per year in security, utility and repair costs."

Sounds good at first. Taxpayers save money by not duplicating what the private sector is doing anyway, right? But the problem lies in what the public sector is actually providing, and the reliability of the continuity of these services.

There is a world of difference between a Stuckey's Truck Stop and the kind of picnic areas the DOT creates along highways. One exists to maximize profit and not necessarily serve the motorists, and the other exists as a public resource, regardless of profit. However, if the DOT rest areas lease some space to franchisers, they might actually be able to defray costs, if not actually turn a profit.

My ex-g.f. L. was developing an idea about the privatization of public spaces, and I think planning on eventually publishing something on it. Examples of this trend include the closing of public libraries as students do more and more of their homework at Borders and Barnes & Noble, the substitution of shopping malls (or even stand-alone Walmarts) for downtown shopping districts, and the decreasing number of public parks as more and more gated communities have their own "private" greenspace.

John Schaffner, writing in The Story, recalls "the bustling retail district along Peachtree Street in the 1960s, when the downtown section of that road was lined with small- and medium-sized retail shops, all with windows filled with merchandise displays facing out onto sidewalks filled with people. I recall shopping that area for a suit when I visited Atlanta for a day in the late 1960s from St. Petersburg, Florida. It was an exciting urban experience.

"I believe John Portman did much to destroy that environment in downtown Atlanta by designing buildings that had no windows onto the sidewalks and creating all their excitement inside, behind lifeless walls of concrete. Downtown Atlanta has never recovered from that, and probably never will. There are no stretches of interesting shop windows along Peachtree Street today - not in downtown, not in Midtown, not in Buckhead."

It's hard to defend interstate rest areas - with their griminess, their propensity toward crime, and their lack of aesthetics, but turning them over to the fast-food-and-gas-station colonies that spring up along exit ramps is not the answer. A more enlightened approach would be to create a pleasing park-like environment, with room for strolling, dog walking and picnicking, possibly coupled with a gasoline and/or restaurant franchise to put some money in the public coffers.