I see a lot of examples, but I'm not seeing a lot of current examples to answer your question. For something recent, look to Detroit. The city's in a shambles

I see a lot of examples, but I'm not seeing a lot of current examples to answer your question. For something recent, look to Detroit. The city's in a shambles, budget-wise and infrastructure-wise -- police response time is in the orders of hours, for emergency calls, weeks, or months, if at all, for non-emergency calls. Effectively, by some estimations, the state doesn't exist. To fill the gap left by a non-functioning police department, neighborhoods have started banding together to hire private security firms. This (of course) isn't a direct correlation, but from the numerous friends I have in the Detroit area, the difference is pretty stark. They feel safe, the 'police' forces are smaller and more dedicated and, perhaps the biggest difference, the private security firms actually "respect us as customers, instead of treating us like cattle in the way of whatever grand mission they're on" (copied and pasted from an email with a friend). I've read a number of articles on the subject, but while I can't find any of the ones I meant to reference, I did find this one, which I just skimmed through, and it's pretty neat all around: http://www.policymic.com/articles/44725/this-is-what-budget-cuts-have-done-to-detroit-and-it-s-freaking-awesome http://www.policymic.com/articles/44725/this-is-what-budget-...