Chicago sold parking to a hedge fund. The contract stipulates that the city has to make up for lost revenue.

In 2009, the city of Chicago sold the city’s parking meters to a group of companies led by Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley, which includes an investment fund owned by the government of Abu Dhabi. In return for $1.2 billion in cash, most of which was spent in the first year, private investors won the right to control parking meter revenues for the next 75 years. This deal, later criticized by the city’s inspector general, has come to stand as one glaring – and maddening — example of privatization gone wrong.

Chicago taxpayers even have to reimburse corporate investors for lost revenue when the city wants to close a block for a street festival or has to close off traffic to make street repairs. If a meter is out of commission for six hours, the company is reimbursed for an entire day’s worth of fees. Chicago has essentially given up control of its streets. Documents released late last year reveal that the city was billed by the meter firm for $1.7 million in 2010, on top of more than half a million the year before, in this kind of “true-up revenue.”