[originaltext] One of the main complaints of city residents, not surprisingl

One of the main complaints of city residents, not surprisingly, is the lack of parking. This problem is partly caused by all the abandoned cars on the streets. It has been estimated by A to Z Towing, Inc., a nationwide tow-truck agency, that over one million cars are abandoned on the streets and alleyways of the nation’s cities. Each year approximately a third of those cars are moved and destroyed. The rest of the cars which are not removed take up parking spaces and make neighborhoods look rundown.
    A survey of twenty cities by A to Z reports that as much as 30 million dollars is spent annually to tow away and dismantle abandoned vehicles. One city alone, Los Angeles, spends five million dollars a year to control the accumulation of abandoned cars on its streets. Even though the city spends so much money on the program, it is always fighting a losing battle as more and more cars are constantly coming off the production line.
    Boston, on the other hand, which spends most of its money on museums and libraries, does not appropriate tax money to clean abandoned cars off the streets. In Boston the problem has been dealt with by a non-profit governmental agency called Street Horizons, which uses the money from the recycling of the metal in the cars to pay for the cost of towing them The program in Boston sounds good although it has not completely reached financial independence from the federal government yet. Until a truly self-sufficient program for removing old cars is developed, it will remain a serious problem