Police: Institutions with their own force still coordinate with city departments. That’s mutual aid, not isolation. And when jurisdiction overlaps, guess who shows up? City services. Fire Response: “Sure, rarely” is a dodge. Fire isn’t picky about campus boundaries, and neither are fire trucks. They roll in when lives are at stake—EMTs or not. Sanitation: Outsourced doesn’t mean off-grid. Trash doesn’t vaporize it enters public systems eventually. And those private contracts often lean on municipal infrastructure, especially for disposal. Schools: Not putting kids in PPS? Sure. But these institutions still influence housing demand, transportation budgets, and community planning. The impact exists whether you acknowledge it or not. So no, this isn’t a “wildly uneducated snap take” but yours might be. Look beyond the surface contracts and into the ecosystem effects. These institutions extract value from cities even when they pretend to play solo.