One of the taxpayer-financed services that the city of Boston provides for its residents is trash pickup. Many neighboring town governments are not so beneficent, however.

The duck carcasses that hang in many a Chinese restaurant window may not be an appetizing sight for all diners. But unlike most meat, Peking duck has been deemed safe to serve at room temperature.

You can lead Dallas city employees to water, but you can't make them drink. Not if it's from the tap, anyway. A recent audit revealed that the city spent $18,000 this year to support its employees' bottled- water habit, a figure that some say is excessive. "Dallas prides itself on providing the highest-quality drinking water possible," says Mary Poss, chairwoman of the city council's finance and audit committee.

What she lacks in youthful upside potential, she makes up for in mature dependability: The muni bond's heyday is coming.

One step away from resorting to a divining rod, Wichita officials have turned 10 years of mulling into a plan to secure enough water for the city's future.