I bought a house a couple of years ago in a small midwestern town which I plan to relocate to eventually. Last year there was a series of articles in the little local newspaper about a proposal by the town council to make trash collection a government function, on the grounds that a few property owners were letting trash pile up on their properties and not hiring a private hauler to collect it. I was very happy to see that it got shouted off the table by angry citizens. The private trash haulers are doing the job just fine, and if a few property owners fail to hire and keep up payments to private haulers, then local ordinances prohibiting piles of trash on properties in town can be invoked so that the local government can hire a private hauler to pick up the trash and slap a lien on the property to recoup the cost.
I live in a little town of around 150 people. There are no main roads through town and most of the streets are dirt. We have a post office but aside from that and the roads we have little use for much outside money.
We did have our own police department but now give money to the county so they send a car through town every once in a while. Frankly we were better off paying for our own local cops.