I think it looks like someone just ham fisting a known vulnerability trying to find one sucker who doesn't know what he's doing. If you're a jr with a learning projects maybe you'd approve the merge.
This article is about freeing you from having to build parking spaces even if you don't want to. This article is about restoring property rights and property freedom.
Yet you managed to take away the opposite, that the government forcing you to build parking spaces on your property is "freeing" somehow.
Somehow traffic and parking is a political topic, where the left supports free market and deregulation, and the conservative right supports central planning, regulation and subsidies.
You can't take anything away from people. We get stuck in local optima ridiculously easily. You can give people ten improvements and they'll still find the one sacrifice and throw their toys out the pram.
You are right, I suspect this triggered an allergic reaction to an adjacent topic, the "walkable cities" meme. Sounds innocent enough, the reality is that if you try to ban cars from cities (and there are nuances and trade-offs here), you
a) create a dependency on public transport, which you can then be denied eg during Covid
b) remove the basis of what makes business and having a family possible
essentially turning your city into an open-air museum, to be looked at by tourists (it is worth looking at).
Both points seem shallow and reactive rather than considered.
a) Roads can be closed just as easily during a pandemic, attempted coup or major government crisis. Dependency on roads necessitates a car - an enormously greater barrier of entry than the price of a subway, tram or bus ticket. Fewer citizens using public transport leads to a death spiral in which public transit is continually underinvested, becomes more expensive to build and maintain and eventually ghettoised into a small number of prestige projects and a much larger number of decaying and even dangerous services, serving only the poorest and most socially excluded citizens - as has happened in so many US citizens. The reverse is observably true in cities built around vibrant public transport networks - Berlin, Tokyo, Copenhagen, Singapore, Utrecht etc. These cities aren't constructed around one key piece of crumbling infrastructure (like the NYC subway), but coherent and growing networks of trains, buses, trams etc.
Reliance on a car also makes you much more vulnerable to economic shocks - be they rising oil prices or personal issues that deprive you of the ability to drive (accidents, health problems, criminal convictions etc). Your mobility within the city becomes locked to a large capital investment which can be taken away in numerous ways.
b) Clearly car free or low car cities - like the ones listed above - worldwide have thriving businesses and families. To suggest otherwise is simply orthogonal to reality. They're highly desired places to live. Perhaps you're conflating the US suburb's with 'business and having a family'? A city littered with playgrounds, safe walkable pavements and on street businesses (like say Berlin), offers a far safer environment for young children than a series of shopping districts separated by dangerous unpassable roads, or low density suburban mass housing served by Wallmart style megastores - lacking cultural facilities, access to exercise or community amenities (many small US cities and also most small to medium sized Irish towns, like the one in which I was unfortunate enough to grow up).
'Walkable cities' are literally just places where the city is constructed around the social, economic and environmental needs of its citizenry rather than anachronistic modernist utopian ideas of vast highways and infinities of commuters streaming into colossal towers.
I was responding to a comment that is supportive of strong cities etc.
Really, what I object to, is this unstated transfer of power, from governments to the UN. The UN decides policy, local government implements it - changing legislation etc as required. But who made the UN god? Why do all states across the world follow the same plans? Are you a 'stakeholder' in the decision/strategy process? You and I are not. It simply moves power to a level so that it is untouchable and unknowable. Voting already does nothing, because the folk we see already just implement what they are told.
Protectionism seems to have worked really well for China, and it helped America get to where it was 60 years ago.
Meanwhile, relatively recent free trade treaties hollowed the American economy out and contributed to its financialization. I'd like to go back, please.
Then you would be a loser in every way. The state of China today is far from perfect, but they got from nothing to where they are, industrializing within living memory. I think even people with strongest negative sentiments towards China recognize this as impressive achievement.
Well yeah. I don't know why you say "blatant" though, its not something to be ashamed of nor does any country make an attempt to hide it. As the article says, Europe has tarrifs on car imports too, as do most other nations.
It's not? I mean I'm certainly ashamed when I behave hypocritically* but I guess I've just watched too many Disney movies where the protagonist overcomes their pretensions and learns humility.
* Isn't the US the great bastion of the free market, rugged capitalism, entrepreneurial spirit etc etc etc? I mean at least that's what I see all the people on here claiming vis-a-vis why SV is better than everyone else.
A car is in fact a good example here - specifically, an ICE car. It's a contraption powered by repeatedly pouring explodium into a chamber and making it go off, then using the boom to both spin wheels and pull in more explodium for another run. More explodium means more power means faster car means better, right? On the contrary, an ICE needs just right amount of explodium, and is designed to ensure that; pour more, it'll stop and/or set itself on fire.
Same is with the market. Let it run completely free, and it'll collapse into bunch of tribes led by warlords, producing little more than suffering and death at scale.
> * Isn't the US the great bastion of the free market, rugged capitalism, entrepreneurial spirit etc etc etc? I mean at least that's what I see all the people on here claiming vis-a-vis why SV is better than everyone else.
I'm fairly new to US point of view (as in, I witness it only since like 10 years ago), but I feel like this has evolved, and the actual theories of "free market" (which include not having roadblocks, promoting SMBs because of diminishing returns , the need to inform the consumers, the integration of externalities in the taxes) are getting more and more support in the US, especially in SV. I think this has been severely pushed by US' Healthcare sector, where there is no obvious blatant anti competitive behaviors, but have profound negative impact on US society.
I think conglomerates killing small useful services by providing the same for free (but bad and without any further innovation) have also had impact there. I'm sure most people on HN has a service in their mind that used to be great, that got killed by Google doing the same for free, but that got enshittified and they are sad the original service is dead.
"I won't give names but trust me", VC funded tech companies with 3-10 bros 'who have or not a vague technical background but more see themselves as high level thinkers' between founders and their first hires for 'key strategic roles' followed by an engineer and one to three interns to fill production role are a common reality, at least on startup scenes I attended. In the startup process 'marketing' is also glorified (not that i disagree it's importance) so once you have one or two guy who can make demos, hiring marketing people is often the next priority.
I have seen situations where there are 10% engineers to 50% "assorted management" in tech companies. (the remaining 40% being a mix of sales and support staff such as office management).
