Everything you are describing sounds like the phenomenon of government in the United States. If we replace a human powered bureaucracy with a technofeudalist dystopia it will feel the same, only faster.
We are upgrading the gears that turn the grist mill. Stupid, incoherent, faster.
This sounds in line with big law and big finance. Those are exactly the type of people who have flooded into tech over the last decade. It shouldn’t be surprising that compensation structures mirror those industries.
After decades in industry it becomes obvious some people really generate 5x+ of a new hire. Not sure why they shouldn't be able to capture that wealth when the market bears it. I don't make nearly 500k but I'm happy for most anyone that does.
As someone who isn't in law, medicine, or finance but must from time to time pay for legal services, medical care, and financial advice, I'm not happy there are lawyers, finance people, and doctors who make $500k. I'm doubly not happy when I have to compete with those people for housing and other goods and services.
Of course, even 10x is possible. We all wish that was always the case.
I had this hilarious though I feel I should write down here but doubt it at the same time. ..
The best way to have a wage gap is lack of access to education or even books. Second would be to have access but not make an effort.
It makes me wonder is there is data on physical punishment. people say it is a terrible thing but I would love to put them in some loud factory conveyor belt job for a decade or so with just a few more bills than salary. To call me a sadist is to agree :p
Is it not more about specialization and deep domain experience than raw output?
If I just need raw output, the army of juniors is a viable solution. You might even find it’s preferable if you have many separate functions or projects or think you may flex down/up the labor expense later on.
With similar work that should be expected. It would be the same with cabinet making as well. But in cabinet making, they’d hire 5 juniors if it was less than a single experienced person. The experienced guy has a job because sometimes a project requires complex and fast solutions, even if pace is reduced by the complexity.
I’ve always thought night jobs should have limitations on how long an individual can consecutively work an overnight shift to limit the toll it takes on mental and physical health.
> Lack of sunlight during the day is worse than [..]
to
> Lack of sunlight during the day has a larger effect on your bio rhythms then [..]
but that effect isn't per-se bad
it's bad if you life is out of sync with your bio rhythms to a point where it can have sever effects on you mental and physical health
also additionally the way various factors can affect (mainly but not exclusively) shift our bio rhythms there is also the fact that people have various "dispositions" (not the right scientific term), dispositions which also change with age and which seem to have naturally evolved to improve the survival chances of human by making sure that in a pack of human (\j) there is always someone "fit" to spot danger/react fast/etc.
the reason I'm pointing that "dispositions" out is because they can have a major affect on how likely (and more important how much) the bio rhythms of a person and their life with night shifts are out of sync
as far as someone like me who doesn't know much about sleep science can tall the most harmful think is the switch between night and day shift making your bio rhythms fall completely out of sink (leading to fun thinks like potentially constantly increasing exhaustion every day) and/or the bio rhythms not adapting to night shifts
worse as far as I can tell from personal experience there can be a big mismatch between what your bio rhythms are and what your "habits of sleep/work" are, especially if other factors like huge external stress come into play :\
Anyway examples of people living healthy lives with unusual bio rhythms (longer, shorter, shifted) are quite many.
My dad preferred to work the night shift because it was less stressful at his workplace. He tried day shift a couple of times, but always ended up going back to nights by choice. For that reason, I have trouble agreeing with your suggestion, but I understand that you mean well.
Places that limit overnight shifts tend to have variable shifts - folks will work all three shifts, have one night a week, and so on. This definitely takes a toll on mental and physical health - just in a different way. At least with regular overnight shifts, you can get into some sort of rhythm with regular sleep and eating times.
The other solutions mean things like paying folks more so they can work fewer days (make a full time salary in 3-4 days a week), but few places are going to do that and taxpayers are going to foot some of that bill - some pretty vital places have staff at night. 911 operators, police and fire services, snow plowing, nursing homes and hospitals tend to need around the clock staffing.
It usually takes government to tie people up in these sorts of knots. These people have enthusiastically done it to themselves. Resume driven development is a hell of a drug.
The average roof has a lifespan at least an order of magnitude greater than a k8s cluster. Most roofs being put on today will outlast k8s itself.
Software is a liability, not an asset. Treating the construction and maintenance of this horrible liability knows as “code” is a complete misunderstanding of what software actual is.
It's just an example. Another is paint. The rule is close to but not exactly "if it lasts more than a year it has to be depreciated instead of expensed."
The book value of the k8s work could be completely expensed as soon as it is replaced.
Also, your belief that "software is a liability" is irrelevant. What matters is that tax law calls software an asset (as does most everyone else, even ones who fundamentally understand it).
I agree with you, lots and lots of software definitely has the properties of an asset. There’s also plenty of software that’s hastily written, untested, and basically not fit for use beyond a short expiration date. More like a jug of milk with a shelf life than a fine grand piano with resale value.
The value people produce is an asset. After all, you don't own people, you buy their effort.
A contract can be an asset. Usually the unrealized future value of the agreement has value should you need to make a deemed disposition (or have some other valuation event). It gets very obviously complicated and fuzzy though, which is where accountants make the big bucks. It's pretty rare that a company chooses to make a contract valuable, but it often comes up in bankruptcy proceedings.
As an example of contracts having value, a few years ago I was involved in the acquisition of some media distribution assets, and one such asset was a transferable "MFN" contract with a major publisher. That was a very, very valuable asset.
A contract for a typical SaaS company, billed annually, is actually a liability (from an accounting perspective) up until the point where the contract has been completely fulfilled.
Others (say, an investor) might view a contract as an “asset” because of the future value it might bring, but not in a traditional accounting sense.
I don't know if you've ever been to a walkable city, but they pay for themselves. Because people don't spend all of their time driving to and from the place they want to be, they get to spend extra time shopping and growing local businesses that pay taxes for infrastructure to stick around.
Car lanes are paying money for people to skip those places and only go to one place at a time without drawing them to other places in the same area. If I'm driving to the store, I'm driving... To the store. I'm not going to walk around outside of the store after I'm done. This has no benefits for adjacent businesses.
Oh, cool, still more evidence than you've provided. And honestly, you can Google for peer-reviewed publications just as well as I can if you're just going to complain about my sources.
Where are your "peer-reviewed publications" that prove I'm wrong. How about let's see that first, since you've provided nothing (not even an argument) for why I'm wrong. You just stated you could make the argument, and you yada yada yada'd your way through the rest of the point:
> Car lanes bring more customers from far away locations etc. etc.
How about you fill out the etc's with some peer-reviewed publications?
> Are bike manufacturers going to pay for bike lanes? Or is it going to be a regressive transfer?
The fact that there are less cars on the road already is a HUGE benefit to them. Less cars => less parking lots and less noise pollution => less maintenance costs => savings for tax payers.
Also, huge one... How many cyclist -> pedestrian fatalities are there?
I would bet dollars to donuts that 99.9+% of cyclist fatalities are cars hitting cyclists. (As opposed to cyclists hitting pedestrians. If there are any driver deaths from cyclists hitting cars I will eat my shorts)
Flipping things around, do drivers pay enough in usage taxes and registration fees to cover the cost of the road they use?
No. Usage taxes and registration fees only cover ~37% of the cost of the roads.
"In 2020, state and local motor fuel tax revenue ($53 billion) accounted for 26 percent of highway and road spending, while toll facilities and other street construction and repair fees ($22 billion) provided another 11 percent. The majority of funding for highway and road spending came from state and local general funds and federal funds." - https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...
The remaining ~63% comes from other sources, including property taxes, sales taxes, and income taxes which bikers pay either directly or indirectly (eg, through rent).
What on earth makes you think that autonomous driving that alleviates a driver from having to drive (and park) in some of the least pleasant to drive in conditions will result in fewer cars? Having to drive into the city that's about an hour away is a major consideration for me not doing it more frequently.
They aren’t a net positive for everyone when valuable transportation lanes are lost for bicycles. I’m not taking my four kids to the doctor on a bicycle. In an emergency, I’m not going to pedal my way to the emergency room. When it’s pouring rain, or baking hot, I’m not going to ride a bicycle. If I’m buying groceries for a family of six, I’m not going to carry a week’s worth of groceries in a backpack. A bicycle trip of 15 miles takes a whole lot longer than a car trip of the same distance. How about transporting young babies on a bike? Bikes are far more unsafe than cars.
It's only valuable lanes you're concerned with, right?
That is, you are okay with giving up low-value car transportation lanes for valuable bicycle lanes, yes?
You may be interested in Braess's paradox. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox describe it as "the observation that adding one or more roads to a road network can slow down overall traffic flow through it."
That Wikipedia entry gives a few examples where closing roads helped automobile throughput, and links to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand for more details about how building more highways fails to reduce congestion. ("the more highways were built to alleviate congestion, the more automobiles would pour into them and congest them and thus force the building of more highways – which would generate more traffic and become congested in their turn in an ever-widening spiral that contained far-reaching implications for the future of New York and of all urban areas").
Thus feels very much like there are net-negative transportation lanes which can be replaced by bicycle lanes and improve your transit rates.
Are you against removing those lanes? Are you against experiments to determine where those lanes might be?
As for the rest of your comment, you live in an area designed for cars, so of course cars are essential for your daily life. If you don't know what you're missing, it's easy to overlook how other solutions exist.
I happen to live in a walkable part of my city. Our health care center is 4 blocks away. The urgent care center is about a mile away. Both are walkable, even with two stroller-age kids, which we've done.
When we've needed to get to the hospital in a hurry, we've used a taxi. The savings in not having a car more than pays for both a bus pass and the occasional taxi.
We've got a good bus system, so when the weather is horrible, people switch from walking or bikes to buses when going to work.
We get our groceries delivered - again, the cost of delivery is less than the cost of owning a car.
And since we live in a walkable area of the city, we used strollers to move babies around, including on the bus, and to get to preschool. (We had several choices within walking distance.)
The big box store is about 10 minutes away by bus, and it's 5 minutes to the bus stop. When we've bought something big, we pay for delivery and removal of the old item, but car/truck rentals are also possible.
Nor must one be without a car to live here. We have several neighbors with a car, parked in the parking garage on our block. Instead, we've made the choice to not have a car.
While you don't have that choice. You are stuck, just like most people in the US. It's no wonder you interpret any talk about opening other possibilities as a diminishment of your life.
But on the other hand, having everyone's life organized around the way you personally want it diminishes the ability for people who want a car free life, and for those who for whatever reason cannot drive.
Consider that in a few years your kids will need you or another adult to drive them to all the places they want to go. The proverbial soccer mom is an unpaid chauffeur, and likely needs an extra vehicle for that purpose.
While my kids will be able to walk, bike, or take a bus, on their own, even as 10 year olds. I'll be able to send them to the store to pick up a missing ingredient for dinner. If they get bored they can walk 6 blocks to the library, or to a park to play, or to the local youth arts and culture center, or the swimming pool, or visit friends.
It's worth noting that public transportation exists, not just bikes and cars. Designing city less oriented around cars would mean that you could take your kids to the doctor on a train/bus/walk, and that your grocery store wouldn't be 15mi away, and not need to buy a week's worth of groceries at a time.
Of course you could choose to drive anyway, but as long as people have the option to rely less on their cars it's a net win.
> I’m not going to carry a week’s worth of groceries in a backpack. A bicycle trip of 15 miles takes a whole lot longer than a car trip of the same distance.
The problem is solved by cars but only because it was created by cars. People used to have bigger families and walk to the grocery store.
Except that bike lanes often cut into lanes for auto/truck/bus traffic. Traffic has gotten worse over the past few years since a lot of bike lanes were put in. Maybe that's a reasonable tradeoff (probably), but bike lanes almost certainly didn't make things better for drivers. (ADDED: Around where I live I suspect bike lanes serve more as an alternative to walking and public transit than they do cars. Again, they're probably for the best but they don't really help drivers.)
Citation needed for "Traffic has gotten worse over the past few years since a lot of bike lanes were put in." For one thing, it's not even a causal statement, but you're implying it is.
For another bikes take up ~half the space of a car going in the same direction. So the inclusion of bike lanes and their usage would only improve traffic because it removes the actual cause of traffic (cars) from the road.
Not 1/2, closer to 1/10 (for the exact space of the car). Cars also need far more buffer space, parking space, overall road area for maneuvering around a city. If completely replaced, infrastructure area could probably be reduced by ~20-100x
I'm being real generous here that on a 4 lane road, if you want to add bikes I would just take away 1 lane of car traffic, and that would allow for bikes to be insulated from the cars in both directions.
But I definitely agree with you that we could probably 1/100th the size of roads (and open up a whole lot of space for property development), if everyone biked everywhere. (Not useful as a goal, just useful as an idea for space requirements.)
Depends. If 90% of the traffic is still cars, bike lanes make it possible for the 10% that is bikes. But the 90% now have fewer lanes.
You sound like you're assuming that, given more bike lanes, 50% of the traffic will ditch their cars and ride bikes. (At least, your logic doesn't work without that assumption.) I don't think that's a valid assumption.
I guess it depends on the location. More lanes don't equal better traffic. In my city, every road is pretty much a 2-3 lane highway for cars, and it seems like a huge waste of space. Invites speeding, crashes.
There's been road diets, where they've been reduced to single lane, and these had had no effect on travel time. Did reduce crashes a lot, less of that aggressive jostling for position, just cars chugging along calmly in single file.
There's been years long construction on a few big buildings, blocking whole lanes, forcing cars into single file; absolutely zero effect on travel times.
When there's snowfall, only middle lanes are cleared. Zero effect on traffic flow.
Imho traffic flow is pretty much determined by number of cars and number of intersections, and very little by number of parallel lanes. So much room for dedicated bike or bus lanes, it's really AND/AND, really everybody wins, and it's such a tragedy that my city just doesn't seem to understand that. All it takes is paint and bollards.
I was speaking of a specific city that has added extensive bike lanes. No idea of causality. Maybe a lot more people have decided to drive in and out all of a sudden.
I was mostly objecting to the comment up-thread implying that bike lanes are inherently win win. They can be a good idea on net while increasing driving times.
Yeah, your trying to hide your argument in specificity makes it an "anecdote" and not anything meaningfully contributing to the conversation. So you can either find specific sources that demonstrate more than that "you feel like traffic has gone up due to bike lanes in city X", and that would be an interesting content/addition to the discussion or you can mark it more clearly as an opinion, and people will be more likely to ignore it...
> Are bike manufacturers going to pay for bike lanes?
Are bike manufacturers operating the bicycles for profit?
> What about Big Walking Shoe…
Are they operating the shoes for profit?
Or is it the citizens, taxpayers if you will, operating the shoes and bikes as part of their “social contract” with the city?
Now, are the citizens of SF owning and operating robocars as part of this social bargain or is it for-profit entities 100% doing it to extract income from the citizens?
Not that I’m saying profit as an incentive is wrong but you do see the difference in these two things, right?
Pedestrians (aka everyone) pushed for sidewalks, long before cars. Cyclists (a much smaller voting block), pushed for bike lanes, and it took them much longer. What voting block is going to push for infrastructure improvements needed by self-driving cars?
False, everyone is not a Pedestrian, I moved into my current home specifically because there are no sidewalks (and no HOA), and I resist any movement to add them to my street.
>>What voting block is going to push for infrastructure improvements needed by self-driving cars?
People that want to use and benefit from Self Driving cars, just like people that vote for sidewalks.
I have a feeling the number of people that want the dream of being able to have a car that just drives itself is FAR FAR FAR FAR higher than the number of people that utilize sidewalks. At least for my Geographic region...
>False, everyone is not a Pedestrian, I moved into my current home specifically because there are no sidewalks (and no HOA), and I resist any movement to add them to my street.
What the fuck!? Why don't you want a sidewalk? Why would any street even be built without a sidewalk, like how is that even an option. How is anyone meant to walk safely?
>I have a feeling the number of people that want the dream of being able to have a car that just drives itself is FAR FAR FAR FAR higher than the number of people that utilize sidewalks. At least for my Geographic region...
Where are you from, Mars? Cause you may as well be speaking Martian, I can't comprehend your mindset at all.
How does anyone go for a morning run? Walk their dog? How do kids get to their friends' houses? Even in a low density suburb people do these things.
"The number of people who use sidewalks" is like ... 99%. Everyone uses them at least a little, unless you're literally bedridden or something. Or out in the middle of nowhere.
>>How does anyone go for a morning run? Walk their dog? How do kids get to their friends' houses?
on the road, there is like zero traffic on my road, and I spend my entire child hood playing in the street.
>>Where are you from, Mars?
No the midwest... probably mars to you...
>>Why don't you want a sidewalk?
Because I do not want to maintain them, shovel them, or accept the liability of someone is injured on them.
>>Everyone uses them at least a little, unless you're literally bedridden or something.
Not bed Ridden, do not use sidewalks.
My vehicle goes from my drive to a parking lot, I walk from the inside of my home to the vehicle and then from the vehicle to the inside of a business on the tarmac of the parking lot. No sidewalks
>on the road, there is like zero traffic on my road, and I spend my entire child hood playing in the street.
Same in my childhood, but there were sidewalks (pavements) everywhere. A street without one is simply defective, like if it didn't have lampposts or adequate drainage. Cars go down the middle, pedestrians go on the sides, that's just how it works.
>No the midwest... probably mars to you...
I don't know what that's supposed to mean.
>Because I do not want to maintain them, shovel them, or accept the liability of someone is injured on them.
Why on earth would it be your responsibility to maintain the sidewalk? It's not yours! It's publicly owned and it's maintained at public expense, exactly like the road surface. I've never personally had to maintain any sidewalk outside my house, they're in adequately good repair because it comes out of my taxes. Does your council expect you to mix your own concrete to patch up cracks, or something? Like the backyard steel mills in Maoist China? Are you expected to fill potholes in the road too? And why would you have any liability if someone is injured? That's not how torts work, again cause it's not your pavement. You're just making up nonsensical reasons.
>My vehicle goes from my drive to a parking lot, I walk from the inside of my home to the vehicle and then from the vehicle to the inside of a business on the tarmac of the parking lot. No sidewalks
So every single little errand you have to do requires getting in a car and driving to a new destination? And you expect everyone else to live this way on your street? Again, how do kids or anyone who doesn't have access to a car at that particular moment manage to do anything?
Your entire world amounts to your house, your car, parking lots, and the inside of shops and offices. That's unimaginably sad to me. I could never live like that. Do you really never use the two legs God gave you, and never let your lungs breathe natural air, and never let your eyes see the beauty of the world unimpeded by a plexiglass windshield?
> A street without one is simply defective, like if it didn't have lampposts or adequate drainage.
My street has lights, drains, everything but sidewalks...
>I don't know what that's supposed to mean.
I suspected (and still do) you either live outside the US, or on one of the coasts.
>>Why on earth would it be your responsibility to maintain the sidewalk? It's not yours, it's publicly owned and it's maintained at public expense.
No, not it is not. Not anywhere I have ever lived. They are "easements" that are privately owned, and have to maintained by the home owner, at the home owners expense, and you will be fined if they are not maintained, shoveled, etc.
In some cases the city my pay for the initial creation of the sidewalks, but after that it is on the homeowner to maintain them.
>Does your council expect you to mix your own concrete to patch up cracks, or something?
Yes?... Or hire a contractor to replace them if they are disrepair.. Often times it is HOA that is responsible as well which comes out of the HOA dues you would pay. Rarely is it the city in area of single family home neighborhoods.
Example This is not my city, but my city is simliar... Peoria, IL ARTICLE VII. > DIVISION 1. > Sec. 26-231. - Declaration of disrepair; notice. [1]
>> " . The notice shall advise the owner that he must repair or contract for repairs of the sidewalk in need of repair within 30 days of the date of the mailing of the notice. The notice shall describe with particularity the location of the sidewalk in need of repair."
Now in Peoria, IL they do cover upto 80% of the bill but the owner still has to find, contract, and schedule the contractor, and the city can reject any bill they soley claim is "excessive" in costs and only reimburse what they fill is not excessive, Some / Many cities do not offer any reimbursement at all or offer a lower rate...
In either case it is still property that is owned by the home owner, the public has the right of access via an easement. Liability in those states and cities is on the homeowner.
It's too bad homeowners aren't responsible for maintaining the street in front of their home too.
(but I'm fine with streets with no sidewalks, as long as the speed limit is appropriately reduced to 10 mph or so to make walking safe. Otherwise how are kids to walk to school and back?).
>My street has lights, drains, everything but sidewalks...
Then it's defective.
>No, not it is not. Not anywhere I have ever lived. They are "easements" that are privately owned, and have to maintained by the home owner, at the home owners expense, and you will be fined if they are not maintained, shoveled, etc.
>Yes?... Or hire a contractor to replace them if they are disrepair.. Often times it is HOA that is responsible as well which comes out of the HOA dues you would pay. Rarely is it the city in area of single family home neighborhoods.
>Now in Peoria, IL they do cover upto 80% of the bill but the owner still has to find, contract, and schedule the contractor, and the city can reject any bill they soley claim is "excessive" in costs and only reimburse what they fill is not excessive, Some / Many cities do not offer any reimbursement at all or offer a lower rate...
>In either case it is still property that is owned by the home owner, the public has the right of access via an easement. Liability in those states and cities is on the homeowner.
That's insane. Stark raving mad. Completely, utterly barmy.
Such a byzantine, litigious system would deter one from wanting a sidewalk next to one's house. It is obviously broken. It should be reformed so that people's incentives are not aligned against basic standards of civilization, by taking sidewalks into proper public ownership (not this "easement" frippery) and allowing for coordination and economies of scale in their maintenance. Imagine if roads worked this way! A patchwork of (ir)responsibility, individualism pursued to a farcical extreme.
>Most people in my city already do... I am the norm.
How do people go places and get things done if they can't drive? Like being under 18, or elderly, or poor, or with vision disabilities, or mentally retarded, or their spouse needed the car for something else, or being drunk at that particular moment, or the car is in for repairs, or they had their license suspended, or any number of other reasons? It would seem one is utterly dependent on an expensive machine, a prisoner in your own home without it, having to pay an enormous ante just for basic participation in society.
>Sure that is what Parks, Camping, Trails, etc are for. Not sidewalks on my street
Those things I listed aren't special treats that you save for a holiday. They're supposed to be a normal everyday part of human existence. Your body needs a baseline level of exertion to maintain cardiovascular health. What you're describing isn't normal at all.
Most have a second car.... or even 3... hell for most of my adult life I had both a Car and Truck, I was single. I dont today just a truck but I have thought about getting an EV Car, It would not however replace my Truck but in addition to it.
Uber / Lyft has gone a long way for me not having that 2nd vehicle
>How do people go places and get things done if they can't drive? Like being under 18, or elderly, or poor, or with vision disabilities, or mentally retarded
Bike, Bus, etc.. But I am unclear why you think people under 18, the poor, or the elderly do not also have cars? People can drive here as young as 15, many poor people have cars... hell if you drive through some of the government funded housing / income restricted housing (i.e housing for poor people) some of them have newer cars than I do.
and the elderly drive all the time though I would like them to stop as they drive to f'in slow....
>> litigious system would deter one from wanting a sidewalk next to one's house.
and we have come full circle. see my first post in this subject.
>>by taking sidewalks into proper public ownership (not this "easement" frippery) and allowing for coordination and economies of scale in their maintenance.
I dont know if that is a good case either, the roads in many area;s or pretty shitty, and low traffic residential streets often never get replaced until you can no longer tell if the road as paved or is gravel, and there are soo many pot holes that looks like a photo from a bombing run in war zone.
"Economies of Scale" is not a thing with government project. No Bid Contraction to government preferred contractors aka corruption is ....
Most studies show governments massively over pay for road projects compared to if a private citizen were to simply hire the same company to do the same job. Companies charge the government MORE not less.
I looked up Peoria, Illinois. 2016 data[1] (the most recent I could find): 15.4% of households have no car at all.
This data[2] gives it by cars per property (not the same as household). Summing across both owner- and renter- occupied, I find 10.7% with no car, 35.8% with one car.
It's a safe assumption that many of those renter-occupied properties are apartments that comprise more than one household. So it's somewhere between 10% and 15% of households that don't have any car at all, and at least 35% with only one car. 1-car households are the plurality. Yet the average car ownership rate is 2, skewed by people who own 3 or more.
So: it's not some tiny eccentric sliver of households with no cars. It's actually a substantial minority. A plurality of couples cannot rely on the second car while one spouse is using the first, because they have only one car.
And in turn, it's an even greater proportion of people (not households) who don't, can't, or shouldn't drive. Children, teenagers, elderly, disabled, and so on.
Those poors with cars, do you really suppose they can afford it? Living paycheque to paycheque with a car loan that's underwater isn't what I'd call "afford". The auto loan delinquency rate in the county is 8% (twice the national average), and 26% among nonwhites: https://apps.urban.org/features/debt-interactive-map/?type=a...
As for buses and bikes: I searched for "peoria illinois bike lanes" and the top results were all about recreational trails. Never a good sign: it means the city government views bicycles as toys, not a means of practical transport. I looked on Streetview for ten minutes and I didn't see any bike lanes anywhere, protected or otherwise. The place seems to be full of 4-, 5-, and 6-lane stroads with 40+mph traffic. There seems to be no infrastructure whatsoever to make that safe to cycle on. I wouldn't dare bike down a road like this[3], to take a random example. And that's not even the worst one I found.
My intuition that the roads are unsafe is correct: in 2019 (the most recent non-corona year on the city-data page), the city of Peoria reported 7 traffic-related fatalities, out of a population of 113,150. In that same year, there were only 3 such fatalities in Cardiff (where I live), a city with a population of 480,000. Peoria's roads are 10x as dangerous by that metric. The story for non-fatal injuries is similar.
And here's blogpost[4] quoting local cyclists (what a hardy breed they must be!):
>Roads on these maps have been suggested by local cyclists as being safe to ride on – most of the time. Caution should still be taken at busier times of the day when people are driving to and from work.
Lmao. So if you actually want to like, get to work safely ... you can't do it on a bike. That's what you're expecting people to do?
No bus lanes anywhere on Streetview that I can see either, so that puts a hard ceiling on how much the city cares about public transport, and therefore how viable it is to rely on. EDIT: actually, to hell with bus lanes, where are the bus stops? I saw places with bus stop icons on Google maps, but the Streetview shows nothing at first glance. Like here for example https://goo.gl/maps/2UmQU9SumppeBmTt9 the overhead map shows two bus stops. I searched for several minutes on Streetview for the physical objects corresponding to these bus stops -- eventually I found them. They're just little metal signs attached to lamp posts that say "bus stop" on them. You call that a bus stop? Where's the shelter from sun and rain, where's the place to sit, where's the map of the routes and timetables? It's the same story even in the busier parts, like this place dares to call itself a "Main Street" https://goo.gl/maps/ovFbS37DLVCsN9t4A it's right next to a University, yet its "bus stop" is a perfunctory little disk of metal stuck on a light pole. How does anyone think this is remotely adequate?
Enormous indoor parking facility right next to it though. They didn't skimp on that ...
Actually now that I think about it, "Peoria", sounds familiar. Oh yeah, I coincidentally read about it the other day. An article about how atrocious the built environment is for non-drivers[5], and the indignities they suffer. Read that article. It's absolutely fascinating.
>On their walk, the group observed a corner of the city by East Peoria, from a downtown shopping area to a nearby neighborhood. They discovered there were no sidewalks for a significant length of the stretch, but there was a wide road, and clear, muddy pathways filled with shoe prints and bike marks showed that despite the area not being designed for people on foot, people were using it.
>“Everybody acknowledged [the neighborhood] had a pretty wide road. And very little vehicle traffic went by us during the time that we walked through there,” said Fenton.
>In one of the spaces where there was a dedicated walking area with a sidewalk, it felt uncomfortable and out of place—like people didn’t belong there.
>“We came through this area, which is bizarre, there's a sidewalk with chain link fences,” said Fenton. “People literally said ‘are we supposed to be going here?’ And the reason that that was interesting was because when we came out the backside we could see footprints and mountain bike tracks. Clearly, people from that neighborhood use this as a shortcut to cut back over to the retail area.”
It's fucking barbaric to make people live this way. You can't even get from one side of the river to the other on foot:
>After some research, Lees learned that, between 271 miles of river, there were only two bridges with a protected walking path—and they were nearly 267 miles apart, closest to the large metropolitan cities Chicago and St. Louis. It was obvious to Lees that there was an unequal opportunity for locals to travel safely about the city.
Clearly there's latent demand for sidewalks, that is going unmet. Far more people would walk if the city cared about making it safer and more pleasant.
Meanwhile, staggeringly large amounts of land in Peoria is apparently wasted on empty parking spaces[6]. Everything is pushed further apart for no reason.
>In fact, Peoria is so full of parking that the amount of land devoted to surface parking in the county actually surpasses the amount of land devoted to buildings
Just amazing. No wonder people own so many vehicles, they're pretty much forced to, just to do ordinary things. The infrastructure is biased comprehensively towards motor cars, rendering anything else impractical and/or unsafe.
So, if where you live is anywhere like Peoria, then you're pretty much like Marie Antoinette saying "let them eat cake". There are no safe, reliable viable alternatives to the car, by design, and you're trying to keep it that way on purpose, out of sheer selfishness. Maybe you should try living car-free for even a single week, so you have first hand experience of what you're choosing to make your fellow citizens endure. Do it, if you think it's so trivial. And then maybe after that week (if you survive) you'll gain some empathy and realize why they want sidewalks.
You call it barbaric, but I call your "15 min walkable cities" open air prisons...
So how about we ton down the hyperbolic rhetoric.
>Clearly there's latent demand for sidewalks, that is going unmet. Far more people would walk if the city cared about making it safer and more pleasant.
I guess that is a chicken vs egg statement. I dont think they actually would, and I believe the "demand" for sidewalks is a very small minority of the taxpaying base. If it was not there would be more puch for it in Local Politics which is far easier to get things like that through.
Chances are though to it would require a tax bond initiative on the ballot, which I suspect would have a VERY VERY VERY poor chance of succeeding, thus no funding to do it. People often claim they want sidewalks right up until they have to vote to increase their property, sales, or income taxes to pay for them.
Also for the record, I find "Strong Towns" to be propaganda not serious research or journalism or what ever...
>>Everything is pushed further apart for no reason.
it is not for no reason, it just reasons you disagree with.
You desire greater population density, more closely packed cities, and everything to be walkable so a person a work, live and shop in a small area.
I, and many other Americans, find population density to be a BAD thing, we do not want to live all stacked on each either. I own a 3/4 acre (about 3000 sq meters) of land where my home sits. That is the absolute minimum I would accept, and I am actively looking for a homestead that is 4+ acres (16000 sq meters)...
>So, if where you live is anywhere like Peoria,
Very similar, but more population. The city i live in is about 2x the population, but also about 2x the land area so we have about the same population density.
>> so you have first hand experience of what you're choosing to make your fellow citizens endure
This is a problem with your conceptualization you believe that I am in the minority of my citizens / neighbors, you can not comprehend that people in the US may not want to live like you live in Cardiff.
You believe that because I oppose something in my small neighborhood, of which the sidewalks on my street would have zero impact of the walkablity of my street, means I am some how keeping the poor down...
>You call it barbaric, but I call your "15 min walkable cities" open air prisons...
What about it is a prison? Go on Streetview for Cardiff or any British city, show me what you regard as prison-like. I don't understand what you could possibly be talking about.
(Apart from the literal HMP Cardiff of course, but nobody goes there unless found guilty by a jury of twelve)
There's a reason I refer to Streetview so much: I can point to very specific concrete things (often literally made of concrete), instead of getting lost in abstractions and rhetoric (I notice you didn't even address what I said about the shitty bus stops, probably because you know they're indefensible). So show me the bars of my prison, tell me about the shadows on the cave wall.
>I guess that is a chicken vs egg statement. I dont think they actually would, and I believe the "demand" for sidewalks is a very small minority of the taxpaying base. If it was not there would be more puch for it in Local Politics which is far easier to get things like that through.
>Chances are though to it would require a tax bond initiative on the ballot, which I suspect would have a VERY VERY VERY poor chance of succeeding, thus no funding to do it. People often claim they want sidewalks right up until they have to vote to increase their property, sales, or income taxes to pay for them.
This is just another way of saying your political system is completely broken. What you're describing is not competent governance. Why do sidewalks require a referendum? And moreover, why don't roads? Why don't you need to vote for every little new road that gets built, but you do have to vote for every new sidewalk? There's your answer for why the latter doesn't get built. If you needed a referendum and tax bond initiative to build street lighting, that wouldn't get built much either. Democracy drives in darkness.
And might I remind you, given the talk of taxes: the federal gasoline tax comes nowhere close to paying for roads, the way it's theoretically supposed to. It's been fixed at the same per-gallon rate for 30 years, hasn't risen with inflation (93% since then), presumably because voters like you don't want it to go up. Road building and maintenance comes out of an increasing share of general funds each year. Non-drivers subsidize you.
>Also for the record, I find "Strong Towns" to be propaganda not serious research or journalism or what ever...
You can just look at the photographs in the articles, they speak for themselves. You can't just call something "propaganda" because you don't like its point of view.
>You desire greater population density
Greater than what?
>more closely packed cities
More closely packed than what?
I don't want to live in the Kowloon walled city, if that's what you think. I don't like tower blocks (they're usually a false economy). There's a happy middle ground in these things.
>and everything to be walkable so a person a work, live and shop in a small area.
And yeah, what's wrong with being able to work, live, and shop in a small area? You seem to have this fevered delusion that I'm somehow imprisoned in my neighbourhood, that I'm forced to shop locally, but that simply isn't the case. I can do things nearby, and I also can go further afield if I want (which I in fact do), and I have the choice to walk, bike, take a bus, taxi, train, or indeed drive. There are cars going back and forth on the road next to my house right now, they're not impeded in the slightest. The difficulties in getting around that I do have are -- you guessed it -- caused by excessive car infrastructure more than anything else. In the manner of Archimedes: give me a protected bike lane long enough, and I shall circumnavigate the Earth.
On the other hand you can't do things nearby, and you must go far afield, and you must drive to get there. You have objectively fewer options, which makes you less free.
And you must always carry official travel documents, and produce them on demand to armed officers of the state, with severe penalties for refusal. Whereas I go about as I please, breathing free English air, carrying no identification, and never hearing the snarl of "papers, please"; a continental despotism which here thankfully has never taken root. In a country dependent on the car, driving licenses are tantamount to internal passports. How's that for an open-air prison?
>I, and many other Americans, find population density to be a BAD thing, we do not want to live all stacked on each either. I own a 3/4 acre (about 3000 sq meters) of land where my home sits. That is the absolute minimum I would accept, and I am actively looking for a homestead that is 4+ acres (16000 sq meters)...
That's great! I really don't have a problem with you living out in the middle of nowhere with a big house. There's a lot to be said for that way of living.
But I will say this: there's density, and then there's density. One of the good things about low density, I'm sure you'll agree, is that, per person, you have lots of beautiful nature and open places around you, that you can enjoy. But quality is important too, not just quantity. Look at Peoria: there certainly is a lot of area per person, but it's low quality: it's "space", but it's not "place". Most of it is surface parking, or sad little disconnected patches of grass on which no child will ever play a ball game, with no actual nature or biodiversity, or similar ugly and unpleasant non-places that no human being can enjoy. The actual nice public places seem pretty sparse, and have to be shared by a lot of people, as if it were high density anyway. So it seems to be the worst of both worlds: all the downsides of low density (increased distances, worse walkability), but not much upside.
As for private acreage, again: it's possible to have that, without the miles and miles of surface parking. I really have no problem at all with big houses in outlying districts, my problem is with extravagantly wasteful land-use patterns in productive urban cores. That, and unsafe-by-design roads.
>This is a problem with your conceptualization you believe that I am in the minority of my citizens / neighbors, you can not comprehend that people in the US may not want to live like you live in Cardiff.
I get that not everyone wants to live in an extremely dense city (and Cardiff is not such a city). But I don't think most Americans are quite as explicitly hellbent as you about low-density living. I think most people just want a pleasant and affordable place to live, where "pleasant" might amount to many possible things. People can enjoy low density and high density at the same time, without any contradiction; they will weigh the benefits and drawbacks against one another. And I suspect many literally don't even realize what a good walkable city can be, because they haven't lived in one and don't know what they're missing. For example, I've spoken to someone who literally thought I made an enormous measurement error when I said I could walk to buy groceries because there are so many shops within 10 minute walk. He asked me to double check that it really was 10 minutes and really was half a mile and there really were so many in that radius. The idea was foreign, it had never occurred to him that this might be possible and easy and normal, in a place that isn't like Manhattan or something (and I found Manhattan fairly unpleasant when I visited fwiw, it's not the kind of urbanism I like). Low density suburbia was all he knew.
(That's part of why that "Not Just Bikes" channel got so popular -- what it depicts is so mundane, yet so foreign to so many people's experiences. And East Berliners didn't know they liked bananas, until the Wall fell and they tasted them.)
So maybe this "lack of comprehension" runs both ways.
>>What about it is a prison? Go on Streetview for Cardiff or any British city, show me what you regard as prison-like.
nothing today, it is slipply slope that is enables. Which I am sure you reject.. (I am also a pro-gun rights person for many of the same reasons. something i am sure you will also reject.)
I have no trust, faith, or desire for government control. 15min cities enable government control
>>This is just another way of saying your political system is completely broken. What you're describing is not competent governance.
We go back again to you jumping to the conclusion that your method is the correct way, and no other ways are valid. This is the biggest thing I am trying to get through here. People have have different views than you, and that is ok. It is broken, evil, or wrong for us to have a different from of governance,
One where government is limited, extremely so.
>Why don't you need to vote for every little new road that gets built, but you do have to vote for every new sidewalk?
Many locations you would, any project that would require the local city to take on long term debt would need to be voted on by the public assuming that debt. This is why it is a bond initiative. Most Local governments in my area are required by law to have balanced budgets. In my area the city government must submit a Budget to the state at year before, from that local tax rates are set to give the city the money they requested. For a large capital projects that require the city to take out debt (i.e issue bonds) they must go to the tax payers for approval for that.
Outside of that new roads are often created by developers wanting to develop land, the city requires developers to "improve" the roads near the new development as part of approving their zoning and permits, Sidewalks can be included in that requirement which would not need tax payer approval
I find this system to be very functional and the correct way to ensure governments to overspend the public money and go in massive debt like our Federal government has.
>And might I remind you, given the talk of taxes: the federal gasoline tax comes nowhere close to paying for roads, the way it's theoretically supposed to. It's been fixed at the same per-gallon rate for 30 years, hasn't risen with inflation (93% since then), presumably because voters like you don't want it to go up. Road building and maintenance comes out of an increasing share of general funds each year. Non-drivers subsidize you.
That is the federal gas tax, which only pays for federal roads which is like 10% of the paved surface in the US none of which have any sidewalks at all, and all prohibit non-motorized travel of any kind. Seem odd to bring up in a conversation about sidewalks.
Further the federal gas tax is not the only tax that is (or suppose to be) ear marked for Road Maintenance, other taxes and fees include Wheel Taxes, Sales Taxes on Cars, Tolls, Excise Taxes on Vehicles. I can assure all of these taxes have gone up.
Per Gallon gas based taxation is very out dated and not the only revenue source for roads. In the light of the push for EV's needs to be replaced completely
>> I said I could walk to buy groceries because there are so many shops within 10 minute walk
This sounds like you go to multiple places to buy these things, all with in 10misn of each other. People I know that live in walkable cities live a very different life style that is of no interest to me, which includes shopping for "fresh" food daily or multiple times per week, going to small specialize shops (for example a baker, butcher, etc) instead of a supermarket.
I like, and prefer being able to go into one store where I can buy my Milk, Meat, Potatos, a Tent, a new Appliance, a Rug, a new TV, ammo, and anything else I may need for a 2 for 4 week interval where I make that trip no more than once per week.
More recently I like not even having to go into those places, I order online pull out outside in my car they load it up for me and I drive away, shopping for 1-2 weeks of supplies takes 10mins to pickup...
>nothing today, it is slipply slope that is enables. Which I am sure you reject.. (I am also a pro-gun rights person for many of the same reasons. something i am sure you will also reject.)
I thought you might say something like that. You can't actually point to anything real, so you retreat to vague paranoid insinuations. Well, monsters tend to live in shadows, because when you turn on the light you see they're not real. And it may surprise and please you to know that I'm pro-gun too; I wish we had 2A here. Once upon a time, England had gun laws that would make Texas look effeminate. And as a practical matter, I think fewer drivers would make dangerous close passes if I had a loaded rifle strapped to my back.
>15min cities enable government control
You have to carry government-issued ID to go anywhere in your car, which for you means anywhere at all. Armed officers of the state can arbitrarily intercept you and demand to see your papers. Tell me more about "government control".
>I find this system to be very functional and the correct way to ensure governments to overspend the public money and go in massive debt like our Federal government has.
Then why do so many cities have so many unfunded road maintenance liabilities? The potholes you complain about.
How can you call the system "functional", when it produces roads that are 10x deadlier than a normal country?
Besides, you're ignoring most of the story[1]. Most highway and road spending comes from federal and state funds, not local. A lot of that is interstate highway spending, but also a lot of it isn't.
And if you're so concerned about government overreach, you must surely be against mandatory parking minimums, where local governments compel private businesses to over-provide free parking. Or are you okay with it, because it makes your life more convenient?
>That is the federal gas tax, which only pays for federal roads which is like 10% of the paved surface in the US none of which have any sidewalks at all, and all prohibit non-motorized travel of any kind. Seem odd to bring up in a conversation about sidewalks.
I brought it up because the tax isn't enough to cover the cost of those paved surfaces. By your stated preference for fiscal responsibility, the gas tax should be at least 93% higher (and probably higher still, because there are more highways now than there were in 1993).
Again, you seem to demand everything pay for itself, except the things you personally benefit from. Everyone's a socialist about what he loves best.
>Further the federal gas tax is not the only tax that is (or suppose to be) ear marked for Road Maintenance, other taxes and fees include Wheel Taxes, Sales Taxes on Cars, Tolls, Excise Taxes on Vehicles. I can assure all of these taxes have gone up.
They still don't cover the cost, and at any rate they're unlike the gasoline tax in that they are taxes on one-time purchases, not ongoing use (aside from tolls, which are so rare they hardly bear mention, and at any rate tend to demonstrate by revealed preferences that people place a very low dollar value on driving). The gasoline tax is the closest thing to a Pigouvian tax on the externalities of motor traffic: road wear, pollution, noise, congestion. However, I agree it needs reform with the advent of EVs.
>This sounds like you go to multiple places to buy these things, all with in 10misn of each other.
I don't. Most of the time I go to one, sometimes two (they're practically next door to each other). Sometimes I go to a different one, if it's on the way back from an unrelated journey.
> People I know that live in walkable cities live a very different life style that is of no interest to me, which includes shopping for "fresh" food daily or multiple times per week,
Why the scare-quotes on "fresh"? It is fresh, I can tell it's fresh, I know what fresh food tastes like. I'll tell you what's not fresh: whatever's been sitting in your fridge for 2 weeks.
What's wrong with going multiple times a week? I mean I get that you personally don't like that, and that's perfectly alright, but what is objectively wrong with it? It's not a hassle to do that when it's close by, and you don't need to buy much. I go once or twice a week. Does that offend you somehow?
Other people can, and do, shop less frequently, taking their car and stocking up on large amounts, just as you do. My parents buy food for 1-2 weeks. I could do it if I wanted to, but I simply don't.
What are you trying to imply by all this?
It's becoming a little exasperating talking to you, that I need to spell out these quite mundane matters of existence, and reassure you that there aren't sinister forces at work. Like .. there aren't secret police who disappear you because you didn't pick up your mandatory rations three times a week. You can buy food the way you like. Frequently or not frequently. By car, or bike, or public transport. You can go in person or get it delivered. Do you get it?
>I like, and prefer being able to go into one store where I can buy my Milk, Meat, Potatos, a Tent, a new Appliance, a Rug, a new TV, ammo, and anything else I may need for a 2 for 4 week interval where I make that trip no more than once per week.
You can do that here!!! My goodness. Well it's usually not one giant store but it would be like 2-4 reasonably large stores literally right next to each other in a retail park. But I'm sure you could manage ... you'd walk about the same distance indoors. We have malls (shopping centres) too, except you can also bike or take public transport, if you want. And ours are doing okay, the "dead mall" phenomenon mostly isn't a thing here.
>More recently I like not even having to go into those places, I order online pull out outside in my car they load it up for me and I drive away, shopping for 1-2 weeks of supplies takes 10mins to pickup...
Yeah same here. You can do all that. Easily. The 15 minute city Stasi have not yet extinguished this ancient rite.
>> You can't actually point to anything real, so you retreat to vague paranoid insinuations.
TIL history is not real, and learning from history is paranoia... nice...
>>And it may surprise and please you to know that I'm pro-gun too; I wish we had 2A here. Once upon a time, England had gun laws that would make Texas look effeminate. And as a practical matter, I think fewer drivers would make dangerous close passes if I had a loaded rifle strapped to my back.
That does surprise me, and Texas is effeminate, contrary to the public persona of Texas being "Ultra conservative" they are not, The red states of the MidWest are far far more "red" than Texas.
>>you must surely be against mandatory parking minimums, where local governments compel private businesses to over-provide free parking. Or are you okay with it, because it makes your life more convenient?
In general I am against all government regulations that do not protect the personal or property rights of individuals against harm, theft or fraud. So not I do not support compelling private businesses to provide free parking.
>Most highway and road spending comes from federal and state funds, not local.
Highway funding sure, Highways are owned by the Federal and State governments.
Highways do not have sidewalks so I am not sure why that is relevant. Roads with sidewalks are 100% funded by local tax revenues.
>>They still don't cover the cost,
They would if they were 100% used for roads only... they not though
>>Again, you seem to demand everything pay for itself, except the things you personally benefit from. Everyone's a socialist about what he loves best.
>> and at any rate they're unlike the gasoline tax in that they are taxes on one-time purchases, not ongoing use
100% false, of the taxes I listed only one of them are on one-time purchases (sales), I pay excise and property taxes annually on my vehicle(s), I pay things like wheel taxes, and other related taxes annually. Further excluding sales taxes on Automobile for road maintenance seems to be odd to me. Why would those taxes not count?
I never said I disagreed with raising the user taxes, I said I believe they already collect enough to cover the roads and instead they appropriated the money in correctly to other programs. If however there an actual need for more money they I would support that provided they are actually using the money for the roads and not just adding it to the general fund where by they use it for pet projects and continue to ignore the road.
>>It's becoming a little exasperating talking to you, that I need to spell out these quite mundane matters of existence, and reassure you that there aren't sinister forces at work
you have confused the order of conversation here. You are the one wanting to use governmental force to impose your preferred life on to others via government regulated and owned roads, sidewalks, etc
I want to leave that up to individual property owner to choose for themselves if that is what they want.
IF you want to create, and with other create a walkable city, through voluntary cooperation more power to you, however it seems you do not want anyone to be able to have a non-walkable city, you believe that is "barbaric" or something close to that, and those types of communities should be abolished.
I think both can and should exist, that is the point I have been trying to get across and in all of your comments you have done nothing but attempt to justify the use of government to impose your preference, while in an odd and convoluted way twisting my comments to where me not wanting government to do something is some how forcing others to live my way. They are free to use non-governmental resources and voluntary exchange on their property to put in sidewalks, they are free to advocate other do the same, but they should not be free to force me do follow them via government.
The dream of a "car that just drives itself" works for everyone. It serves both goals of letting people such as yourself take your car (optionally paying attention), while also making sure that car doesn't run over pedestrians, cyclists, and the like.
I'm pretty sure the garbage truck in a single weekly trip does more damage on my street than all the bikes and cars combined for that same period of time.
Time and weight consume road and sidewalk infrastructure.
The huge amount of cars makes it seem attractive to widen roads and such. Which, more road surface leads to more maintenance. Along with that, widening also induces more demand and such.
There is a great YouTuber [1] that talks about city planning. They have a lot of content, but a theme is tax revenue per square foot, and the mathematical reality of a sustainable city being unattainable because collective expectations regarding road infrastructure are so expensive.
If that's what you've taken away from it, you need to rewatch it; the financial theme is not "sustainable cities are impossible" the theme is "American sprawling car dependent suburbia is insolvent because it doesn't generate enough tax revenue to pay for the sprawling roads/water/sewage/garbage disposal/other services that it uses", and it's like a Ponzi scheme where the construction and sale of a new chunk of suburbs pays for the maintenance work on the previous one.
Denser inner-city areas generate much more tax revenue with less cost of services because they have to cover a smaller area, and this can be solvent and subsidises the suburbs.
NB. the last time I linked this on HN someone dismissed it as "Strong towns propaganda" claiming that if suburbs didn't exist, everyone would starve. They completely failed to respond to followup questions about cities which are not sprawling suburbs and are not starving. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35238666
For convenience, they include: Arlington (1635), Belmont (1849), Waltham (1884), Watertown (1630), Lincoln (1754), Wellesley (1881), Newton (1688 town, 1874 city) among others.
Arlington, Mass.[1] has 46k people in 5.5 square miles, population density of 9.1k people per square mile, 9.1k taxpayers paying for a square mile of services.
Lafayette, Louisiana[2] (the city from the video I linked) has 121k people in an area of 56 square miles for a density of 2.1k people per square mile, but a metro area population of 478k people over a metro area of 3,400 square miles with a density of 140 people per square mile of services.
Arlington has a median family income of $131k, Lafayette has a median family income of $54k (both from the same Wikipedia pages). Just the urban parts - roads covering 5.5 square miles in Arlington vs 56 square miles in Lafayette, but they've got a quarter of the population density who are less than half as wealthy paying taxes to maintain them. I don't know how it's funded for roads in the 3,400 square miles of suburban area.
Watertown has 35k people in 4 square miles, Lincoln has 7k people over 15 square miles with a median family income of $202,704 - these hardly seem to fit "sprawling car dependent suburbia"? I haven't looked very hard because internet argument, but I'd be surprised if the 7k people in Lincoln have their own dedicated fire service, hospital, ambulances, sewage works, dump, salt gritters, dual carriageway highways for moving cities worth of vehicles, and so on public services that a big city with 20x the population would need, which Lincoln likely shares with other places or just doesn't have.
I checked the "walk score" for several of my friends' addresses in Lincoln. They were in the range of 3 to 7; Lincoln is absolutely a car-dependent suburb, as is Wellesley, Newton and the rest of that list (with the exception of the center of Arlington and select parts of Watertown).
I feel like I've stumbled into bizarro world. Self driving cars would be a massive boon to quality of life in every American city with perhaps a few exceptions. I couldn't care less if my city spent a billion dollars a year making them work. Way better than that billion going to the current public transit system that sucks out loud.
I am sympathetic that pressing issues need solutions sooner rather than later,
and that a lot of public good will was indeed spent on projects that have
vanished into thin air with zero accountability. Is it not worth perhaps
investing time and energy into fixing the stagnant, shitty processes that have
lead to what I will agree (for the sake of good faith argument) are
ineffective-at-best shitty decisions and policies? My $0.02: looking to simply
abandon civic involvement and completely privatize the solutions?
It's nice to have somebody to love, and to be loved by somebody.
But you don't really need it. And being alone is better than be in company of toxic people. A surprisingly amount of people are toxic to have around. Being alone and feeling lonely are entirely different things anyway.
And life being meaningless is not really a bad thing, maybe it depends on how a person faces its meaninglessness. I happen to cherish it. I enjoy my meaningless moments.
I think my life would be much less complicated if i had the same feeling.
I always thought that most people that are most of the time alone, would be lonely. Especially because you hear a lot of old people trying to talk a lot to the people who help (cook/clean/shopping) because they tend to be lonely.
So suppose one day I would loose my close friends and family, there's a chance i could be happy on my own?
People who remove books from libraries are scared pitiful people.
People who claim that removing some books from a library is akin to banning or will have any affect on the actual dissemination of knowledge are fools at best and liars almost surely.
Education is like everything else. If you believe it is someone or something else’s responsibility, you won’t have much of it.
We are upgrading the gears that turn the grist mill. Stupid, incoherent, faster.