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Why Many Cities Have No Money

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Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#391

Post by WWLink »

lend000 wrote: post #116
hackuser wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As if, in a competitive market, those businesses couldn't figure out for themselves the optimal amount of parking to pay for to keep their customers happy. I don't know anything about Bend, but speaking generally ... There are many ways that markets are inefficient and flawed; I wouldn't assume they would yield a good result. For example, the barbershops may be incentivized to push the parking costs onto others. It…

> the barbershops may be incentivized to push the parking costs onto others You mean others who post "Parking for McDonald's only" on their spots and have a towing service visible? There are problems that are not pragmatic for markets to solve without a bit of legal rigidity, but the whole "who will build the roads?" seems to stem from a lack of creativity and just overall contrarianism. "Who will build the interstat…

Suddenly I understand why a lot of cities with those cutesey redone downtowns have central parking in mutual places, like the median in the middle of the street. The city fronts it, to keep businesses from doing annoying crap like that.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#392

Post by lend000 »

WWLink wrote: post #391
lend000 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the barbershops may be incentivized to push the parking costs onto others You mean others who post "Parking for McDonald's only" on their spots and have a towing service visible? There are problems that are not pragmatic for markets to solve without a bit of legal rigidity, but the whole "who will build the roads?" seems to stem from a lack of creativity and just overall contrarianism. "Who will build the interstat…

Suddenly I understand why a lot of cities with those cutesey redone downtowns have central parking in mutual places, like the median in the middle of the street. The city fronts it, to keep businesses from doing annoying crap like that.

> The city fronts it

Surely you mean the taxpayer? Isn't that what the whole article is about? They're going bankrupt by preventing businesses from doing "annoying crap" like buying/constructing parking places and reserving them for their OWN customers. But perhaps bankruptcy is not such a terrible price to pay for aesthetics and bureaucratically instituted uniformity.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#393

Post by roel_v »

ocschwar wrote: post #331
roel_v wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of parking spots isn't for the barber, it's so that the customers don't park their cars in the spots of the residents or other users of the area! We in 'Europe' have exactly those rules (and then some). And we need them, because these old, not-planned looking cities lack space for everything that didn't exist 500 years ago, obvious things like cars but also 100's of people per building (few residential bui…

No, you don't. Your city would look very, very different if you had parking minimums like in the US. A parking spot is about 30 square meters. 300 square feet. My house is on a footprint of 900 square feet. When you add driveway length, you can see that my driveway takes up almost as much land as my house, and for homes with more than one parking spot in my area, it can take up more than the house. For businesses, it…

I'm not saying we require the same amount of parking, just that we have the same type of rules. Just like your areas that already have higher density don't require the same number of parking spots as those in suburban and mall-style developments.

Look, I know about the problems with car-centric development (I've been a researcher on (urban) land use for over 15 years now). What I'm saying is that the argument the GP tried to make, how Europe is an example of better solutions with less regulations, is wrong. (A) because we don't have better solutions (just different outcomes, the jury's out on whether it's 'better') and (B) because we have just as much regulation.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#394

Post by roel_v »

davidw wrote: post #246
roel_v wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of parking spots isn't for the barber, it's so that the customers don't park their cars in the spots of the residents or other users of the area! We in 'Europe' have exactly those rules (and then some). And we need them, because these old, not-planned looking cities lack space for everything that didn't exist 500 years ago, obvious things like cars but also 100's of people per building (few residential bui…

> the spots of the residents Those are generally driveways in the US, and are private property: you park your car there, it'll get towed in short order. Parking minimums are not a thing in large areas of Italy, where I lived. I once lived in an apartment downtown and there was no parking spot included: we walked 20 minutes to a place where we could park. If we had wanted to pay something, we probably could have found…

So how many people came by car to the shops at ground level from where you lived? You're not making a case for less regulation, your making a case for more private ownership of space. Which is fine (although it does reduce overall efficiency, so there are limits to the circumstances in which it can work), but it doesn't say anything about how much or little regulation is 'required' or 'reasonable' (nor about the relative amount between the US and 'Europe', which is what this (sub)argument is about).

I mean, you'll have to agree with me that if you're holding up Italy of all places as an example where few regulations (and/or lax enforcement) lead to good outcomes, you're really stretching the criteria of what can be considered 'good outcomes'...

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#395

Post by ptaipale »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #386
ptaipale wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the middle class is only barely more wealthy than the destitute, there is no point for the poor to try to rob them. And then only the political elite is much richer (in practise even if not in theory), and they are protected well by the police and the military. This can be the situation in places with centrally managed economies like North Korea today. Obviously, they are also very safe (from the regular crimina…

If that were true then areas with concentrated poverty should have negligible crime - why bother robbing anyone if everyone is poor? Yet that is the exact opposite of what is seen in reality.

A single concentrated poverty spot naturally doesn't work like that. It is immersed in a culture that shows it the income and wealth inequalities, as well as uses them to justify violence.

But when a country is universally poor but has a working and stable government, you may have surprisingly low crime rates. But then, such a country often doesn't stay poor. (Look at China...)

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#396

Post by yummyfajitas »

ptaipale wrote: post #395
yummyfajitas wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that were true then areas with concentrated poverty should have negligible crime - why bother robbing anyone if everyone is poor? Yet that is the exact opposite of what is seen in reality.

A single concentrated poverty spot naturally doesn't work like that. It is immersed in a culture that shows it the income and wealth inequalities, as well as uses them to justify violence. But when a country is universally poor but has a working and stable government, you may have surprisingly low crime rates. But then, such a country often doesn't stay poor. (Look at China...)

So the poor commit crimes against each other solely because rich people exist somewhere else and don't interact with them?

Malaysia is oddly anti-semitic for a country with about 0 Jews. I'd expect that if the Jews were causing all the problems, then Jews would actually need to exist in-country. But now you are making me re-think; is it plausible that simply by existing somewhere else, the Jews cause Muslims to engage in bad actions that harm themselves?

I don't understand your general principle. When is it reasonable for one group to blame their actions on the existence of some far away out-group?

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#397

Post by mercer »

mamurphy wrote: post #337
a3n wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do people do who can't bike?

I presume that they learn how to bike. If you meant to ask "What about people that physically can't ever bike (but can drive)?" What percentage of the population, honestly, do you think that is? Out of shape people can lose weight and eventually learn to bike. Very few people can-drive-but-not-bike, and surely exceptions can be made for them.

Funny coincidence: just yesterday I helped out a (to all appearances) rather old man who had dropped his keys and had trouble leaning down to pick them up. His hands were shaking as I handed him the keys, and he gave off a very frail impression. He was cycling when he dropped his keys.

I remember being impressed by the fact that while this guy had so much trouble bending down, he was riding a (regular) bike.

I've also seen 'seriously' pregnant women bike around, men/women with a kid strapped to the front and back of the bike, with sometimes a third kid in a kart behind the bike. I also regularly see groups of elderly people on sports bikes (often with some electrical help though), as well as really young children.

There are plenty of people who really can't ride bikes, but probably far fewer than people from non-biking places assume.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#398

Post by jdsemrau »

jessaustin wrote: post #297
jdsemrau wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just came back from Tokyo and realized how much I miss riding my bicycle in Singapore. The city is just not made for bicycles. It would increase the quality of living by a wide margin since Singapore is so small.

It has been a long time since I was in Singapore, but looking back it isn't obvious why it would be bad for cycling. Obviously one wouldn't use the elevated expressways, but there are lots of other streets of varying sizes with varying amounts of traffic (like Tokyo). Is there a law against taking the lane? Perhaps there just isn't a culture of cycling, so one would be the only one on the road? Just curious...

It's road behaviour. Due to the high COE car owners feel an entitlement for the road. In addition people are driving selfish and are in general bad educated (comparing to Europe and Japan). See roads.sg for examples.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#399

Post by ptaipale »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #396
ptaipale wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single concentrated poverty spot naturally doesn't work like that. It is immersed in a culture that shows it the income and wealth inequalities, as well as uses them to justify violence. But when a country is universally poor but has a working and stable government, you may have surprisingly low crime rates. But then, such a country often doesn't stay poor. (Look at China...)

So the poor commit crimes against each other solely because rich people exist somewhere else and don't interact with them? Malaysia is oddly anti-semitic for a country with about 0 Jews. I'd expect that if the Jews were causing all the problems, then Jews would actually need to exist in-country. But now you are making me re-think; is it plausible that simply by existing somewhere else, the Jews cause Muslims to engag…

Not exactly "somewhere else"; rich people exist in the vicinity to set a role model and perhaps target for easily and quickly acquired wealth.

Jews are of course a global scape-goat for Muslim extremists.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#400

Post by richmarr »

davidw wrote: post #261
richmarr wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are concerned about being elected, that's it. Politicians are clearly incentivised by election, but saying its their only concern is generalising and reductionist. The rest of your comment makes a lot of points, but broadly seems to assume that I'm claiming that private companies have no place in transport infrastructure, which is not the case. My point was that "the market" meaning an unmanaged build-it-and-t…

Trying to plan very complex, dynamic systems leads to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem Of course, public things like streets and roads and so on needs some planning. I'm no Ayn Rand "privatize all the things" guy. But make that infrastructure flexible and less rigid and allow a city to adapt. The city where I live had 20K people 40 years ago, and was a logging/mill town. Now it's a tourist…

Totally valid. It happens. On the other hand it's clearly a statistical outlier. I'd be wary of trying to create one ruleset that covered both wherever you live, cities like Detroit, rural towns, industrial towns, etc. that will all have different environmental needs, density, rates of change, access to private investment capital, etc.

Similarly... it's hard to impossible to predict the future, which is why economists predictions are so often wrong, as you point out. Gold rushes often ended in ghost towns. Who's to say in another 20 years your town won't be back doing logging and milling, and would be better off not bending to support an industry that may turn out to be ephemeral?

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