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Car campers in beach parking lots

bakersfield.com

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Re: Car campers in beach parking lots

#41

Post by veryworried »

I don't need to live in a van, but I have thought about building out a van that I could drive around the country to different cities and then leave there and fly home. This way, if I ever wanted to fly out to that city on a whim I'd already have a place to stay. Might even be useful to have two such vehicles on opposite ends of the country.

I'd probably keep some cameras hooked up so I could drop in and see what's going on around the van remotely, and maybe a server I could ssh into and run some commands for the vehicle.

Only question is finding suitable places to park it that don't require a long commitment.

Re: Car campers in beach parking lots

#42

Post by ip26 »

IronWolve wrote: post #24

Van Life is becoming super popular, not just for the homeless, but for a generation of people who want to live on a limited income and travel. Theres people building out buses/vans and living in california, working tech, banking their money to retire early. About 20 years ago, I was working at ATT and we had contractors living in their travel trailers parked in the work parking lot at our datacenters, so its not a ne…

Van Life is becoming super popular

I'm as intrigued as the next outdoors-loving fellow, but is it actually "super popular"? Do that many people, proportionately, take up van life? I suspect in the big picture it's still extremely niche, especially if you drill down to just people who are voluntary van dwellers.

Re: Car campers in beach parking lots

#44

Post by alistairSH »

djakjxnanjak wrote: post #29

Our public policy often chooses to subsidize free parking by making large chunks of land available for free use by automobiles. Modern technology allows permanent structures to be much more space-efficient for housing by building many stories high. However, the use of such technology is often banned and structures are limited to one or two stories. Also, even for one-story structures, rules often require eg. 6000 sqf…

I think you pretty well nailed it. Though in many cases it's not so much a choice as necessity (the other option being to move elsewhere completely).

Re: Car campers in beach parking lots

#45

Post by rhacker »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #32

I talked with a guy living in a motorhome in Mountain View California, he works for Google. He could certainly afford an apartment but said his payments on the motorhome are about $600 a month, and an apartment close to Google would be $2500 a month at least, so he feels like its a free $2000 a month to save or spend. He's fortunate that Google also has nice showers, free food, and laundry. Things he might otherwise…

Actually a better business is to start having more RV parks in the SV. The last 5 years has been record breaking sales history for RVs. Yet the rest of the industry (RV parks specifically) isn't catching up. Most of the people buying RVs are now surprised that no RV parks have availability. I've watched for the past 5 years bay area periphery cities go from having tons of space any time of the year, to being completely full all the time, no matter what they do to their monthly price. It's kinda crazy.

Re: Car campers in beach parking lots

#46

Post by CalRobert »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #32

I talked with a guy living in a motorhome in Mountain View California, he works for Google. He could certainly afford an apartment but said his payments on the motorhome are about $600 a month, and an apartment close to Google would be $2500 a month at least, so he feels like its a free $2000 a month to save or spend. He's fortunate that Google also has nice showers, free food, and laundry. Things he might otherwise…

The insanity, here, is that you can't take the land the motorhome is on and build a studio on it.

We give cars free places to sleep while people are homeless.

Re: Car campers in beach parking lots

#47

Post by binarysolo »

klank wrote: post #39
jethro_tell wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why does it seem to be that we, at least in America, punish the poor for being poor, instead of, or even at the same time that we try to help them up? I think that's the natural consequence of having spent years pushing the idea that being poor is a personal choice or a lack of character. Once you make the connection that it's directly linked to a lack of character, you can be punitive instead of providing a safety…

> and punitive is much cheaper for those of us with high moral character. I didn't understand this assertion. Could you expand on it a bit?

The commenter is just being sarcastic. It's easier to penalize others and self-justify than to care and help others.

Re: Car campers in beach parking lots

#48

Post by mruts »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #32

I talked with a guy living in a motorhome in Mountain View California, he works for Google. He could certainly afford an apartment but said his payments on the motorhome are about $600 a month, and an apartment close to Google would be $2500 a month at least, so he feels like its a free $2000 a month to save or spend. He's fortunate that Google also has nice showers, free food, and laundry. Things he might otherwise…

One of my friends lives in a shipping container in Oakland in a trailer park. She loves it and pays around $250/month for the space.

When I was visiting, the people there are so nice. It’s a community in which people help each other, not like the upper class neighborhoods of my youth. In a span of one day, I got some weed, some beer, and an popsicle.

A far cry from many upper class neighborhoods in which no one is willing to talk to each other.

Re: Car campers in beach parking lots

#49

Post by sankumsek »

lstodd wrote: post #38
djakjxnanjak wrote: post #29

Our public policy often chooses to subsidize free parking by making large chunks of land available for free use by automobiles. Modern technology allows permanent structures to be much more space-efficient for housing by building many stories high. However, the use of such technology is often banned and structures are limited to one or two stories. Also, even for one-story structures, rules often require eg. 6000 sqf…

And this "technology" is banned for the right reasons. It is demonstrably harmful to the enviroment, physical and mind health and the society in general. I'm all for this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtSf69vjrVM

Do you have a source for that? Not disagreeing, but I'd be very interested in reading up on how a high-rise might negatively impact my health seeing as I live in one right now.

Re: Car campers in beach parking lots

#50

Post by some1else »

lstodd wrote: post #38
djakjxnanjak wrote: post #29

Our public policy often chooses to subsidize free parking by making large chunks of land available for free use by automobiles. Modern technology allows permanent structures to be much more space-efficient for housing by building many stories high. However, the use of such technology is often banned and structures are limited to one or two stories. Also, even for one-story structures, rules often require eg. 6000 sqf…

And this "technology" is banned for the right reasons. It is demonstrably harmful to the enviroment, physical and mind health and the society in general. I'm all for this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtSf69vjrVM

> It is demonstrably harmful to the enviroment, physical and mind health and the society in general.

I'm having trouble understanding how single-family housing is less harmful to the environment, relying on this statement and my back-of-the-envelope calculations alone. Likewise, what are the effects on physical and mental well-being for people who have to live in the street, because affordable housing is "banned", and they can't afford a suburban house?

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