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Ask HN: As a person, what can I do to improve a city?

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Re: Ask HN: As a person, what can I do to improve a city?

#211

Post by omosubi »

seveneightn9ne wrote: post #205
omosubi wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any evidence that putting art in empty windows actually helps? i see that a lot and I always find it kind of beseeching. Similarly my neighborhood has been putting up murals as an attempt to spur business development and it feels like I'm being sold on the neighborhood all the time. here's a particularly egregious example: https://doc-0s-ak-mymaps.googleusercontent.com/untrusted/hos... It's frustrating that…

your shorturl doesn't seem to work

oh thank you - here's the full URL https://doc-0s-ak-mymaps.googleusercontent.com/untrusted/hos...

Re: Ask HN: As a person, what can I do to improve a city?

#212

Post by newacct583 »

tedsanders wrote: post #132
Retric wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean this in the most objective way possible. The risk with urban improvement is making the area more desirable eventually prices people out of the community. So, the real question is do you help the land or current residents? When you own property it’s seriously worth considering local improvements for several reasons, but it’s also easy to confuse the two. Further, if most people in the community own property the…

I think your concern is valid but unfounded. This is fortunate - otherwise the way to help the poor would be to vandalize their neighborhoods, which is a strange conclusion. It's true that increasing quality of a neighborhood will increase its housing price. This will have disparate impact: (1) it will help people who enjoy higher quality, but (2) it will hurt people who would prefer low quality and lower price. Howe…

> (2) it will hurt people who would prefer low quality and lower price.

Uh... poverty isn't a preference. Sure, at the margins people can choose to spend the money they have on different things, but you're positing an equivalence here between things that aren't remotely equal. It's not like suburban professionals simply choose to spend their money on expensive housing and infrastructure where their inner city compatriots have different priorities. Poor neighborhoods are poor because the people there HAVE LESS MONEY.

You fix that by fixing the inequity, not imagining a fantasy resident who decides to put all her money into bitcoin or whatever.

Re: Ask HN: As a person, what can I do to improve a city?

#213

Post by throwaway0a5e »

bserge wrote: post #101
impendia wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, he was just taking phone calls in a parked car? Is there something objectionable with that? If my neighbors called the police on me for that, my first thought wouldn't be to bake pie for them.

Funny anecdote, two friends and I were sitting in a car in Eastern Europe in a rich neighbourhood (pretty much only VIPs and foreigners lived there). We had some business with an army officer and he was busy with something so we had to wait. About 20 minutes after we parked, an American woman comes and asks us what we're doing here and whether we need help. That was weird because no one in our country does this, ever…

That behavior is not not (double negative intended) stereotypical for the kind of American woman who have the money to be able to travel internationally.

Re: Ask HN: As a person, what can I do to improve a city?

#214

Post by reaperducer »

The easiest — absolutely easiest — thing you can do to improve your city is to pick up litter. Even if it's not yours. Especially if it's not yours.

I'm not talking about walking around the neighborhood with a trash bag. But just pick up one piece a day and put it where it belongs.

If everyone did that, many cities would be very different places.

Re: Ask HN: As a person, what can I do to improve a city?

#215

Post by renewiltord »

dkrudy wrote: post #197
renewiltord wrote: post #183

Don't. Get out. Get powerful. There is a threshold effect. Unless you have a non-normative path to power (organized crime or powerful family or lots of money already), don't do it. What you're doing is the equivalent of trying to get strong by pulling a 500 lb barbell every day without moving it. It is not effective. Go somewhere where you pull the 100 lbs first and get it off the ground. Then move up. One day you wi…

Disagree. You're falling prey to savior complex, so instead you should "Get out and get powerful and come back to be a hero" Translation: Go make fuck you money and then change what you independently determine is important. You're wrong, because you'll have no idea what barbells to move when you come back, you'll just throw them around without purpose, like a meathead in a gym. Even so, not many people can move a 500…

Just to clarify since I was unclear apparently, it isn't about returning to be a hero with no clear conception of what to do. It's all about having sufficient power to overcome inertial force so that things don't revert to what they were when you die. It doesn't have to be monetary.

The peer responses of doing this as part of a community are meaningful alternatives. I don't think that technique would work for me, but that technique may well work for others.

Re: Ask HN: As a person, what can I do to improve a city?

#216

Post by chrisjarvis »

As one person without large resources the highest impact thing you could do today for the type of area you are describing is to procure a firearm and start killing drug dealers.

I'm not suggesting you do this but this is without a doubt the answer to your question.

Re: Ask HN: As a person, what can I do to improve a city?

#217

Post by throwaway0a5e »

uberman wrote: post #139
cactus2093 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fight for just housing/zoning policies and against NIMBYism With you on that one. But this is a problem of successful, growing cities and it sounds like OP is in a city in the opposite situation that is lacking in economic opportunities. > Join orgs supporting the homeless and fighting against the criminalization of homelessness. When most people complain about homelessness, they're talking about the homeless on th…

I have to concur. In general, gentrification is the clearest path to improving neighborhoods that have probably suffered as a result of "NIMBYism" elsewhere in a city. Being opposed to gentrification is a form of "NIMBYism". Gentrification is not the enemy of affordable housing.

Is the goal to improve the neighborhood or improve the lives of the people who live there via improving the neighborhood?

Gentrification kicks out whoever is already there. If they are dependent on local friends/family for support that makes their lives worse.

Re: Ask HN: As a person, what can I do to improve a city?

#218

Post by MagnumOpus »

fudged71 wrote: post #178
burlesona wrote: post #44

The single best thing you can do is pick a neighborhood - not the whole city - and invest deeply. Get to know everyone in the neighborhood and understand what they want and need, then try to find ways to bring that. When you have a strong network of neighbors and a little bit of cash, you can ramp up investment by cleaning up dirty corners and getting the basic services that a neighborhood is missing. Here’s an examp…

You should listen to the NYT podcast “Nice White Parents”. Neighbourhood improvement with good intentions can cause systemic problems in a community https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/podcasts/nice-white-paren...

Can you summarise? Listening for five hours of chit-chat seems to be excessive to.find out about what might be an anecdote that is not generalisable.

Re: Ask HN: As a person, what can I do to improve a city?

#219

Post by throwaway0a5e »

wincy wrote: post #29
sevensor wrote: post #9

Get involved in local politics. Observe council meetings and school board meetings and committee meetings. Whatever is public. This stuff can be boring; you'll observe pointless personality clashes and interminable dumb arguments, but at the same time, this is where important decisions that affect your community get made. Once you understand the issues, you can work to influence policy in the direction that you think…

My friend got involved in local politics and suddenly found herself moving out of the district because her landlord got a call informing him he hadn’t acquired the proper license to rent to her. There’s a lot of “soft” corruption, suddenly enforcing laws that never get enforced, and it’s really shitty, and any little thing in your past will come under scrutiny. She was running against the incumbent and they pulled up…

At least she presumably took her life lesson about government to the next district. Unfortunate that her landlord had to deal with the headache though.

Re: Ask HN: As a person, what can I do to improve a city?

#220

Post by newguy1234 »

burlesona wrote: post #44

The single best thing you can do is pick a neighborhood - not the whole city - and invest deeply. Get to know everyone in the neighborhood and understand what they want and need, then try to find ways to bring that. When you have a strong network of neighbors and a little bit of cash, you can ramp up investment by cleaning up dirty corners and getting the basic services that a neighborhood is missing. Here’s an examp…

This personally saved my house during the recent CA wildfires. We have community events where we cut down brush behind the community. The fires burned up to the area where we stopped cutting the brush and it allowed for enough buffer to basically have the firefighters suppress it!
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