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They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

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Re: They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

#261

Post by xapata »

dionidium wrote: post #209
airhead969 wrote: post #175

To be fair, I'm a middle-aged white engineer raised in San Jose, CA relocated to ATX in Dec 2020. I live at the corner of I-35 east-side frontage and 5th in a mega apartment complex. I've tried meeting many of my neighbors and most are asocial/antisocial. There are 2 women roommates and an African-American kid who are legit cool that I've met so far. Also, I don't even know the people across the hall. My conclusion f…

> Heck, my upstairs neighbor complained about my music on the weekend during the day without introducing themselves and not diplomatically. Tangential (and probably just a perennial old guy complaint), but it seems like people have forgotten how to do this. If you have an issue with something your neighbor is doing, then go talk to them . Don't leave an aggressive note. Don't let it boil over until you're so upset yo…

Unfortunately, the risk of retaliation may be too high. While the likelihood may be low, the magnitude of the consequence is great.

Re: They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

#262

Post by vel0city »

542458 wrote: post #176
toolz wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it seem like people feel the need to make anything they can about race? (Maybe I'm just overly sensitive and it doesn't happen as much as I perceive, to be fair) I don't agree with the law, but literally every race owns vehicles. Why complicate the issue with racism if there doesn't need to be any complication? Seems like a clear cut issue that people can unite over that instead is being made into a minority…

Because race is deeply entwined with culture, and culture is in everything. Every culture owns cars, but not every subculture does things with cars that require you to do most of the work yourself in your driveway. It’s like Ehrlichman’s famous quote: “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, an…

Are most people working on cars at their home doing it because they're wanting to do modifications most shops won't do, or because they're trying to save the few hundred dollars an hour in labor charges to do some things that take a few minutes of reading and an understanding of lefty-loosey righty-tighty?

A few of my friends and myself tend to do most of the maintenance on our cars and motorcycles by ourselves. If I had to pay for the labor in my car it would have been "totaled" a long time ago. But it still keeps running 20 years and nearly 200kmi with a new water pump, new timing belt, new main belt, new suspension, brake rotor and pad replacements, brake fluid flushes, EGR cleanout, oil pan resealing, power steering hose replacement, transmission fluid flushes, stereo replacement, power window motor replacements, and a few other things.

Most of these parts over the years have been relatively cheap, but getting a shop to do the change would have been expensive as hell. I shopped around to get the struts replaced recently. Most shops quoted me over $1k for the replacement. _Good_ replacement strut/coil/spring/mount assemblies were $60/ea from reputable sources online. So for a couple of hours of my own time, knowing how to unscrew and screw in some bolts properly (torqued to spec), and $240 in parts I had a new suspension. So taking the low end of ~$1k in estimates I got, I pretty much paid myself $380/hr to do the work.

And don't even get me started on motorcycle maintenance. If it were illegal for me to work on my own bike at home I probably wouldn't be able to afford the bike. Parts are stupid cheap but labor costs on motorcycles are astronomical considering its usually easier to work on a bike than a car.

Not everyone working on a car in their driveway are doing something shady or illegal.

Re: They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

#263

Post by whatshisface »

xapata wrote: post #261
dionidium wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Heck, my upstairs neighbor complained about my music on the weekend during the day without introducing themselves and not diplomatically. Tangential (and probably just a perennial old guy complaint), but it seems like people have forgotten how to do this. If you have an issue with something your neighbor is doing, then go talk to them . Don't leave an aggressive note. Don't let it boil over until you're so upset yo…

Unfortunately, the risk of retaliation may be too high. While the likelihood may be low, the magnitude of the consequence is great.

The sooner you do it, and the more joviality you can approach it with, the less mad they will be. Hence the parent's admonition to not "[...] let it boil over until you're so upset you can't talk to them rationally."

Re: They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

#264

Post by ryandrake »

toolz wrote: post #166
olivermarks wrote: post #34

A variation of this rinsing out of any local culture is going on in Sacramento County California, where arguably gentrification has resulted in a 2019 autocratic edict that residents are not allowed to work on cars in their homes except fluid changes, with fines if you are found to have professional tools on the premises. https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/it-is-illegal-to... Since Sacramento County is appro…

Why does it seem like people feel the need to make anything they can about race? (Maybe I'm just overly sensitive and it doesn't happen as much as I perceive, to be fair) I don't agree with the law, but literally every race owns vehicles. Why complicate the issue with racism if there doesn't need to be any complication? Seems like a clear cut issue that people can unite over that instead is being made into a minority…

> Why does it seem like people feel the need to make anything they can about race?

Because there is no other reasonable, understandable reason to ban "working on your own car on your own property". Unless it disproportionally hits certain races--which would at least help explain the root motivation of the law.

Re: They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

#265

Post by burntoutfire »

airhead969 wrote: post #175

To be fair, I'm a middle-aged white engineer raised in San Jose, CA relocated to ATX in Dec 2020. I live at the corner of I-35 east-side frontage and 5th in a mega apartment complex. I've tried meeting many of my neighbors and most are asocial/antisocial. There are 2 women roommates and an African-American kid who are legit cool that I've met so far. Also, I don't even know the people across the hall. My conclusion f…

You complain about urine pollution and yet you're doing the noise pollution yourself...

Re: They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

#266

Post by throwaway0a5e »

ryandrake wrote: post #255
sjg007 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about what?

I think the question is: Why is there an ordinance against this? What is morally wrong with having vehicles on one's own property? How does it affect the neighbors? If the only answer is "well it reduces property values," well, there are tons of things that also reduce property values that are not illegal. That is not a good reason to have a city ordinance against something.

>Why is there an ordinance?

Even ignoring money and property values, the answers (for most ordinances, not just this one) are gonna all be various ways to put lipstick on the "behavior not befitting the people who can afford to live here" pig.

Re: They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

#267

Post by burntoutfire »

LanceH wrote: post #229
donatj wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I think the loss of humans just talking to others is the primary cause of most of our modern problems.

Probably from too much experience that they need to expect to be in a fight, so they adopt an aggressive posture from the start.

That's me. If I know that neighbor is doing something unreasonable, like leaving his garbage bags in the common hallway or listening music too loudly, I suspect he's just an antisocial asshole and the conversation will be rough at best.

Re: They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

#268

Post by pdabbadabba »

xapata wrote: post #261
dionidium wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Heck, my upstairs neighbor complained about my music on the weekend during the day without introducing themselves and not diplomatically. Tangential (and probably just a perennial old guy complaint), but it seems like people have forgotten how to do this. If you have an issue with something your neighbor is doing, then go talk to them . Don't leave an aggressive note. Don't let it boil over until you're so upset yo…

Unfortunately, the risk of retaliation may be too high. While the likelihood may be low, the magnitude of the consequence is great.

It seems like this comment is based on either an incorrect image of how this conversation ought to go, or a problematic prior about how inclined one's neighbor might be to violent retaliation.

In most cases, I'd suggest mitigating this risk through your style of interaction, not your initial choice about how to interact at all. GP was just suggesting a normal human interaction. If "retaliation" is a risk after your initial overture to a neighbor, you have done it very wrong.

Re: They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

#270

Post by x0x0 »

toolz wrote: post #166
olivermarks wrote: post #34

A variation of this rinsing out of any local culture is going on in Sacramento County California, where arguably gentrification has resulted in a 2019 autocratic edict that residents are not allowed to work on cars in their homes except fluid changes, with fines if you are found to have professional tools on the premises. https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/it-is-illegal-to... Since Sacramento County is appro…

Why does it seem like people feel the need to make anything they can about race? (Maybe I'm just overly sensitive and it doesn't happen as much as I perceive, to be fair) I don't agree with the law, but literally every race owns vehicles. Why complicate the issue with racism if there doesn't need to be any complication? Seems like a clear cut issue that people can unite over that instead is being made into a minority…

Take this article for example.

A white lady comes and sees a bunch of predominantly black and latino folks with a tradition of hanging out in a park and screwing around with their cars. And then says this:

> “You can’t tell me drugs aren’t being distributed over there,” she huffed. “The brazenness of it all just kills me!”

Yeah, it's a mystery why people are assuming there's some racism going on there.

I have no idea what happened in Sacramento. But it's not hard to imagine how a group of non-white folks who tended to work on their cars -- either for fun, or for purely financial reasons -- would view this. And then you add in things like this [1]

> As you might have picked up, the code has a bit of vagueness when defining "similar operations," something it briefly touches on in section 5.2.0.B of the Sacramento County Zoning Code.

and

> The code also prohibits individuals to perform repairs which use "tools not normally found in a residence"—another vague term which creates an elucidation of the law, placing it up for deliberation depending on the individual deciphering the legal code.

Vagueness is a weapon that cops use to fuck people. And it's intentionally written into laws for exactly that reason. If the last year didn't convince you that cops harass especially black folks at extremely high rates, nothing will. A report on Jalopnik [2] said that someone who got a $400 fine would have had to pay $700 to right the decision. Again, look at the correlation between ethnicity and having a spare $700.

[1] https://www.thedrive.com/news/29205/repairing-your-car-in-yo...

[2] https://jalopnik.com/sacramento-county-says-its-illegal-to-w...

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