81–90 of 133 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is true in most of the U.S. as well. If you've got a sidewalk in front of your house, you'll get a fine if you don't clear the snow 24-36 hours after the end of a snowstorm. A workaround is to buy your home in a neighborhood without sidewalks.
That’s a terrible workaround, now your neighborhood is non walkable.
In Taiwan the locals, usually the elderly, sweep and clean near their own houses or the parks where they congregate. Some do it as part of a neighborhood group, while others clean parks and areas near temples for religious reasons. Good way to build community. On another note, let people read without pop-ups please.
In Canada they clear the snow/ice from the pavement in front of their own house. I've since heard it's (in at least some areas?) required though, which ruined the image a bit. (And sort of odd isn't it? Instead of taxing you and providing you with this service, we'll require you to do it? Seems inefficient.)
Toronto is probably the poster child of that idea but it is actually going away. The city decided they will plow the sidewalks themselves starting this year. While you were “required” to do it, tons of people wouldn’t do it and enforcement wouldn’t be consistent. This would leave you with dangerous sidewalks where the people who need it the most (disabled, elderly) would be stuck walking in the street because the roads for car would be perfectly plowed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It wasn't until I rented a floor of a house (and garage and front yard) in SF (Outer Sunset) last year that I really noticed the problem in North America with personal responsibility and keeping streets clean. I'm constantly picking up litter from my tiny front yard, sidewalk, and curb. Cigarette butts are the worst and I bought a small electric leaf blower to help deal with it quickly. It wouldn't be as much of an i…
Singapore is sparkling clean. Like walk down a back alley in the center of the city and you will not find trash. It’s almost creepy. It’s mostly certainly not due to civic mindedness. Join the Singapore subreddit and examples abound of locals throwing trash everywhere and generally being dicks. It’s clean because the government has a pool of cheap labor they can use to constantly clean.
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> but it also sends the message that shooting up heroin is tolerated, even encouraged So what? An addict is going to shoot up whether it’s tolerated or not, and non-addicts aren’t going to take up heroin because they say a billboard. If you really want to end it, it’s going to need to be a lot more comprehensive, expensive, and expansive than the presence or absence of a billboard.
okay, how about we put up billboards saying >When you smash a window to rob a store, be careful not to cut yourself on the glass. Wear thick gloves. after all, a billboard is not going to stop a burglar, is it? and if we're going to have burglaries, it's better that the burglars don't injure themselves while committing their crimes, because after all it will reduce the burden on hospitals. it will also protect the st…
I asked the librarian if there really was a problem with the library being a law-free zone. She shrugged saying "what can I say". Personally, I doubt that a sign would dissuade the types who go to the library to commit crimes.
I advice HN readers to go, and to participate. Besides actually cleaning the streets, it brings very big spotlight to the problem. And in some rare cases, if activity like this may go viral, some people in charge of public sanitation might remember of the shame enough to do their work.
San Francisco 2020 budget is ~$13 billion (https://londonbreed.medium.com/san-franciscos-budget-how-it-...)
This is the money that is supposed to pay for cleaning the streets and many more things.
For comparison, Austin budget is $4.5 billion (https://www.kvue.com/article/money/economy/austin-city-counc...)
What you see is unbelievable corruption and incompetence of city government, not the lack of money for cleaning the streets.
I don't understand. I often hear about people making $200k, $300k a year in that city. I know that it's not everyone, but I think there are lots of people like that. Why is this problem not solved by the market? That may make a good YCombinator project, go to San Francisco-based tech companies, ask them (or the people in them) to give you money to clean the streets. Is this because there is no cheap labour in San Fra…
I don't understand. I often hear about people making $200k, $300k a year in that city. I know that it's not everyone, but I think there are lots of people like that. Why is this problem not solved by the market? That may make a good YCombinator project, go to San Francisco-based tech companies, ask them (or the people in them) to give you money to clean the streets. Is this because there is no cheap labour in San Fra…
I can’t remember the details but Google tried to create free WiFi across all of SF and eventually dropped it due to the problems of getting everything through city hall. Imagine that shit… Google gave up.
It's not really hard to imagine though? https://killedbygoogle.com/
I advice HN readers to go, and to participate. Besides actually cleaning the streets, it brings very big spotlight to the problem. And in some rare cases, if activity like this may go viral, some people in charge of public sanitation might remember of the shame enough to do their work.
When the city and the state stops taking 50%+ of my money, I'll start cleaning the streets (or, more likely, will pay for someone to clean them). San Francisco 2020 budget is ~$13 billion ( https://londonbreed.medium.com/san-franciscos-budget-how-it-... ) This is the money that is supposed to pay for cleaning the streets and many more things. For comparison, Austin budget is $4.5 billion ( https://www.kvue.com/articl…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but it also sends the message that shooting up heroin is tolerated, even encouraged So what? An addict is going to shoot up whether it’s tolerated or not, and non-addicts aren’t going to take up heroin because they say a billboard. If you really want to end it, it’s going to need to be a lot more comprehensive, expensive, and expansive than the presence or absence of a billboard.
okay, how about we put up billboards saying >When you smash a window to rob a store, be careful not to cut yourself on the glass. Wear thick gloves. after all, a billboard is not going to stop a burglar, is it? and if we're going to have burglaries, it's better that the burglars don't injure themselves while committing their crimes, because after all it will reduce the burden on hospitals. it will also protect the st…