I have been living in Japan for years and I would like to know where you can find a lunch bowl for 600 yen which is not a company cantine or industrial konbini shit.
America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws
141–150 of 322 posts
Re: America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws
#142Not convinced, plenty of countries (e.g. UK) don’t have such stringent don’t have strict zoning laws and also don’t have $4 food
UK is famous for having extremely tough zoning laws, with many, many buildings being listed / landmarked. Something that does run very well in the UK are stores like Greggs which are usually classified as small shops (cat. E) without a kitchen. So the analysis applies there as well.
Re: America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's by design that only people with stable housing can vote? I bet you loved pre-1965 America.
No, but it should be. I saw your other comment with regards to the Netherlands. If that’s where you’re located, you only need to have a stable location once. Then you can register. Another person can’t unregister you from there, so you can vote even if you then move to a hotel. Only question remains is how you want to deal with mail, but there are workarounds for that.
In The Netherlands it is illegal to be register at an address you don't live at.
Re: America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've lived in various European cities where I was not able to vote for various reasons. Such as living hotel long-term, living in a holiday home, being semi-homeless, sub-letting, crashing on someones couch. Seasonal workers, migrant workers or people with unstable employment are typically in this situation. No, I was not able to vote.
...and sorry: Thats absolutely OK. I do not want strangers stopping by for 3 - 4 years to be able to influence the politics of my country? Thats totaly understandable? I would never to ask to vote at a remote place where I do not live permanently, yet where I even not a citizen?
> I do not want strangers stopping by for 3 - 4 years to be able to influence the politics of my country?
City, not country.
Re: America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws
#145I serve as a planning commissioner for my city, and my city just recently tried to overhaul our zoning code to allow for more affordability and better economic outcomes for our citizens and future as a city. Here is what I have learned: In the US, few people participate or care about local laws, zoning, and elections, or even understand why participation may be important. In a citizen ballot to determine if we should…
5.1% were in favor of a limit on housing construction, and it passed before later being made illegal by the state.
FWIW, it is a learned behavior that voting doesn't change much. It doesn't help when elected officials obviously ignore the will of the people (nationally, see polling data on legalizing, or even at least decriminalizing, marijuana, as one example), or when things just get overturned by someone else. My neighborhood "votes" on zoning, but the vote literally means nothing. The city council has to hear how we voted, but they don't have to take the vote into account.
I get that it's easy to scold people that don't vote, but it is more important that people with power do something to earn our votes. Hold them accountable. They're failing us more than our neighbors who have either been taught that voting doesn't matter especially when sometimes voting laws make it harder than it should be to vote anyway.
Re: America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is OK but OP should not be complaining about people not being engaged with local politics if you are excluding a large part of the people living in the city from voting.
Are a large part of the people living in a city the kind of semi-transitory-but-also-there-for-years people you describe? I'd wager that's a small proportion of almost every city. Most cities will have tourists who are visiting for a few days or weeks, and long term residents who have a permanent address there. The percentage of people living full time in hotels or airbnbs must be tiny. Perhaps in high cost of living…
I don't have sources but for cities like Amsterdam I wouldn't be surprised if 5% of the population isn't registered with the municipality for various reasons. But have been living there for years. Plenty of people I know would sublet empty rooms of their social housing apartment, which is highly illegal but for some people the only way to find a place to stay. But you obviously can't register because then the person subletting would be kicked out.
Re: America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get the sentiment about "why would I let people who aren't going to stay long term decide how the city is run?" but in the end it creates a city that is indifferent or even hostile to people in that situation. It ends up disenfranchising a population that will always be there, even if the people who make up that population is constantly changing.
The ones who will “always be there” can get their papers for permanent residence done and vote. If they don’t want to (or can’t since they don’t have the legal grounds to even stay there for longer), then they shouldn’t have a say on decisions that can permanently change things about the place.
There will always be the population of people who will be in short term housing or similar situations, but due to their circumstances the individual people will come and go. 5 years from now the makeup of the itinerant population may be almost entirely different, but the people in that population are in the same circumstances, especially if they don't have any political representation.
Who is going to speak for the people who aren't allowed to vote?
Re: America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there is a snowball effect with zoning. I specifically sought out a place zoned with no building code checks and hardly any zoning. I value my right to die in a fire a lot more than I value my right to have the jack-boot enter my own property and tell me he knows best. People like me go to places with fairly free zoning. The jack boot lickers go to places with restricted zoning. Once one has a majority it jus…
Building Codes and Zoning are orthogonal concepts. Japan has more lax zoning than the US at large more more stringent building codes.
That's the simplistic view but not true in reality. Where I live the zoning law itself creates code exceptions -- for instance where I live my zone explicitly says there is no enforcement mechanism for codes, which effectively makes the building code (redefined as, essentially nothing) part of the zoning.
So zoning can turn de jure code requirements into de facto nulled or altered.
Re: America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then find a legal place to stay and register and you can vote.
A yes, why didn't I think of that! Let me just completely ignore the broken housing market, the 15+ year waiting list for social housing and scrape together... lets checks... €400k for a small appartement with a 45 minute commute to work. Do you have any clue how privileged you sound here? This is peak "have you tried not being poor" attitude.
While I don't know about European countries, given this is an article about America it's worth pointing out that you can, in fact, vote in the US while homeless[0], using a friend/family's home, shelter, or religious center as your address.
Re: America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've lived in various European cities where I was not able to vote for various reasons. Such as living hotel long-term, living in a holiday home, being semi-homeless, sub-letting, crashing on someones couch. Seasonal workers, migrant workers or people with unstable employment are typically in this situation. No, I was not able to vote.
...and sorry: Thats absolutely OK. I do not want strangers stopping by for 3 - 4 years to be able to influence the politics of my country? Thats totaly understandable? I would never to ask to vote at a remote place where I do not live permanently, yet where I even not a citizen?
What's the minimum residency you'd accept, because 3-4 years seems quite long to me.