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American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

usa.streetsblog.org

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Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#211

Post by CapitalistCartr »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #206
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is a widely diverse country, including internally. Milwaukee is quite segregated, Sacramento isn't. There is a wide spread, depending on where you are. Overall, the US is about average diversity compared to other countries.

> Overall, the US is about average diversity compared to other countries. I don't think that's accurate. Europe is almost entirely European, Asia is almost entirely Asian, Africa is almost entirely African. Even Wisconsin at 86.5% white is less white than most European countries. And Milwaukee itself is 40% black and 17.3% Latino. The countries that come anywhere close to the US on diversity are predominantly the oth…

You're musunderstanding segregation and ethnicity. For instance, Milwaukee is widely regarded as the most segregated city in America. Their overall population total isn't the issue; its that neighborhoods within the city are overwhelmingly uniform.

Of course Asia is full of Asians; but they represent an incredible diversity of ethnicities. In some areas, they are geographically mixed, in others not.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#212

Post by madhadron »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #48
smallnamespace wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just an example of 'path dependency', i.e. 'history matters'. It's not baffling if you consider that sparse, car-driven infrastructure makes a lot of sense in a country with low population density, and population density has tripled in the US since 1930 [1]. At that time, Germany's population density was about 6x the US's. However, changing transportation infrastructure is a chicken and egg problem. People ge…

Exactly. Furthermore, the US is a comparatively young country. A lot of cities with great public transport either already existed before cars were around, or had the necessary population density to support mass transit. I recently came back from a visit to London, and did not once need a car (I did take an Uber because I wanted to see what it was like to drive from the left side!). It was fantastic being able to take…

Historical note: most US cities had dense public transit until the rise of the automobile. Those transit systems were bought by the car companies and dismantled to drive adoption of private cars. A similar path led to the creation of the crime of 'jaywalking' and getting people off of the streets so car adoption wouldn't be stopped by high rates of drivers killing pedestrians.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#213

Post by dang »

i_am_nomad wrote: post #191
extradego wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish. You people are a disgrace.

“Exxxxcellent... another sucker has bought into the generational warfare meme we’ve been selling. Divide and conquer!” - the media

Please don't do this here.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#214

Post by briandear »

extradego wrote: post #60
erikpukinskis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how we have had such economic growth. We use our own population as a testbed where we disintermediate all of our own cultural support systems so that everything must be hired out. Food, transport, entertainment, self concept, family, all of it has been reformed in the U.S. over the last 100 years to replace community labor with commercial relations. This means we get first dibs on these new industries (Softwa…

Right on the money. Before WW2, America was a culture desert. Europeans fleeing the war are the only reason NYC became an international culture hub. Hip-hop is undoubtedly the most progressive Western art form. (Side note: hip-hop's genius appropriations of commercial symbolisms and it's will to collective empowerment directly underwrite and provide the language of the public engagement of today's millenials. It's in…

Jazz. Blues. Techno. Ragtime.

Blues, Jazz and Ragtime all predate WWII — and all influenced pretty much everything you hear today.

You could even argue that Breakbeat is American given its roots with the Winston’s.

American culture is vastly richer than many countries specifically because it is effectively an All Star team of traditions from everywhere. Thinking “American” is simply hot dogs and Hip Hop is to greatly undersell what has been one of the great cultural achievements in the history of the world. American culture is vastly diverse compared to, for example, France. You have Cajun/Creole in Louisiana, Tejano culture in Texas, cowboy culture in Montana, laid back “surfer” culture in California, Boston/Nee England culture, Chicago with it’s melange of Polish, Italian, African American. Where else in the world could you have sushi for lunch and watch a rodeo in the evening? To be clear, I am not saying American culture is “best,” I am just saying that to reduce American culture to Hip Hop is about like saying French culture is nothing more than Edith Piaf and baguettes. Americans even invented basketball and baseball — and most of the things I mention were in motion long before world war 2.

NYC was a culture hub long before Workd War 2. Read some de Tocqueville and learn a bit about American history before just engaging in a wholesale dismissal of America.

I am not prone to quoting Bono, but this clip is relevant: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O8aLAZ8SnvI

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#215

Post by Spooky23 »

justincormack wrote: post #142
jjeaff wrote: post #123

This article tries to make the (weak) point that there is plenty of parking simply because averages show they spots sit empty most of the time. But that type of analysis ignores the obvious fact that most parking is built to support peak times. Most mall parking lots sit mostly empty, except on the weekends when everyone goes to the mall or restaurants or whatever. Corporate lots sit empty on the weekends. Cut any of…

The level that allows all cars to park at peak times is not the economically efficient level; that hugely increases the overall cost, as you cant use parking for any other use. Peak cases should have surge pricing to ration the space there are for efficiency, and the overall level should be less.

If it wasn’t economically efficient, they wouldn’t exist.

My uncle runs a small parking lot in a central business district. He clears a very healthy living working 5:30-9 five days a week, plus events. When he is ready to retire, he can sell it for a couple of million dollars or pass it on to his kid.

Most older central city parking is like that... modest income to cover taxes and expenses to park the property for future speculation or security for loans. Newer ones are usually part of another development and are tax exempt or taxpayer funded.

The malls were very economically viable in the 80s and 90s. In my areas, malls whose bonds are getting paid off are in-filling the outer areas of the property and some lots with the current hot real estate hustle... hotels and giant gas stations.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#216

Post by dang »

extradego wrote: post #170
vanattab wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are baby-boomers some how too old to be allowed to consider themselves as part of our contemporary society?

I wish. You people are a disgrace.

We've banned this account for violating the rules and spirit of this site. Generational warfare isn't an ok thing here. Same for ideological battle.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#217

Post by yuhong »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #16
angarg12 wrote: post #2

I visited the US (particularly the bay area) for the first time recently, and I was baffled by the sparsity of buildings. Suburbs and shopping areas are so far away that you need a car to go anywhere, and in turn you need massive expanses to held all those vehicles, which means that stores are even more spread apart, which essentially becomes a snowball. Being used to high density housing and underground parking spac…

This is how we have had such economic growth. We use our own population as a testbed where we disintermediate all of our own cultural support systems so that everything must be hired out. Food, transport, entertainment, self concept, family, all of it has been reformed in the U.S. over the last 100 years to replace community labor with commercial relations. This means we get first dibs on these new industries (Softwa…

The entire current debt-based economy is fundamentally designed to extract as much money as possible from "consumers".

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#218

Post by briandear »

extradego wrote: post #115
rainbowmverse wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appropriation and disproportionate credit for white people is a real and serious problem, but it's not the whole story. Most of the actual musicians who were inspired by black music fully acknowledged their inspirations and were often annoyed at how no one seemed to care about the people they looked up to. The actual artists out on the stage doing the music know exactly what comes from where. Culture spreads like tha…

I have an opinionated view of American culture, and I'm daily surrounded by other musicians, artists. These are the topics we discuss. I am opinionated as a result. In my previous comment, please note when I say "hip-hop", I am not referring to music, but culture . Nonetheless... I grew up in the south. My father was literally a clogger. I'm no stranger to folk. But, I am extremely skeptical of a lot of it's history.…

Opinionated is one thing, inaccurate is quite another. Reductionist and insulting is yet another.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#219

Post by fiter »

gok wrote: post #140
fencepost wrote: post #96

If anyone in city government is smart Chicago is going to have no real choice but to go against this trend because of its utterly atrocious parking meter deal 10+ years ago - or they're going to have to take that glut of spaces and make them free parking to try to get out of the deal. Basically the city committed to keeping a fixed number of street parking spaces for 75 years in exchange for a pittance. If spaces are…

The alternative was bankruptcy. And as the market for street parking vaporizes over the next couple decades, this may end up being a great deal.

This will still be a sour deal. What a waste of urban space to just leave empty parking spots due to the fees for repurposing them.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#220

Post by olefoo »

J-dawg wrote: post #50
erikpukinskis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how we have had such economic growth. We use our own population as a testbed where we disintermediate all of our own cultural support systems so that everything must be hired out. Food, transport, entertainment, self concept, family, all of it has been reformed in the U.S. over the last 100 years to replace community labor with commercial relations. This means we get first dibs on these new industries (Softwa…

This is a fascinating idea which seems worth expanding into a longer piece of writing. Could you give some specific examples of what you mean by “community labor” and what they’ve been replaced with? Also, what do you mean by “Guiltlessness as a service”?

Fair-trade, ethically sourced, carbon-neutral consumer product.

Guaranteed by a public-benefit corporation.

Bonus: Now on the blockchain!

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