Where I live (Bournemouth, UK), the beach is popular, and beach huts (if you're not familiar with this idea, it's basically a wooden shed that you can use while you visit the beach but not sleep in all year round) are hugely popular. I believe the record for one is £270,000 - certainly a price that would buy you a decent family home in some locations within 10 miles of it. It's not as much as the parking space, but I'd say it was less useful - particularly given the British weather which renders it a miserable experience (cold, windy, raining) for maybe half the year.

As someone who doesn't own property (and is in his mid 40s), I find all of this very depressing - property prices seem to be spiralling out of control in many countries, and most people seem to be fine with it as they are rich on paper (but not in reality).

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/14098458.This_year_s_m...

Land is the one thing in truly limited supply, meanwhile population and prosperity continue to grow exponentially.

They are making more of it in Hawaii but the process is pretty inefficient.

population does not grow exponentially, current population is not expected to double before the next century.

The growth factor has changed. It’s still an exponential.

I'm from near Bournemouth (Broadstone). When I lived there 20 years ago houses on Sandbanks were the most expensive properties per square foot in the world. Beach front prices in Dorset are crazy.

For reference, this is ~21 years of post tax salary for the average American income earner, excluding rent and other expenses.

Assuming one's working career is 45 years, this is just under 50% of your working life. For a parking spot.

Another way of looking at is: you could pay someone $25,000 a year to drive your car around the block, continuously.

The driver could meet you at your door any time of day within a few minutes.

For 30 years.

How much would it cost in gasoline though?

Maybe Waymo is onto something...

They better be for the money being spent to fund them.

I'm pretty sure you can't buy 365 * 24 man hours for 25k.

Minimum wage in the USA is, what?, $7.25 / hr?

So you'd need two shifts to cover your waking hours, so call it $30,000 per year. The last driver takes the car home and the first one picks it up.

Making a lot of assumptions here. It was just a silly thought experiment.

They don't even need to drive continuously. They could just park it at a semi-legal location nearby until asked to move.

What an existence, lol!

Uhmmm Poland, first world country, the minimum wage is about ~$7k/year. So three men working full time around the clock = $21k/year. Easy.

Maybe not in Hong Kong, but try the Philippines or some other countries and it's very realistic.

Thankfully the average American worker doesn't live in Hong Kong and feel like they need to drive!

While the average American worker doesn't live in Hong Kong, they do drive.

Either way, an American worker's salary is a good indication of how unafordable this spot is

> Either way, an American worker's salary is a good indication of how unafordable this spot is

How? I think the average income of someone who lives in the area of the parking spot would be a much better gauge, but this is probably just a pricey parking spot in an already very pricy area of a very pricey metro. It has no connection to the average person in any place on Earth.

That's what happens when you freeze wages at 1979 levels.

Where I'm from, the average post-tax monthly income is about $450. Someone can work his or her whole life without ever making that kind of money.

Crazy number for sure but I'm not really that surprised. A dense city and they're actually buying the space forever. Not renting.

And it's indoors.

But still, if they use it for 20 years they've payed over 3000 dollars/month for it.

Edit: My brother said; why not just pay the fines? And googling says they can be around 86 USD but I assume they have some sort of repeat offender thing too.

It's worth noting that cars and parking in Hong Kong are absurdly unnecessary luxuries, and this is an absurdly luxurious example of the genre. The golden rule of capitalism is, you can spend as much money as you want, and because it is your money, other people don't get to decide it is a waste.

Wealth beyond the dreams of avarice and what right do us ordinary people have to say anything about it?

One might call it a rule of “profit before people”.

If someone has a disproportionate amount of wealth, I'd rather they spend it.

You can't have it both ways. Silly purchases are way better for the rest of us than them just parking the wealth.

In Hong Kong, homes are absurdly unnecessary luxuries, too. Maybe Marx wasn't so wrong after all...

Maybe cities shouldn't make it easy to own a car.

Expensive parking is a way to do that.