milkytron
I was landing from a flight and traveling home late on a Sunday. I also needed to go grocery shopping that night. I did not have a car at the airport, so my choices were either rideshare home for $70, or take the train for $10. The train takes about 30-40 minutes longer, but saves me $60.
If I did the rideshare, I could probably do the grocery shopping myself and get home a little bit later than when the train would get me home. Or I could take the train, order the grocery delivery, and then get home, unpack, and go to sleep. I chose to take the train and do grocery delivery. When I got home from the train, the delivery driver was walking up to my door with bags in hand. It worked out perfectly.
I could have taken the train and also done the grocery shopping myself, but it would have been very late by then and I had to be up early for work the next day.
How about removing property tax, and instead taxing land at a higher rate? The wealthy (top 0.1%) are continuously buying up as much land as they can. If we tax land based on it's value more appropriately, we will see more land being sold, more land being invested in (because property would be taxed less, and land more), and then more productive land as a result.
This would be politically unpopular amongst the rent seekers of our society, and likely have huge ad campaigns against it as a result. But the downsides compared to upsides see negligible for the public. More productive land, and more tax revenue from the owners of the land.
tl;dw - As far as businesses go, they require low capital to construct, have low operational costs, and also operate as a way to hold real estate/land while also generating revenue.
The people that use them are usually dealing with some life event such as moving, a death in the family, divorce, and just want some solution to house possessions.
I worked at a company that laid off all senior engineers in a single layoff. I was let go and found another job within a month.
I've heard of entire departments being let go because of shifting company priorities.
I imagine decision makers aren't usually evaluating each person based on performance, they're looking at organizational priorities and budgets.
I have some friends at the company I got let go of, and they are in shambles. Managers have reached out to me asking for me to rejoin. I'd be willing to bet they thought the juniors and mid levels would be able to take the place of seniors with the help of AI, without management fully understanding how AI should be utilized most effectively.
I deleted my account after I got my first job offer and have never used it since.
If people dislike the site so much, I don't understand why they don't delete their account. Is there any value provided, or is it the fear of missing out on potential future value?
Although, implementing such changes are generally unpopular for those that are already car dependent.
There was little for the government to lose in the case. In a case vs Meta, at the scale it has reached, it could have wide ranging economic implications limiting the investment in AI, which the US is absolutely not willing to pursue at this point in time (or possibly ever).
Basically, being a rich public company provides legal advantages when the US government has similar goals.
The whole thing is incredibly sad and exposes the hypocrisy of the US court system and government as a whole.
RIP Aaron.
Imo, the biggest problem is that of convenience. Convenience (time), cost, comfort, and (perceived) safety are the factors people use to make transportation mode choices.
If buses aren't prioritized in traffic above single occupant vehicles via dedicated bus lanes, signalling, etc. then they'll always be slower than a car because of the additional stops. Frequency is also a consideration that factors into timing, as well as transfers.
If any US city wants to get people onto transit, they need to prioritize transit above less efficient modes, amongst other things.
On a more serious note, I think it's obvious that we shouldn't reduce safety improvements to help an industry that profits off of lower safety standards.
People have been saying that robotaxis and self driving cars will take over in a couple years for at least a decade.
It hasn't happened, and not only that, but if the companies making them want to be profitable, they will price out a huge percent of consumers.
My guess is that humans will remain the majority operators of vehicles for at least 20 more years, maybe more.
That isn't to say we need parking requirements though. We should still get rid of them and let the market determine how much parking we need.
We all have a little bit of control over at least housing and transport. Local politics determine land use, and municipalities in the US have consistently voted for more car dependency (leading to more expensive transport) and limited housing construction (leading to more expensive housing).
Local politics aren't really paid attention to, which results in any amount of participation and influence having a relatively large impact compared to state or federal politics.
It seems like most newly built computing resources are at the disposal of a few companies and a few people...
I think evidence in Minneapolis, Denver, Austin, etc. is showing that increasing housing supply can apply downward pressure on rent prices, and subsequently the rent burden of many households as a percentage of their income.
I work/volunteer as a planning commissioner for a suburb of Denver, and allowing more housing to be built is one of the most politically divisive things I've ever had to deal with. People think that if a property is zoned for high density, it will be built overnight. This is not the case unless it's a specific property being changed.
We recently had an apartment building constructed that was zoned for this use almost 20 years ago. The community went into an uproar about this new apartment building, and tried to petition to modify the zoning after permitting was already approved.
This is near a park, has multiple transit stops, walking distance to large employment centers, grocery stores, gyms, and a school. It was a prime candidate for more housing.
Now, since the community has realized that zoning is what controls housing, they have petitioned against following zoning changes, and are basically freezing our zoning code in amber.
It's quite sad, as I see homeless encampments around, people living in their cars, and college grads living with 4 roommates in a house in a suburb. We had a light rail line built through our town a little over a decade ago that connects to Downtown Denver and a few major employment centers, and we still have R1 zoning surrounding some of the stations. We have so much opportunity and it continuously gets squandered by folks that already got theirs.
> The second concept is to incentivize retention of existing buildings by allowing substantial new construction behind them. Basically, let people cash in on their backyard. This is a significant expansion of the accessory unit rules we have today, and the city’s concept art suggests that it would allow backyard cottages larger than the existing homes (a big change).
This is interesting and I wonder how it would change neighborhood dynamics. I'm not opposed at all because it enables more potential housing options. We have a few of these in the neighborhoods I frequent, but from what I've heard, it's somewhat cost prohibitive in the current form to be worth building one. If this helps make ADUs (maybe the ADU would become the original structure in this case), then that seems like progress.
> The third concept is to allow more units if one unit is deed-restricted to be permanently “affordable.” This is basically the same logic as the first proposal — let developers sell more square footage if they do something residents want: in this case, deed-restrict part of the square footage to be priced below market rate.
This would be helpful for allowing current residents with lower incomes than the newcomers to stay in the neighborhood without taking away an existing dwelling unit from the market. Deed-restrictions kind of concern me, but this seems like a decent compromise to prevent displacement.
> What I don’t see in any of the proposals so far is streamlining and expediting permitting for developers who pursue the path the city wants: more, less expensive homes, rather than fewer, more expensive homes.
Indirectly, the removal of parking minimums from the zoning code should help with this. I think there was also a change to allow single stairways in the zoning which creates a bit more incentive for developers and potentially eases the permit process.
We can all make a positive difference in the world for those still living, and those who have yet to live.
[0] God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
I used to pirate video games, but Steam basically ended that for me. The sales no longer make it worth it for me to pirate a $60 game, instead, I can buy it for $12 on sale.
For software, I used to pirate Adobe products and Sony Vegas, but there are alternatives for those now.
For something like sports, I think the cost can be hundreds of dollars per season. I watch the NFL and NHL, and to watch every game that I'd like to watch, it would cost me something like $600+ per year. There aren't really viable alternatives. I'd have to get three services to watch all of the NHL games I want to watch, and I don't even know how many services I need for the NFL. Amazon Prime, Sunday Ticket, CBS, Fox? Or cable/YouTubeTV with additional packages?
I'd happily pay $100 or $200 per year to watch all games in a league for a year if it was through a single service. Or a lump sum for all sports. But in the same amount of time to enter my payment information, create an account, etc. I could have easily found a stream and have it on any TV in my house.
Road funding is a big reason. Federal, state, and local taxes are used for roads, and more driving. Parking minimums required land to be dedicated to parking, further encouraging car usage for transportation and spreading out development with parking lots in between developments.
> Why didn't anyone choose to develop density on existing sites?
Existing sites would have had to not be developed enough to trigger a rezoning. If a different use was being proposed for land, then a zoning hearing would be needed, and parking minimums would have to be enforced. Thus requiring adjacent lots to be bought and redeveloped into parking unless exceptions were made. You can see remnants of this in some cities where amongst historic buildings and skyscrapers there are large surface parking lots.
> We built that stuff just fine from 1870 through the 1940s. What changed?
Quite a few things. Parking minimums as mentioned, euclidian/single use zoning, etc. I think one of the core things that changed is something that Strong Towns mentioned. Up until the early 1900s, municipal planners would try to project how much tax revenue per acre of land was being generated and how much tax expenditures were made for those areas. Over time, tax per acre or per parcel was deprioritized, and level of service for roads was used as an economic metric. More vehicles in an area means more economic activity (in theory), so municipalities started optimizing for more vehicular movement.
In the end, it was a lot of government regulation that resulted in this. From the federal level, to states, counties, and municipalities. It worked for a large portion of the voting populace, so it was generally favored.
It was cheaper to simply let things fall into disrepair, and build shiny new buildings and developments further away from the city center. Rinse and repeat. This is why a lot of inner ring suburbs are filled with strip malls that can't maintain their parking lots, don't have the residential density to support nearby businesses, etc.
It's kind of an interesting development pattern that's been pervasive since the 1950s, and some towns and cities are trying to reverse it with infill.