6 ms·

I'm a bit confused when you say "these politicians allowed almost every white person to own a brand new house and brand new car". What business is it of politic

by brbsix 11y ago

I'm a bit confused when you say "these politicians allowed almost every white person to own a brand new house and brand new car". What business is it of politicians to prohibit people from owning a new home or car? What right does anyone have to tell me what neighborhood I can live in? If you want to blame someone for sprawl, blame the politicians that subsidize the infrastructure that make it possible.

alphonsegaston 11y ago
I believe the parent is referring to the fact that the GI Bill and home loans for returning WW II veterans were written in such a way to systematically discriminate against blacks in this country. The explicit prohibitions you mention obviously existed at that time in the form of segregation, but whites were also given extra advantages by the racist way these programs were implemented. The extension of these benefits overlaps precisely with growth of sprawl, as whites used the increased purchasing power afforded to them by these programs to buy homes in the emerging suburbs (essentially following the incentive). Ira Katznelson of Columbia University wrote a good history of this in his book,"When Affirmative Action was White"
CalRobert 11y ago
It might be more accurate to say "these politicians subsidized home ownership and cars at the expense of those who don't choose or can't afford to partake". It's hard to express in the space of a HN comment, but American society is built to encourage suburban sprawl and car dependence in almost every way imaginable. * The mortgage interest tax deduction taxes renters to give that money to buyers * Roads, once supposedly funded by fuel taxes, are now mostly funded by general revenue, meaning that they're an all you can buffet (so why not use all you can? Somebody else is going to, after all) * Drivers who kill cyclists and pedestrians virtually never face any serious consequences for their actions * Cities force amenities, jobs, and homes to be ridiculously - comically - far apart from each other through zoning. How the hell does central Dublin have tens of thousands of people, hundreds of pubs, and thousands upon thousands upon thousands of jobs all within a couple miles of each other, while people in Mountain View are pissed off their neighbors might want to put a duplex on land that they own because hey, that's too many people! * We make it ILLEGAL to build homes and businesses without ridiculous excesses of parking, meaning you have to pay for parking whether you like it or not * The cost of parking is rolled in to the cost of goods and services. A grocery store's land is easily 70% parking. That land costs a lot of money. Why do I have to pay for everyone else's parking when I walk to the store? * Auto companies normalized the idea that streets are only for cars with campaigns to popularize terms like Jaywalking. I mean, think about it - for all of human civilization streets were where kids played, vendors sold, people chatted, and horses, carts, and people moved. Then the car showed up, quite literally started killing everyone in its way, and we decided everyone else can just deal with it * Safety standards in the US tend to worry about the safety of the vehicle's occupants without regard to those struck by the vehicles. That's almost as dumb as imposing safety standards on guns based on the threat to the firearm operator. Edit:I should have said "based solely on the threat". Obviously it's important that guns don't blow up in their user's face. And I conflate safety standards with licensing, though the comparison to cars there is fairly apt. * Carbon emissions are likely to cause trillions of dollars in economic damage and kill millions of people through increased disease, decreased food security, and increased drought, among numerous other things. The people who will bear most of this cost are not the ones who are causing it. Gasoline should be taxed at the rate necessary to remove its carbon from the air via proven means. This would probably make it around $15 a gallon, which much to the surprise of most in the US, isn't THAT much. Very healthy societies function fine with $10/gallon fuel. In those places it is not wasted so profligately. * There's more, but I need to get back to other stuff. tl;dr - if you live in the US, you're going to pay the huge, tragic cost of auto dependency whether you like it or not, so you better get with it and just buy one already.
- x0054 11y ago
  It's hard for me to argue with you, because I do agree that living in the suburbs and traveling to work every day, more then an hour each way, is simply insane. If you add the average commute of say 45min one way each day, and multiply it by the number of days you commute, it comes out to 16 days per year. That's 16 days of 24 hour per day driving. If you put it in working terms, then we must actually multiply it by 3 times since people usually work around 8 hours a day. So that's 48 working days. Basically you spend roughly 1/10th of your working time simply driving to and from work. That said, I would much rather drive 45 min than spend 45 min on public transportation. I grew up in Kiev, a place with by all accounts very good public transport system, at least during the Soviet days when they still took care of the system. And guess what, it was awful! I also visited Boston, lived in Lake View in Chicago for 6 years without a car, and traveled through Europe and lived for 4 years in the center of downtown San Diego. And I can honestly tell you, based on my experiences, I would NEVER want to go back to using public transport. Maybe I am selfish, or maybe I just hate people, who knows, but being in the mass of humanity, at the whim of some government agency running the system, just doesn't sit with me. I know the freedom the car provides is in some ways an illusion. We still rely on public roads (most of the time) and gas stations are still a prerequisite, but I can't help breathing easier knowing that my car can take me any place I want to go and I can fix everything about it my self. It's a freedom thing, even if it's an illusion, a feeling that perhaps is hard to understand for someone from Europe (I am assuming). I am not saying it is right or wrong, but it's inline with the mythology of America, and I like it. I do understand that diversity is important though, and there is no clear reason why there couldn't be more mixed use places like you describe. Perhaps if there were more places like Dublin (as you described, I'v never been) in US, more people could move there and be happy. All I am saying is I am happy with my car in South California, a place that's in general in love with their cars, and I am quite happy here. What can I say, different strokes for different folks.
  - CalRobert 11y ago
    It's interesting to compare experiences with you, actually. I actually am from northern California, and have lived in Berkeley, Sacramento, San Luis Obispo, Santa Monica, Dublin (IE), and most recently San Diego (South Park). My favourite commutes were either long bike rides or short walks, with a long BART commute somewhere in the middle. My worst commutes, by far, have been inching along car-choked freeways. I think it's great that you have the ability to choose your lifestyle, but the whole point is that your lifestyle is being very heavily subsidized by taxpayers. I consider this unfair, and I'm sick to death of paying for it all while being told cyclists like me are the ones freeloading. I'm aiming to return to Dublin now after a year spent very much disliking San Diego. I hated the hostility and threats I got as a cyclist. I hated how over 100 of us spoke to the two-faced Todd Gloria and the rest of SANDAG to fight for one. damn. bike lane on University ave, and he shot it down because the Hillcrest Business Association insists on taxpayer-provided parking welfare, dead cyclists be damned. I hate how people just took it for granted that they should put alcohol-heavy events in places with no access to transit (though admittedly Lyft/Uber are options, albeit expensive). I routinely witnessed drunk, or at least not sober, people hopping in their cars and driving off. I hated that I went to the Greater Golden Hill planning meetings where homeowners baldly stated that the reason NO new housing should EVER be constructed ANYWHERE in their neighborhood is because it could mean that their already $800k+ homes might not rise in value quite as fast. I hated conversations that consisted of people bitching about how horrible cyclists are because you know that some of them run lights? Nevermind the drivers who blast down 30th St. at 40+, ignore stop signs, and often are likely drunk. I hated the fact that the only halfway-livable neighborhoods in SD (South Park, Little Italy, etc.) would be ILLEGAL to build now because of parking minimums - San Diego's distinctive residential design where several cottages are clustered around a man courtyard doesn't work when every damn home is forced to have two parking spots by law. I hated the fact that if you ever suggested SD was anything less than sheer fucking heaven people took HUGE offence, as though you'd insulted them personally. Also, I like SD beer (especially Lost Abbey), but c'mon people just saying "omg let's make a 16% ABV quintuple IPA which is basically just hop tea" isn't actually that innovative.

by brbsix 11y ago

alphonsegaston 11y ago

I believe the parent is referring to the fact that the GI Bill and home loans for returning WW II veterans were written in such a way to systematically discriminate against blacks in this country. The explicit prohibitions you mention obviously existed at that time in the form of segregation, but whites were also given extra advantages by the racist way these programs were implemented. The extension of these benefits overlaps precisely with growth of sprawl, as whites used the increased purchasing power afforded to them by these programs to buy homes in the emerging suburbs (essentially following the incentive). Ira Katznelson of Columbia University wrote a good history of this in his book,"When Affirmative Action was White"

CalRobert 11y ago

It might be more accurate to say "these politicians subsidized home ownership and cars at the expense of those who don't choose or can't afford to partake". It's hard to express in the space of a HN comment, but American society is built to encourage suburban sprawl and car dependence in almost every way imaginable. * The mortgage interest tax deduction taxes renters to give that money to buyers * Roads, once supposedly funded by fuel taxes, are now mostly funded by general revenue, meaning that they're an all you can buffet (so why not use all you can? Somebody else is going to, after all) * Drivers who kill cyclists and pedestrians virtually never face any serious consequences for their actions * Cities force amenities, jobs, and homes to be ridiculously - comically - far apart from each other through zoning. How the hell does central Dublin have tens of thousands of people, hundreds of pubs, and thousands upon thousands upon thousands of jobs all within a couple miles of each other, while people in Mountain View are pissed off their neighbors might want to put a duplex on land that they own because hey, that's too many people! * We make it ILLEGAL to build homes and businesses without ridiculous excesses of parking, meaning you have to pay for parking whether you like it or not * The cost of parking is rolled in to the cost of goods and services. A grocery store's land is easily 70% parking. That land costs a lot of money. Why do I have to pay for everyone else's parking when I walk to the store? * Auto companies normalized the idea that streets are only for cars with campaigns to popularize terms like Jaywalking. I mean, think about it - for all of human civilization streets were where kids played, vendors sold, people chatted, and horses, carts, and people moved. Then the car showed up, quite literally started killing everyone in its way, and we decided everyone else can just deal with it * Safety standards in the US tend to worry about the safety of the vehicle's occupants without regard to those struck by the vehicles. That's almost as dumb as imposing safety standards on guns based on the threat to the firearm operator. Edit:I should have said "based solely on the threat". Obviously it's important that guns don't blow up in their user's face. And I conflate safety standards with licensing, though the comparison to cars there is fairly apt. * Carbon emissions are likely to cause trillions of dollars in economic damage and kill millions of people through increased disease, decreased food security, and increased drought, among numerous other things. The people who will bear most of this cost are not the ones who are causing it. Gasoline should be taxed at the rate necessary to remove its carbon from the air via proven means. This would probably make it around $15 a gallon, which much to the surprise of most in the US, isn't THAT much. Very healthy societies function fine with $10/gallon fuel. In those places it is not wasted so profligately. * There's more, but I need to get back to other stuff. tl;dr - if you live in the US, you're going to pay the huge, tragic cost of auto dependency whether you like it or not, so you better get with it and just buy one already.

x0054 11y ago
It's hard for me to argue with you, because I do agree that living in the suburbs and traveling to work every day, more then an hour each way, is simply insane. If you add the average commute of say 45min one way each day, and multiply it by the number of days you commute, it comes out to 16 days per year. That's 16 days of 24 hour per day driving. If you put it in working terms, then we must actually multiply it by 3 times since people usually work around 8 hours a day. So that's 48 working days. Basically you spend roughly 1/10th of your working time simply driving to and from work. That said, I would much rather drive 45 min than spend 45 min on public transportation. I grew up in Kiev, a place with by all accounts very good public transport system, at least during the Soviet days when they still took care of the system. And guess what, it was awful! I also visited Boston, lived in Lake View in Chicago for 6 years without a car, and traveled through Europe and lived for 4 years in the center of downtown San Diego. And I can honestly tell you, based on my experiences, I would NEVER want to go back to using public transport. Maybe I am selfish, or maybe I just hate people, who knows, but being in the mass of humanity, at the whim of some government agency running the system, just doesn't sit with me. I know the freedom the car provides is in some ways an illusion. We still rely on public roads (most of the time) and gas stations are still a prerequisite, but I can't help breathing easier knowing that my car can take me any place I want to go and I can fix everything about it my self. It's a freedom thing, even if it's an illusion, a feeling that perhaps is hard to understand for someone from Europe (I am assuming). I am not saying it is right or wrong, but it's inline with the mythology of America, and I like it. I do understand that diversity is important though, and there is no clear reason why there couldn't be more mixed use places like you describe. Perhaps if there were more places like Dublin (as you described, I'v never been) in US, more people could move there and be happy. All I am saying is I am happy with my car in South California, a place that's in general in love with their cars, and I am quite happy here. What can I say, different strokes for different folks.
- CalRobert 11y ago
  It's interesting to compare experiences with you, actually. I actually am from northern California, and have lived in Berkeley, Sacramento, San Luis Obispo, Santa Monica, Dublin (IE), and most recently San Diego (South Park). My favourite commutes were either long bike rides or short walks, with a long BART commute somewhere in the middle. My worst commutes, by far, have been inching along car-choked freeways. I think it's great that you have the ability to choose your lifestyle, but the whole point is that your lifestyle is being very heavily subsidized by taxpayers. I consider this unfair, and I'm sick to death of paying for it all while being told cyclists like me are the ones freeloading. I'm aiming to return to Dublin now after a year spent very much disliking San Diego. I hated the hostility and threats I got as a cyclist. I hated how over 100 of us spoke to the two-faced Todd Gloria and the rest of SANDAG to fight for one. damn. bike lane on University ave, and he shot it down because the Hillcrest Business Association insists on taxpayer-provided parking welfare, dead cyclists be damned. I hate how people just took it for granted that they should put alcohol-heavy events in places with no access to transit (though admittedly Lyft/Uber are options, albeit expensive). I routinely witnessed drunk, or at least not sober, people hopping in their cars and driving off. I hated that I went to the Greater Golden Hill planning meetings where homeowners baldly stated that the reason NO new housing should EVER be constructed ANYWHERE in their neighborhood is because it could mean that their already $800k+ homes might not rise in value quite as fast. I hated conversations that consisted of people bitching about how horrible cyclists are because you know that some of them run lights? Nevermind the drivers who blast down 30th St. at 40+, ignore stop signs, and often are likely drunk. I hated the fact that the only halfway-livable neighborhoods in SD (South Park, Little Italy, etc.) would be ILLEGAL to build now because of parking minimums - San Diego's distinctive residential design where several cottages are clustered around a man courtyard doesn't work when every damn home is forced to have two parking spots by law. I hated the fact that if you ever suggested SD was anything less than sheer fucking heaven people took HUGE offence, as though you'd insulted them personally. Also, I like SD beer (especially Lost Abbey), but c'mon people just saying "omg let's make a 16% ABV quintuple IPA which is basically just hop tea" isn't actually that innovative.