3 ms·

Right now, in the US, in many cities, we have minimum parking laws, that say you need X number of parking slots per commercial space or per work area, within so

Right now, in the US, in many cities, we have minimum parking laws, that say you need X number of parking slots per commercial space or per work area, within some maximum distance of a couple thousand feet or less. And, yet there's absolutely no minimum living space/apartments/residentials to speak of. This is completely backwards. We should have minimum living space requirements within every work place. If you want to regulate things, regulate it well: No places to live, then no places to work. If there were 1 place to live within 500 ft for every 1 job, then we wouldn't have this situation where most of the population has to commute 2 hours every day polluting the planet with overly long commutes that could be 10 or 20 times closer. Imagine the reduction in c02 if people were traveling 20 times fewer miles every day.

WorldMaker 7y ago
Which was some of the thinking behind the classic attempts at "company towns". On the one hand, yes reducing commutes is a public good, but directly or indirectly connecting your housing to the company you work for has it's own problems (including just the basic problem that your whole life shouldn't have to revolve around where you work). As with most things, you have to be careful what you incentivize.
- helen___keller 7y ago
  "company town" is a small town phenomenon. Superstar metros are the ones that need regulation that promotes building of housing units.
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    Just because we most associate the "company town" era most with (relatively) small towns (and that wasn't always true, both Detroit and Chicago, as two wildly different examples, have been accused of being company towns in different ways and at different times), doesn't mean it isn't an applicable comparison even to "superstar metros". The "Google bus" issue in SF certainly didn't make SF a company town, but it did raise the specter of how willing a large enough company can be to routing around a city's infrastructure rather than work with it, stratifying public transit services in complicated ways that caused a lot of real grief for non-Google employees, just as non-employees in many a company town would have had mobility issues.
    - magduf 7y ago
      >The "Google bus" issue in SF certainly didn't make SF a company town, but it did raise the specter of how willing a large enough company can be to routing around a city's infrastructure rather than work with it, What exactly are they supposed to do? Stage a violent revolt of the local government? They're a big company with a lot of money, but that doesn't give them control over the local politics, so there's only so much they can do about the transit situation. Public transit in America is notoriously horrible, and no single corporation could possibly fix it, so it makes perfect sense for them to hire some buses to help their employees commute faster. They're helping keep many, many cars off the road by putting people into buses, and yeah, it's unfortunate that non-Googlers can't use the buses, but if people want better public transit, then they should start voting for local politicians who will improve public transit. People don't want to do that just about anywhere in America, so this is what we get.
      - WorldMaker 7y ago
        As one easy counter example, Microsoft spends a lot of money directly into King County transit options (and has done so regularly for a long term relationship), and "money talks" to politicians. It's a lot easier for politicians to be "pro-public transit" if they don't have to fight so much for how to pay for it. (That has its own issues in the entangling of corporate and political interests, of course, as there are no perfect solutions when capitalism is involved.)
        magduf 7y ago
        >It's a lot easier for politicians to be "pro-public transit" if they don't have to fight so much for how to pay for it. They don't have to "fight" to pay for it, they just need to use tax money to do so. The problem is that voters don't want that. Voters are perfectly happy to massively subsidize infrastructure for cars (those roads aren't free), but they don't want to subsidize public transit, and claim that public transit should somehow survive on its own (even though roads don't). >as there are no perfect solutions when capitalism is involved. There's nothing "capitalistic" or "free market" when it comes to the road system in this country. It's purely socialism. Charge use-based tolls for every road driven on and things will change quickly.
- thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
  the point is not that you would remain there forever. You want housing to be something that you can relatively easily switch from. but there should always be a close option, we dont want people getting stuck, commuting vast distances everyday
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    Most people don't consider housing to be something that can be easily switched. Housing is typically considered best when it is not commoditized. (That's even before you get into the fact that housing is also hand-in-hand with wealth, and long term housing ownership is seen as an economic dream/right/baseline.)
foolfoolz 7y ago
this makes absolutely no sense. just because there's a living space 500 feet from a job doesnt mean your job and your place to live are that close

WorldMaker 7y ago

Which was some of the thinking behind the classic attempts at "company towns". On the one hand, yes reducing commutes is a public good, but directly or indirectly connecting your housing to the company you work for has it's own problems (including just the basic problem that your whole life shouldn't have to revolve around where you work). As with most things, you have to be careful what you incentivize.

helen___keller 7y ago
"company town" is a small town phenomenon. Superstar metros are the ones that need regulation that promotes building of housing units.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  Just because we most associate the "company town" era most with (relatively) small towns (and that wasn't always true, both Detroit and Chicago, as two wildly different examples, have been accused of being company towns in different ways and at different times), doesn't mean it isn't an applicable comparison even to "superstar metros". The "Google bus" issue in SF certainly didn't make SF a company town, but it did raise the specter of how willing a large enough company can be to routing around a city's infrastructure rather than work with it, stratifying public transit services in complicated ways that caused a lot of real grief for non-Google employees, just as non-employees in many a company town would have had mobility issues.
  - magduf 7y ago
    >The "Google bus" issue in SF certainly didn't make SF a company town, but it did raise the specter of how willing a large enough company can be to routing around a city's infrastructure rather than work with it, What exactly are they supposed to do? Stage a violent revolt of the local government? They're a big company with a lot of money, but that doesn't give them control over the local politics, so there's only so much they can do about the transit situation. Public transit in America is notoriously horrible, and no single corporation could possibly fix it, so it makes perfect sense for them to hire some buses to help their employees commute faster. They're helping keep many, many cars off the road by putting people into buses, and yeah, it's unfortunate that non-Googlers can't use the buses, but if people want better public transit, then they should start voting for local politicians who will improve public transit. People don't want to do that just about anywhere in America, so this is what we get.
    - WorldMaker 7y ago
      As one easy counter example, Microsoft spends a lot of money directly into King County transit options (and has done so regularly for a long term relationship), and "money talks" to politicians. It's a lot easier for politicians to be "pro-public transit" if they don't have to fight so much for how to pay for it. (That has its own issues in the entangling of corporate and political interests, of course, as there are no perfect solutions when capitalism is involved.)
      - magduf 7y ago
        >It's a lot easier for politicians to be "pro-public transit" if they don't have to fight so much for how to pay for it. They don't have to "fight" to pay for it, they just need to use tax money to do so. The problem is that voters don't want that. Voters are perfectly happy to massively subsidize infrastructure for cars (those roads aren't free), but they don't want to subsidize public transit, and claim that public transit should somehow survive on its own (even though roads don't). >as there are no perfect solutions when capitalism is involved. There's nothing "capitalistic" or "free market" when it comes to the road system in this country. It's purely socialism. Charge use-based tolls for every road driven on and things will change quickly.
thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
the point is not that you would remain there forever. You want housing to be something that you can relatively easily switch from. but there should always be a close option, we dont want people getting stuck, commuting vast distances everyday
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  Most people don't consider housing to be something that can be easily switched. Housing is typically considered best when it is not commoditized. (That's even before you get into the fact that housing is also hand-in-hand with wealth, and long term housing ownership is seen as an economic dream/right/baseline.)

foolfoolz 7y ago

this makes absolutely no sense. just because there's a living space 500 feet from a job doesnt mean your job and your place to live are that close