5 ms·

Public parks are like public libraries, they're mostly just homeless shelters and places to deal drugs. As a city dweller I really don't get this rosy presentat

Public parks are like public libraries, they're mostly just homeless shelters and places to deal drugs. As a city dweller I really don't get this rosy presentation of them that acts like they're somehow gifts to the community.

fxtentacle 6y ago
Obviously, you don't play golf. Scratch that. Obviously, you've never been to Singapore. I have very fond memories of walking out of the air-conditioned shopping mall above the Waterfront MRT station and then walking through Mount Faber Park, Henderson Waves, Southern Ridges Park, Kent Ridge Park, and then back into an air-conditioned shopping mall at Kent Ridge MRT. I took one of those walks almost every day, and in many cases co-workers or friends decided to join, because with the MRT system it's just so easy to quickly zip over to nature in your lunch break. It's difficult to access this objectively, but I'm 100% convinced that this was a major factor in making my time in Singapore some of the most productive months I've ever had. Also in Italy, the town squares were usually full with families and the elderly, sipping coffee and reading newspapers. But it was well understood that just by being there, they signal that they're available for you to just talk to people. Again, I felt like the strong communal spirit of having talked to 100+ neighbors in your village was fantastic, even if you only did small-talk about the newspaper. Now if you could reduce the depression rate and related issues by 10% with a new well-maintained park. That'd be a significant GDP boost, so the economic value of such parks is probably in the billions of $$$.
- suduudeueu 6y ago
  How silly of me not to include "public golf parks", Italian town squares, and Singapore in a discussion about America. But then, there's nothing surprising about someone so privileged they can travel the globe having a loose grip on the reality being faced by most of the country.
  - nix23 6y ago
    I don't know in which shit-place you live, but the rest of the world loves parks. Homeless People in public library? Maybe ask your Government why that is.
    - suduudeueu 6y ago
      "The rest of the world" isn't the topic.
      - nix23 6y ago
        Everyone else but you....better?
        suduudeueu 6y ago
        Grammatically yes, in terms of relevance to the topic no.
      - awiesenhofer 6y ago
        well actually it is, a pandemic is by definition a global event, the shift to WFH/remote happens globally too
      - justinclift 6y ago
        Not sure why you're thinking that? HN audience is definitely global.
    - rdtwo 6y ago
      Because public institutions aren’t allowed to have decency standards in this country.
  - fxtentacle 6y ago
    My point was that parks can be truly good for the community. If that is not true for some parks in some parts of America, that seems more like a local problem to be fixed, rather than an issue with parks in general. In case you're not aware, there's plenty of people in the US who dislike the "all concrete walls" look of suburbia and instead would prefer more communal living areas - even within big cities - to be modeled after Italy or Singapore. So it makes a lot of sense to look at Singapore, even if you don't travel there yourself, for inspiration on how to combine skyscrapers and nature to make residents happy.
tomcam 6y ago
To be fair they double as ground-based needle disposal areas.
- nix23 6y ago
  Again...ask your government why drug addicts have to hide in parks, in zurich every public toilet has a needle disposal built in (in "hotspots" the access to the toilet is free, and if you stay longer than 30 minutes the alarm rings). You don't want addicts in your shiny public toilet? Well then you have em in the bushes (with the needle). You don't solve problem by banning the peoples with that problem, in fact you make it worse for everyone.
  - tomcam 6y ago
    Do the addicts have any responsibility for their actions?
    - nix23 6y ago
      Yes and No, that's not a easy question, hurt someone else? YES for sure. Being a addict or having psychological problem? NO. BTW: It's not about responsibility, it's about protecting the public and/or the Addict, do you think it changes anything if you tell the addict that he is responsible for something...man he has much bigger problems.
  - rdtwo 6y ago
    Ain’t nobody hiding here. Those guys have taken over it’s their space and you will get assaulted if you go anywhere near. On the west coast the addicts are bold and have taken over public spaces
    - nix23 6y ago
      We had the same problem here (biggest drug selling and consuming place of heroin in Europe and we solved 95% of it) https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/the-needle-park-_25-years-on-the-end-of-zurich-s-open-drugs-scene/42934308 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/the-needle-park-_25-years-on-th... Don't let them take over..help them, it's better for everyone.
grumple 6y ago
Public libraries are a treasure and the reason that a poor kid like me was able to learn, become more experienced with computers, and spend my time safely in a dangerous neighborhood while my mother worked. Public parks are great. Some are shitty, but we all need space to roam and play. Most parks are not in shitty, run down neighborhoods and don’t fit your stereotype.
- uzakov 6y ago
  Do you think your experience as a kid would have been different if you were a kid not back then but rather in 2020? If you have access to internet you can learn so much nowadays, obviously its a matter of having access to the internet, something not everyone has.
  - grumple 6y ago
    I was gifted an old laptop (even for back then) and used free dialup for some of high school at home (the old kind with ads). 15% of the US still has no internet access, but the situation has definitely improved. But I usually got to school early to use the computer lab and went to the library after school to read and use computers there. Today’s kids have different problems, such as the huge amounts of disinformation and manipulation in media. The information we find today is harder to trust; and the conversations we have online are less about discovery or debate and more about political allegiances or getting attention. Information I learned from books (with recommendations from my local librarian) was much more reliable imo, and the nature of books is such that they encourage more thorough understanding of their subjects. Now I can find nearly anything I need online, but that’s because I already have a huge amount of knowledge and know how to determine if a source is trustworthy. But man, if Khan Academy existed in my childhood...
    - uzakov 6y ago
      I did not know 15% of the population in the US still has no internet access, I assume mainly in rural areas? In regards to "and the conversations we have online are less about discovery or debate" I partly agree partly disagree. I am part of various internet forums and some of them are very Web 1.0 still: good conversations, you get to know some people well (I even met some IRL). Part of me thinks its about persons willingness to find information themselves. >Information I learned from books (with recommendations from my local librarian) was much more reliable imo, and the nature of books is such that they encourage more thorough understanding of their subjects. I agree, so many tech tutorials and articles are plain wrong.
rvp-x 6y ago
That's more to do with living in a bad area.
kace91 6y ago
what city are you dwelling where people don't use public parks and libraries? I'm not American but that's a concept as foreign to me as someone claiming they don't need roads because they're just for drunk drivers.
puranjay 6y ago
In countries with massive income inequality, public parks are usually the only places where everyone can congregate, regardless of income or status. I go for a walk in the park near my house and I see people hanging out there whose daily incomes are less than the price of a coffee and a sandwich at Starbucks. I think that's worth saving.
rdtwo 6y ago
What you describe is just poor city planning. Parks are put in places where they aren’t getting used sufficiently in kind of odd corners of the city where they get taken over by vagrant. In areas where parks are properly located and designed vagrants tend to be pushed out because residents use the space and put pressure on officials to keep it clean. As soon as that pressure comes off though the space becomes lost. It’s also very important not to provide services in areas near parks. The local library had a nice playground where the kids would do Easter egg hunts and play during the farmers market. During the pandemic they extended their wifi to cover the park and bam tents popped up and the space was lost. The entire block became unsafe. Then some do gooders showed up and started feeding the campers and bam now the entire area is wall to wall tents and they are overflowing to adjacent areas.
- tdeck 6y ago
  It's pretty gross how this comment just assumes that homeless people shouldn't count as residents of a city, and that the best solution to homelessness is to withhold services and force them out. People without a place to live are experiencing a constant state of emergency. It really sucks to lose the use of a park with your kids, but have some compassion.
  - rdtwo 6y ago
    I think too much compassion and inaction has really caused us to misalocate resources. If it were up to me I might open that park up now to people loosing housing, or homeless families with children that need some sort of internet to attempt the mess that is the school year. Instead we get a bunch of 20-30 year old men that have chosen the drug life and have taken over a public space though intimidation and violence. I don’t have a lot of compassion for that sort of behavior.
- fxtentacle 6y ago
  Reading this, I can't help but wonder: Maybe Italy and Singapore just have a lot less homeless than the US? In my experience, people camping in public places was mostly tourists, usually students. It might be that your experience is mostly due to you living in an area with very high income inequality.

fxtentacle 6y ago

Obviously, you don't play golf. Scratch that. Obviously, you've never been to Singapore. I have very fond memories of walking out of the air-conditioned shopping mall above the Waterfront MRT station and then walking through Mount Faber Park, Henderson Waves, Southern Ridges Park, Kent Ridge Park, and then back into an air-conditioned shopping mall at Kent Ridge MRT. I took one of those walks almost every day, and in many cases co-workers or friends decided to join, because with the MRT system it's just so easy to quickly zip over to nature in your lunch break. It's difficult to access this objectively, but I'm 100% convinced that this was a major factor in making my time in Singapore some of the most productive months I've ever had. Also in Italy, the town squares were usually full with families and the elderly, sipping coffee and reading newspapers. But it was well understood that just by being there, they signal that they're available for you to just talk to people. Again, I felt like the strong communal spirit of having talked to 100+ neighbors in your village was fantastic, even if you only did small-talk about the newspaper. Now if you could reduce the depression rate and related issues by 10% with a new well-maintained park. That'd be a significant GDP boost, so the economic value of such parks is probably in the billions of $$$.

suduudeueu 6y ago
How silly of me not to include "public golf parks", Italian town squares, and Singapore in a discussion about America. But then, there's nothing surprising about someone so privileged they can travel the globe having a loose grip on the reality being faced by most of the country.
- nix23 6y ago
  I don't know in which shit-place you live, but the rest of the world loves parks. Homeless People in public library? Maybe ask your Government why that is.
  - suduudeueu 6y ago
    "The rest of the world" isn't the topic.
    - nix23 6y ago
      Everyone else but you....better?
      - suduudeueu 6y ago
        Grammatically yes, in terms of relevance to the topic no.
    - awiesenhofer 6y ago
      well actually it is, a pandemic is by definition a global event, the shift to WFH/remote happens globally too
    - justinclift 6y ago
      Not sure why you're thinking that? HN audience is definitely global.
  - rdtwo 6y ago
    Because public institutions aren’t allowed to have decency standards in this country.
- fxtentacle 6y ago
  My point was that parks can be truly good for the community. If that is not true for some parks in some parts of America, that seems more like a local problem to be fixed, rather than an issue with parks in general. In case you're not aware, there's plenty of people in the US who dislike the "all concrete walls" look of suburbia and instead would prefer more communal living areas - even within big cities - to be modeled after Italy or Singapore. So it makes a lot of sense to look at Singapore, even if you don't travel there yourself, for inspiration on how to combine skyscrapers and nature to make residents happy.

tomcam 6y ago

To be fair they double as ground-based needle disposal areas.

nix23 6y ago
Again...ask your government why drug addicts have to hide in parks, in zurich every public toilet has a needle disposal built in (in "hotspots" the access to the toilet is free, and if you stay longer than 30 minutes the alarm rings). You don't want addicts in your shiny public toilet? Well then you have em in the bushes (with the needle). You don't solve problem by banning the peoples with that problem, in fact you make it worse for everyone.
- tomcam 6y ago
  Do the addicts have any responsibility for their actions?
  - nix23 6y ago
    Yes and No, that's not a easy question, hurt someone else? YES for sure. Being a addict or having psychological problem? NO. BTW: It's not about responsibility, it's about protecting the public and/or the Addict, do you think it changes anything if you tell the addict that he is responsible for something...man he has much bigger problems.
- rdtwo 6y ago
  Ain’t nobody hiding here. Those guys have taken over it’s their space and you will get assaulted if you go anywhere near. On the west coast the addicts are bold and have taken over public spaces
  - nix23 6y ago
    We had the same problem here (biggest drug selling and consuming place of heroin in Europe and we solved 95% of it) https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/the-needle-park-_25-years-on-the-end-of-zurich-s-open-drugs-scene/42934308 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/the-needle-park-_25-years-on-th... Don't let them take over..help them, it's better for everyone.

grumple 6y ago

Public libraries are a treasure and the reason that a poor kid like me was able to learn, become more experienced with computers, and spend my time safely in a dangerous neighborhood while my mother worked. Public parks are great. Some are shitty, but we all need space to roam and play. Most parks are not in shitty, run down neighborhoods and don’t fit your stereotype.

uzakov 6y ago
Do you think your experience as a kid would have been different if you were a kid not back then but rather in 2020? If you have access to internet you can learn so much nowadays, obviously its a matter of having access to the internet, something not everyone has.
- grumple 6y ago
  I was gifted an old laptop (even for back then) and used free dialup for some of high school at home (the old kind with ads). 15% of the US still has no internet access, but the situation has definitely improved. But I usually got to school early to use the computer lab and went to the library after school to read and use computers there. Today’s kids have different problems, such as the huge amounts of disinformation and manipulation in media. The information we find today is harder to trust; and the conversations we have online are less about discovery or debate and more about political allegiances or getting attention. Information I learned from books (with recommendations from my local librarian) was much more reliable imo, and the nature of books is such that they encourage more thorough understanding of their subjects. Now I can find nearly anything I need online, but that’s because I already have a huge amount of knowledge and know how to determine if a source is trustworthy. But man, if Khan Academy existed in my childhood...
  - uzakov 6y ago
    I did not know 15% of the population in the US still has no internet access, I assume mainly in rural areas? In regards to "and the conversations we have online are less about discovery or debate" I partly agree partly disagree. I am part of various internet forums and some of them are very Web 1.0 still: good conversations, you get to know some people well (I even met some IRL). Part of me thinks its about persons willingness to find information themselves. >Information I learned from books (with recommendations from my local librarian) was much more reliable imo, and the nature of books is such that they encourage more thorough understanding of their subjects. I agree, so many tech tutorials and articles are plain wrong.

rvp-x 6y ago

That's more to do with living in a bad area.

kace91 6y ago

what city are you dwelling where people don't use public parks and libraries? I'm not American but that's a concept as foreign to me as someone claiming they don't need roads because they're just for drunk drivers.

puranjay 6y ago

In countries with massive income inequality, public parks are usually the only places where everyone can congregate, regardless of income or status. I go for a walk in the park near my house and I see people hanging out there whose daily incomes are less than the price of a coffee and a sandwich at Starbucks. I think that's worth saving.

rdtwo 6y ago

What you describe is just poor city planning. Parks are put in places where they aren’t getting used sufficiently in kind of odd corners of the city where they get taken over by vagrant. In areas where parks are properly located and designed vagrants tend to be pushed out because residents use the space and put pressure on officials to keep it clean. As soon as that pressure comes off though the space becomes lost. It’s also very important not to provide services in areas near parks. The local library had a nice playground where the kids would do Easter egg hunts and play during the farmers market. During the pandemic they extended their wifi to cover the park and bam tents popped up and the space was lost. The entire block became unsafe. Then some do gooders showed up and started feeding the campers and bam now the entire area is wall to wall tents and they are overflowing to adjacent areas.

tdeck 6y ago
It's pretty gross how this comment just assumes that homeless people shouldn't count as residents of a city, and that the best solution to homelessness is to withhold services and force them out. People without a place to live are experiencing a constant state of emergency. It really sucks to lose the use of a park with your kids, but have some compassion.
- rdtwo 6y ago
  I think too much compassion and inaction has really caused us to misalocate resources. If it were up to me I might open that park up now to people loosing housing, or homeless families with children that need some sort of internet to attempt the mess that is the school year. Instead we get a bunch of 20-30 year old men that have chosen the drug life and have taken over a public space though intimidation and violence. I don’t have a lot of compassion for that sort of behavior.
fxtentacle 6y ago
Reading this, I can't help but wonder: Maybe Italy and Singapore just have a lot less homeless than the US? In my experience, people camping in public places was mostly tourists, usually students. It might be that your experience is mostly due to you living in an area with very high income inequality.