4 ms·
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
by 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 agoIt'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 agoI 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 agoReading 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.
- rdtwo 6y agoThat might be part of it but also super liberal city.