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For real. The US vastly underinvests in public goods. Everyone would be better off if we had attractive and free and plentiful public pools, recreation centers,

For real. The US vastly underinvests in public goods. Everyone would be better off if we had attractive and free and plentiful public pools, recreation centers, play grounds, and transportation. Instead we neglect these, so everyone wants a big backyard with a pool and expensive exercise equipment in the basement and two cars in the garage. It's massively inefficient. Why did we go down this path? Part of the answer is racism. See https://www.marketplace.org/2021/02/15/public-pools-used-to-be-everywhere-in-america-then-racism-shut-them-down/ https://www.marketplace.org/2021/02/15/public-pools-used-to-...

tenebrisalietum 6y ago
Public spaces are not places I like to be these days because: - someone's always playing music too loud, either from their car or their phone; - there seems to always be someone who is unwilling to control their children; - people get into fights, sometimes these escalate into serious safety issues. - someone is always trying to sell something or have unsolicited conversations about their religion; - recently in some places mentally ill people are doing unsafe things, such as drugs, etc. - people generally move around in fixed cliques and don't really interact beyond them - people are not socially conducive in this setting anyway. I'll say the public itself has decayed, likely due to economic factors, but no one is willing to fix that. So what's the point? If we're not going to fix the underlying social issues, I'd rather have multiple competing private spaces where someone can at least try to gateway out bad actors and there is some sort of incentive to enforce at least a minimum of behavior expectations for people within.
- BoorishBears 6y ago
  I don't see a single thing here that's a new problem. The loud boombox is an icon of the 90s, kids used to run around outside more, not less, people are less religious than ever... Sounds to me like we just have a new class of people who want an oasis from the untouchables, which is fine But we shouldn't let that stop us from investing in public spaces.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  What I'm hearing is that public places are not nice because not everyone treats them the way rich people treat public spaces. You list a bunch of complaints that seem reasonable individually but taken together basically boil down to complaining about the difference between rich and poor then end with a comment about how it might fix itself if everyone were better off (which seems uncomfortably close to "if we got rid of the poors"). Indeed many problems would be solved with money but the primary difference between your sentiment and the kind of sentiments that result in the authoritarian programs that are the subject of TFA is the willingness to use the jackboot as a means to bring about the end you desire. There's a fine line between preventing the park from turning into a homeless camp and using the police to systematically people for smoking weed at the park.
  - closeparen 6y ago
    And then activists turn around and complain that the rich are always cloistering themselves in private spaces, there’s no shared public space anymore. What did they think would happen? Rich families would actually bring their 4-year-olds to play among the tents and the smoke? Either we get a set of norms that allow people from different walks of life to coexist in the same spaces, or we wind up segregated.
  - sershe 6y ago
    Only a few things in GP are specific to poor; in fact some e.g. out-of-control children are more typical of the rich. Unless if course you are saying poor are the ones getting into fights or doing the unsolicited selling, in which case yes, enforce the rules and remove them regardless of their finances. "Complaints that seem reasonable individually" are still reasonable together, in fact much more important taken together. I don't like loud children, but I can put up with that. I can put up with loud music. I can put up with walking past a tent or two, maybe even with a fight nearby if I feel it's not going to spill over. At some point though, the threshold is crossed and I don't want to put up with these anymore. As far as fights, drugs, etc. I don't think the public has "degraded"; the root of the problem, I believe, is lack of enforcement of the rules. First, that allows shitty people (I don't care if they are poor or not) to get away with shitty things in the first place. Second, it has a cascading effect where such behavior is normalized. Third, it clearly communicates to everyone else that they are on their own when this kind of stuff happens. The logical response is to move away.
- Supermancho 6y ago
  > - someone's always playing music too loud, either from their car or their phone; Drug abuse masquerades as part of the homelessness problem in US urban areas throughout the USA. Many of the other things you list aren't true of public places anywhere in the US. Super-urban areas like Venice Beach CA or SoDo near Seattle, etc. you might get noise pollution, but I can't understand how this relates to "public places" in aggregate.
- wanderer2323 6y ago
  Your experiences match mine. There are multiple replies to your post that try to reframe the problems you highlight as a class struggle or dismiss them altogether, as if blasting music in public places should be an acceptable norm. I want to highlight that I agree with you. Investing in public spaces makes no sense when the intended use is going to be disrupted by default.
  - tenebrisalietum 6y ago
    Yes. I don't care about the economic status of anyone involved in my parent post and not sure why being one of "the poors" entitles one to act like that.
    - closeparen 6y ago
      There is an important difference between the kind of tolerance where you look past someone’s identity as long as they follow your norms, and the kind where you respect their culture including its (different) norms. This is an active, often generational culture-war front within the left.

tenebrisalietum 6y ago

Public spaces are not places I like to be these days because: - someone's always playing music too loud, either from their car or their phone; - there seems to always be someone who is unwilling to control their children; - people get into fights, sometimes these escalate into serious safety issues. - someone is always trying to sell something or have unsolicited conversations about their religion; - recently in some places mentally ill people are doing unsafe things, such as drugs, etc. - people generally move around in fixed cliques and don't really interact beyond them - people are not socially conducive in this setting anyway. I'll say the public itself has decayed, likely due to economic factors, but no one is willing to fix that. So what's the point? If we're not going to fix the underlying social issues, I'd rather have multiple competing private spaces where someone can at least try to gateway out bad actors and there is some sort of incentive to enforce at least a minimum of behavior expectations for people within.

BoorishBears 6y ago
I don't see a single thing here that's a new problem. The loud boombox is an icon of the 90s, kids used to run around outside more, not less, people are less religious than ever... Sounds to me like we just have a new class of people who want an oasis from the untouchables, which is fine But we shouldn't let that stop us from investing in public spaces.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
What I'm hearing is that public places are not nice because not everyone treats them the way rich people treat public spaces. You list a bunch of complaints that seem reasonable individually but taken together basically boil down to complaining about the difference between rich and poor then end with a comment about how it might fix itself if everyone were better off (which seems uncomfortably close to "if we got rid of the poors"). Indeed many problems would be solved with money but the primary difference between your sentiment and the kind of sentiments that result in the authoritarian programs that are the subject of TFA is the willingness to use the jackboot as a means to bring about the end you desire. There's a fine line between preventing the park from turning into a homeless camp and using the police to systematically people for smoking weed at the park.
- closeparen 6y ago
  And then activists turn around and complain that the rich are always cloistering themselves in private spaces, there’s no shared public space anymore. What did they think would happen? Rich families would actually bring their 4-year-olds to play among the tents and the smoke? Either we get a set of norms that allow people from different walks of life to coexist in the same spaces, or we wind up segregated.
- sershe 6y ago
  Only a few things in GP are specific to poor; in fact some e.g. out-of-control children are more typical of the rich. Unless if course you are saying poor are the ones getting into fights or doing the unsolicited selling, in which case yes, enforce the rules and remove them regardless of their finances. "Complaints that seem reasonable individually" are still reasonable together, in fact much more important taken together. I don't like loud children, but I can put up with that. I can put up with loud music. I can put up with walking past a tent or two, maybe even with a fight nearby if I feel it's not going to spill over. At some point though, the threshold is crossed and I don't want to put up with these anymore. As far as fights, drugs, etc. I don't think the public has "degraded"; the root of the problem, I believe, is lack of enforcement of the rules. First, that allows shitty people (I don't care if they are poor or not) to get away with shitty things in the first place. Second, it has a cascading effect where such behavior is normalized. Third, it clearly communicates to everyone else that they are on their own when this kind of stuff happens. The logical response is to move away.
Supermancho 6y ago
> - someone's always playing music too loud, either from their car or their phone; Drug abuse masquerades as part of the homelessness problem in US urban areas throughout the USA. Many of the other things you list aren't true of public places anywhere in the US. Super-urban areas like Venice Beach CA or SoDo near Seattle, etc. you might get noise pollution, but I can't understand how this relates to "public places" in aggregate.
wanderer2323 6y ago
Your experiences match mine. There are multiple replies to your post that try to reframe the problems you highlight as a class struggle or dismiss them altogether, as if blasting music in public places should be an acceptable norm. I want to highlight that I agree with you. Investing in public spaces makes no sense when the intended use is going to be disrupted by default.
- tenebrisalietum 6y ago
  Yes. I don't care about the economic status of anyone involved in my parent post and not sure why being one of "the poors" entitles one to act like that.
  - closeparen 6y ago
    There is an important difference between the kind of tolerance where you look past someone’s identity as long as they follow your norms, and the kind where you respect their culture including its (different) norms. This is an active, often generational culture-war front within the left.