4 ms·

I live an extremely democratic leaning city and they basically suck at everything. Yard waste has sat on my curb for 2 months now because I guess they just don

by treis 4y ago

I live an extremely democratic leaning city and they basically suck at everything. Yard waste has sat on my curb for 2 months now because I guess they just don't feel like picking it up any more. Equipment has been broken in my local playground for nearly a year now. The only one that actually picks up trash in my local park in an organized fashion is the Libertarian Party of all people. And I could go on. There's no right crafting policy to kneecap the city's ability to function as a city.

rootusrootus 4y ago
Cities have different problems from the federal government, usually funding being the big one. Even a Democratic city that overall favors good government will have problems being effective without sufficient funds to pull it off. I do wonder why your city government is in charge of yard waste, though? I've lived a lot of places, mostly very liberal, and it's always been a private company hauling away trash/recycle/yard debris.
- treis 4y ago
  >Cities have different problems from the federal government, usually funding being the big one. Even a Democratic city that overall favors good government will have problems being effective without sufficient funds to pull it off. We've got 25 million to build a bridge to a sports stadium. Think we could find $100 a week to pay someone to pick up trash for 4 hours. >I do wonder why your city government is in charge of yard waste, though? I've lived a lot of places, mostly very liberal, and it's always been a private company hauling away trash/recycle/yard debris. Because my city is not good at being a city.
  - trs8080 4y ago
    > We've got 25 million to build a bridge to a sports stadium Sports stadiums are massive sources of revenue for cities. > Think we could find $100 a week to pay someone to pick up trash for 4 hours. It takes more than one person working four hours a week to collect garbage for an entire city.
    - treis 4y ago
      >Sports stadiums are massive sources of revenue for cities. That's not true. They're almost always a net loss and either way I'm not talking about the money that went to the stadium. I'm talking about the money spent on building a single pedestrian bridge to that stadium. >It takes more than one person working four hours a week to collect garbage for an entire city. Obviously I meant 4 hours a week picking up trash in a single park.
      - moistly 4y ago
        I think your problems must stem from astounding levels of corruption. I’m up in a small town in British Columbia, population circa 40K. Our compost is collected weekly; our recycling and garbage biweekly (garbage used to be weekly but they’ve supplied us with humongous wheeled bins now); our landfill separates trash by kind, sells what can be recycled, and keeps track of where it buried the rest; we have a massive composting facility that sells its end product; our sewer treatment plant sends its output to ranchland spray irrigation and golf courses. In the spring and fall, a chipping truck comes along and mulches any tree trimmings. We maintain our infrastructure. Old underground services are regularly upgraded on schedule. Roads are resurfaced when they’re worn. Our downtown core was beautified a few years ago, with new trees, brickwork, etc. Down at the beaches, cottonwood trees are removed when they become hazardous; new trees are planted. Our parks are clean, despite the homeless living in them. Heck, we built several apartment buildings for those homeless that have their life together enough to qualify for residency (though provincial funding assisted on this.) Over the past twenty or thirty years we’ve build a new swimming pool/rec centre; a multi-sheet ice rink; a truly excellent performing arts centre; acres of new park; a new track-and-field venue; removed a decrepit and failing arena; and are in the process of building out a new arena/outdoor sports centre. The only thing we’ve completely failed to implement is a new art gallery. We do have a homeless problem (our weather is very nice) and there is a heck of a drugs problem (a lot of weed was grown around here back in the day, and there’s an undercurrent of gang activity involving the hard drugs). But on the whole, it’s a very laidback, safe, well-run community of caring people. It’s sad that your town is a failure. It must be corruption, because surely you have people who can administer with competency comparable to my town.
  - InefficientRed 4y ago
    > We've got 25 million to build a bridge to a sports stadium. Think we could find $100 a week to pay someone to pick up trash for 4 hours. TBF this one isn't government specific. It's often easier to fund a debt instrument for a big initiative than to find a revenue stream for a small obvious win. This happens in large companies, too, btw. You argue for years to consistently invest a small amount in something, the investment is never made, and then the company ends up acquiring to save itself from that exact underinvestemnt.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > I do wonder why your city government is in charge of yard waste, though? I've lived a lot of places, mostly very liberal, and it's always been a private company hauling away trash/recycle/yard debris. City run trash collection is totally a thing in some areas, and it actually makes sense if done well. I once lived in a conservative city that had it (and did it well). Where I live now, we have private trash collection. That meant we had dozens of garbage trucks from different companies driving through the neighborhood on every trash day, until one of my neighbors organized everyone to switch to one single company.
  - swearwolf 4y ago
    In my experience, you’ll typically find the most inefficiency when private companies have been contracted to do this kind of work. Theoretically, they should be incentivized to be more efficient, otherwise they might lose their contract. However, because the contracting process offers so many opportunities for people to trade favors, in reality once a company has the contract they’re effectively locked in. At that point, their incentive is to do the bare minimum possible to keep their own costs down and their profits high.
  - jdmichal 4y ago
    Interestingly, my neighborhood was mostly on a single company, due to several HOAs banding together and negotiating a group deal. But the company has now announced that it will no longer be honoring the group discount, so it's probably going to fracture again.
swearwolf 4y ago
I would push back on the idea that there’s no right crafting policy to kneecap the city’s ability to function as a city. I don’t think they have to, because a lot of the techniques they might use to do so have already been fully absorbed by even the left leaning politicians in this country. For example, a lot of cities sub-contract all kinds of things they could be doing directly with city employees in the name of efficiency. However, in doing so, they often end up creating additional management layers that end up slowing down the work, all in the service of a marginally lower cost. This is neoliberal thinking, and it is pervasive across just about every level of government across the United States.
nouveaux 4y ago
I too live in an extremely democratic leaning city and the only time my waste has not been picked up was when I forgot to push it out to the curb. Even the brightest among the HN crowd can fall into the trap that "The other side is incompetent." There are geniuses and idiots on both sides. If your city is poorly run, its not because your city is run by one party over the other. It's because the people running your city is competent at running a campaign and incompetent at running a city. There's not much more to it than that. BTW, the people picking up trash in our neighborhood are bleeding heart liberals.

by treis 4y ago

rootusrootus 4y ago

Cities have different problems from the federal government, usually funding being the big one. Even a Democratic city that overall favors good government will have problems being effective without sufficient funds to pull it off. I do wonder why your city government is in charge of yard waste, though? I've lived a lot of places, mostly very liberal, and it's always been a private company hauling away trash/recycle/yard debris.

treis 4y ago
>Cities have different problems from the federal government, usually funding being the big one. Even a Democratic city that overall favors good government will have problems being effective without sufficient funds to pull it off. We've got 25 million to build a bridge to a sports stadium. Think we could find $100 a week to pay someone to pick up trash for 4 hours. >I do wonder why your city government is in charge of yard waste, though? I've lived a lot of places, mostly very liberal, and it's always been a private company hauling away trash/recycle/yard debris. Because my city is not good at being a city.
- trs8080 4y ago
  > We've got 25 million to build a bridge to a sports stadium Sports stadiums are massive sources of revenue for cities. > Think we could find $100 a week to pay someone to pick up trash for 4 hours. It takes more than one person working four hours a week to collect garbage for an entire city.
  - treis 4y ago
    >Sports stadiums are massive sources of revenue for cities. That's not true. They're almost always a net loss and either way I'm not talking about the money that went to the stadium. I'm talking about the money spent on building a single pedestrian bridge to that stadium. >It takes more than one person working four hours a week to collect garbage for an entire city. Obviously I meant 4 hours a week picking up trash in a single park.
    - moistly 4y ago
      I think your problems must stem from astounding levels of corruption. I’m up in a small town in British Columbia, population circa 40K. Our compost is collected weekly; our recycling and garbage biweekly (garbage used to be weekly but they’ve supplied us with humongous wheeled bins now); our landfill separates trash by kind, sells what can be recycled, and keeps track of where it buried the rest; we have a massive composting facility that sells its end product; our sewer treatment plant sends its output to ranchland spray irrigation and golf courses. In the spring and fall, a chipping truck comes along and mulches any tree trimmings. We maintain our infrastructure. Old underground services are regularly upgraded on schedule. Roads are resurfaced when they’re worn. Our downtown core was beautified a few years ago, with new trees, brickwork, etc. Down at the beaches, cottonwood trees are removed when they become hazardous; new trees are planted. Our parks are clean, despite the homeless living in them. Heck, we built several apartment buildings for those homeless that have their life together enough to qualify for residency (though provincial funding assisted on this.) Over the past twenty or thirty years we’ve build a new swimming pool/rec centre; a multi-sheet ice rink; a truly excellent performing arts centre; acres of new park; a new track-and-field venue; removed a decrepit and failing arena; and are in the process of building out a new arena/outdoor sports centre. The only thing we’ve completely failed to implement is a new art gallery. We do have a homeless problem (our weather is very nice) and there is a heck of a drugs problem (a lot of weed was grown around here back in the day, and there’s an undercurrent of gang activity involving the hard drugs). But on the whole, it’s a very laidback, safe, well-run community of caring people. It’s sad that your town is a failure. It must be corruption, because surely you have people who can administer with competency comparable to my town.
- InefficientRed 4y ago
  > We've got 25 million to build a bridge to a sports stadium. Think we could find $100 a week to pay someone to pick up trash for 4 hours. TBF this one isn't government specific. It's often easier to fund a debt instrument for a big initiative than to find a revenue stream for a small obvious win. This happens in large companies, too, btw. You argue for years to consistently invest a small amount in something, the investment is never made, and then the company ends up acquiring to save itself from that exact underinvestemnt.
tablespoon 4y ago
> I do wonder why your city government is in charge of yard waste, though? I've lived a lot of places, mostly very liberal, and it's always been a private company hauling away trash/recycle/yard debris. City run trash collection is totally a thing in some areas, and it actually makes sense if done well. I once lived in a conservative city that had it (and did it well). Where I live now, we have private trash collection. That meant we had dozens of garbage trucks from different companies driving through the neighborhood on every trash day, until one of my neighbors organized everyone to switch to one single company.
- swearwolf 4y ago
  In my experience, you’ll typically find the most inefficiency when private companies have been contracted to do this kind of work. Theoretically, they should be incentivized to be more efficient, otherwise they might lose their contract. However, because the contracting process offers so many opportunities for people to trade favors, in reality once a company has the contract they’re effectively locked in. At that point, their incentive is to do the bare minimum possible to keep their own costs down and their profits high.
- jdmichal 4y ago
  Interestingly, my neighborhood was mostly on a single company, due to several HOAs banding together and negotiating a group deal. But the company has now announced that it will no longer be honoring the group discount, so it's probably going to fracture again.

swearwolf 4y ago

I would push back on the idea that there’s no right crafting policy to kneecap the city’s ability to function as a city. I don’t think they have to, because a lot of the techniques they might use to do so have already been fully absorbed by even the left leaning politicians in this country. For example, a lot of cities sub-contract all kinds of things they could be doing directly with city employees in the name of efficiency. However, in doing so, they often end up creating additional management layers that end up slowing down the work, all in the service of a marginally lower cost. This is neoliberal thinking, and it is pervasive across just about every level of government across the United States.

nouveaux 4y ago

I too live in an extremely democratic leaning city and the only time my waste has not been picked up was when I forgot to push it out to the curb. Even the brightest among the HN crowd can fall into the trap that "The other side is incompetent." There are geniuses and idiots on both sides. If your city is poorly run, its not because your city is run by one party over the other. It's because the people running your city is competent at running a campaign and incompetent at running a city. There's not much more to it than that. BTW, the people picking up trash in our neighborhood are bleeding heart liberals.