5 ms·

That is the whole POINT. You don't pick up your house and move it every time you need to go to a grocery store(unless you live in your car, which many do), but

by mym1990 3y ago

That is the whole POINT. You don't pick up your house and move it every time you need to go to a grocery store(unless you live in your car, which many do), but that is exactly what you do with a vehicle. This means that the infrastructure needed to support the vehicle is actually massively more extensive than just the vehicle, leaving a footprint that is much bigger than just the car, and impacts almost all facets of day to day life.

josephcsible 3y ago
> You don't pick up your house and move it every time you need to go to a grocery store You are to your house as your car is to your driveway. You don't dig up your driveway and bring it with you every time you drive somewhere.
- mym1990 3y ago
  You just argued against yourself though, because in a theoretical sense that is exactly what you do. If you don't have a parking space available at the location you are going to, a "public driveway" so to speak, you are not able to leave the car there. Now you could make a similar point about short term living situations like hotels, but I would imagine that the number of people who regularly stay in hotels is much lower than the number of people who own and operate a vehicle regularly.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    The point is that it's not any different than the living space itself. If you go from home to work, you need an office to be in while you're there in addition to a parking space, and for that time both your home and the parking space at your home are empty. But they're counting the parking space at the office and not the office space there.
    - orwin 3y ago
      I don't need a parking space at my office. Never needed one.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        So either you park your car at the train station, and then the train station needs a parking space for you and according to this math it still counts as another one even if it's outside the city. Or you live within walking distance of mass transit, which most people can't because there isn't enough relevant land zoned for that kind of high density development for everyone to live in even if they wanted to. But I'll do you one better. If you work from home you don't need the parking space or the office space.
    - mym1990 3y ago
      I don't know where you work, but I haven't had an office all to myself ever, a desk is pretty much all I have ever been allotted, and it has usually been an open one at that. I have one place to go to work(usually). But I have almost countless places I could go for shopping or experiences...and that is where the parking problem arises. ...If I did have a house, my driveway would not be open to others, so either you have an empty plot of driveway, or a car that is not being used in it...both of those things are not productive. My "empty" house still has utility. My family could be using it. It is storing all of my possessions. It is a source of comfort for knowing I have a place to go to rest. Anyways, the productivity footprint of shared spaces is very different from those that are exclusively mine, and spaces that are exclusively mine are very limited...essentially my home and my car. I'm not arguing that everyone ditch their cars and start biking to work, American infrastructure is not there, but the time I have spent in cities that do have this infrastructure have been absolutely wonderful.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > I don't know where you work, but I haven't had an office all to myself ever, a desk is pretty much all I have ever been allotted You don't just need a desk. You need a desk in addition to your share of a series of hallways that go to your desk, an elevator, a staircase, conference rooms, a lunch room etc. More to the point, even if your desk is small, it's not literally zero, but that's how it's being accounted for. > and it has usually been an open one at that. The building's parking lot will generally be sized according to size of the space (i.e. the number of desks), so this also means that you don't have your own parking space. > ...If I did have a house, my driveway would not be open to others, so either you have an empty plot of driveway, or a car that is not being used in it...both of those things are not productive. If you did have a house, it would commonly be in an area zoned to require each plot to have an acre of land. An acre is more than 40,000 square feet. Nobody cares about 320 square feet for a parking space when it's sitting next to >35,000 square feet of grass. > I'm not arguing that everyone ditch their cars and start biking to work, American infrastructure is not there, but the time I have spent in cities that do have this infrastructure have been absolutely wonderful. The thing preventing this isn't that we have so many parking spaces. You could add a hundred million more parking spaces at strip malls and things and it would use up 0.04% of the land in the continental US and be totally irrelevant. The thing preventing this is the zoning de facto requiring each house in the suburbs to have 35,000 square feet of grass.
giantg2 3y ago
"This means that the infrastructure needed to support..." ... the offices, schools, stores, etc is much larger than just a house. All the heating cooling, plumbing, etc and it sits empty most of the time (and you have to walk/drive past those regardless of their parking infrastructure). I fully get the point they are making. The thing the grandparent was talking about is that the argument could just as easily apply to the building spaces themselves rather than only the parking. Given this and the host of other categorical differences in parking vs occupied structures does in my view make the comparison "absurd". In general, this article is using a lot of numbers to make arguments that are really emotionally based.
- mym1990 3y ago
  Certainly the notion that parking could just be replaced by housing(or anything else) in the snap of a finger is a stretch. The initial idea of the American dream and the single family home almost has to lead to a reliance on cars, especially in the suburbs(or did the advent of the car lead to the single family home dream?). Anyways, my point is that the buildings are productive, whether it be a school or a store or a home, but a parking space less so. Many communities have been able to use mass transportation alongside infra for bicycles/mopeds/scooters to make living in a city/town very enjoyable(but this isn't really what the article is getting at).

josephcsible 3y ago

> You don't pick up your house and move it every time you need to go to a grocery store You are to your house as your car is to your driveway. You don't dig up your driveway and bring it with you every time you drive somewhere.

mym1990 3y ago
You just argued against yourself though, because in a theoretical sense that is exactly what you do. If you don't have a parking space available at the location you are going to, a "public driveway" so to speak, you are not able to leave the car there. Now you could make a similar point about short term living situations like hotels, but I would imagine that the number of people who regularly stay in hotels is much lower than the number of people who own and operate a vehicle regularly.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  The point is that it's not any different than the living space itself. If you go from home to work, you need an office to be in while you're there in addition to a parking space, and for that time both your home and the parking space at your home are empty. But they're counting the parking space at the office and not the office space there.
  - orwin 3y ago
    I don't need a parking space at my office. Never needed one.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      So either you park your car at the train station, and then the train station needs a parking space for you and according to this math it still counts as another one even if it's outside the city. Or you live within walking distance of mass transit, which most people can't because there isn't enough relevant land zoned for that kind of high density development for everyone to live in even if they wanted to. But I'll do you one better. If you work from home you don't need the parking space or the office space.
  - mym1990 3y ago
    I don't know where you work, but I haven't had an office all to myself ever, a desk is pretty much all I have ever been allotted, and it has usually been an open one at that. I have one place to go to work(usually). But I have almost countless places I could go for shopping or experiences...and that is where the parking problem arises. ...If I did have a house, my driveway would not be open to others, so either you have an empty plot of driveway, or a car that is not being used in it...both of those things are not productive. My "empty" house still has utility. My family could be using it. It is storing all of my possessions. It is a source of comfort for knowing I have a place to go to rest. Anyways, the productivity footprint of shared spaces is very different from those that are exclusively mine, and spaces that are exclusively mine are very limited...essentially my home and my car. I'm not arguing that everyone ditch their cars and start biking to work, American infrastructure is not there, but the time I have spent in cities that do have this infrastructure have been absolutely wonderful.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > I don't know where you work, but I haven't had an office all to myself ever, a desk is pretty much all I have ever been allotted You don't just need a desk. You need a desk in addition to your share of a series of hallways that go to your desk, an elevator, a staircase, conference rooms, a lunch room etc. More to the point, even if your desk is small, it's not literally zero, but that's how it's being accounted for. > and it has usually been an open one at that. The building's parking lot will generally be sized according to size of the space (i.e. the number of desks), so this also means that you don't have your own parking space. > ...If I did have a house, my driveway would not be open to others, so either you have an empty plot of driveway, or a car that is not being used in it...both of those things are not productive. If you did have a house, it would commonly be in an area zoned to require each plot to have an acre of land. An acre is more than 40,000 square feet. Nobody cares about 320 square feet for a parking space when it's sitting next to >35,000 square feet of grass. > I'm not arguing that everyone ditch their cars and start biking to work, American infrastructure is not there, but the time I have spent in cities that do have this infrastructure have been absolutely wonderful. The thing preventing this isn't that we have so many parking spaces. You could add a hundred million more parking spaces at strip malls and things and it would use up 0.04% of the land in the continental US and be totally irrelevant. The thing preventing this is the zoning de facto requiring each house in the suburbs to have 35,000 square feet of grass.

giantg2 3y ago

"This means that the infrastructure needed to support..." ... the offices, schools, stores, etc is much larger than just a house. All the heating cooling, plumbing, etc and it sits empty most of the time (and you have to walk/drive past those regardless of their parking infrastructure). I fully get the point they are making. The thing the grandparent was talking about is that the argument could just as easily apply to the building spaces themselves rather than only the parking. Given this and the host of other categorical differences in parking vs occupied structures does in my view make the comparison "absurd". In general, this article is using a lot of numbers to make arguments that are really emotionally based.

mym1990 3y ago
Certainly the notion that parking could just be replaced by housing(or anything else) in the snap of a finger is a stretch. The initial idea of the American dream and the single family home almost has to lead to a reliance on cars, especially in the suburbs(or did the advent of the car lead to the single family home dream?). Anyways, my point is that the buildings are productive, whether it be a school or a store or a home, but a parking space less so. Many communities have been able to use mass transportation alongside infra for bicycles/mopeds/scooters to make living in a city/town very enjoyable(but this isn't really what the article is getting at).