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Meanwhile, California is also trying to build housing near transit, but Menlo Park wants to preserve the character of downtown by preserving dirty, cracked, fla
by rconti 7mo ago
Meanwhile, California is also trying to build housing near transit, but Menlo Park wants to preserve the character of downtown by preserving dirty, cracked, flat, surface-level parking lots like it's 1950.
- ctdinjeu2 7mo ago[dead]
- strbean 7mo agoTo be fair, parking structures always look and feel pretty distopian. I like the approach of making downtowns walkable and having a bit of parking at the periphery of downtown, along with good public transit. Encourages people to use public transit to get to town in the first place. Downtown residents can use transit or a zipcar or equivalent when the need to get out of town, instead of devoting a ton of space downtown for storing their cars. Not sure if that approach is really practical, but if it can be made to work it is much nicer.
- rconti 7mo agoWell, in Menlo Park they're just flat surface parking lots, not even multi-story structures. The planned development is multi-story housing with parking underneath. To be fair, I am boycotting the (similar) underground garage over at Springline because they're clearly made only for people in Range Rovers or whatever. They have those AWFUL ticket machines, set too far back (to avoid getting hit) and too high to access from a normal car.
- odyssey7 7mo agoIs the Bay Area really dealing with ticket machines? The global capital of technology? Just bill by plate or something.
- idontwantthis 7mo agoOr develop 12 competing apps that each only work in different lots.
- amarant 7mo agoA fellow Swede I presume? It's extra silly cause I once parked in central Oslo and got the ticket mailed to my sthlm address. No fuss, no problem, super easy! We got a lot to learn from our neighbours....
- terminalshort 7mo agoSuper easy unless you have moved recently, then you don't get the bill and end up years later in collections for the original amount plus a million late fees added on.
- amarant 7mo agoNah it arrives electronically to kivra, which is like email except you log in with your social security number and it's only for "official business" like invoices and whatnot.
- terminalshort 7mo agoThat sounds great! In the US the phrase you used "mailed to my sthlm address" would never mean anything other than physically sending a paper bill to your house.
- amarant 7mo agoYeah I phrased that wrong. I wanted to emphasize that I don't live in Norway. I found it extra impressive that it worked so seamlessly even with a foreign car. Oh well.
- strbean 7mo ago
- thaumasiotes 7mo ago> They have those AWFUL ticket machines, set too far back (to avoid getting hit) and too high to access from a normal car. Are you sure it's the ticket machines? Around here, the ticket machines have stayed the same, but it's now impossible to use them without stopping the car and getting out, because car manufacturers have decided I need eight inches of empty space between myself and the side of the car.
- tadfisher 7mo agoThat eight inches is called "side impact protection" and, while it sucks to not be able to comfortably rest your arm on the window sill, it is pretty important to have in the event of an impact to the side.
- thaumasiotes 7mo agoI liked it when my car could fit inside a parking space, personally.
- cucumber3732842 7mo agoSafety people: <Ruins cars> Also safety people: "These goddamn consumers have started buying SUVs" I'm not saying this is you personally but the trend is pretty goddamn clear.
- tadfisher 7mo agoI drive a 90s Miata. Trust me, I hate the SUV trend as much as anyone else, and I also recognize that car design from the 90s is not exactly the pinnacle of crash safety.
- CyberDildonics 7mo agoI don't know if that's a boycott, or just going some place you like better.
- rconti 7mo agoI park on the street for free. (The lot is also free in monetary cost, for the short windows I'd park there, but the hassle is larger than the hassle of finding street parking).
- QuiEgo 7mo ago> To be fair, parking structures always look and feel pretty distopian. What a lot of the new buildings in Austin are doing is putting an attached garage directly behind a 4 + 1 mixed use development - the street-facing facade is the apartments and shops, and the garage is directly behind (and usually attached) to the apartments. You basically never see them.
- narrator 7mo ago[flagged]
- hombre_fatal 7mo agoI think this is a bunch of retrospective justification when the truth is that home-owners vote against supply expansion measures that may decreases their home value (their main investment). Just like how people pretend "I'm actually super concerned about emergency vehicles" when it comes to replacing a car lane with a bus/bike lane. It sounds better than admitting they don't want to be inconvenienced, they'd rather have an extra car lane than someone else get a bus/bike lane, etc. So the hand waving begins. Austin is unique even in Texas for its aggressive construction boom + decreased rent, so it's not even a Texas thing.
- dmitrygr 7mo ago[dead]
- mcmcmc 7mo ago> In California people are very scared of poor people because they tend to commit more crime and the justice system refuses to prosecute and imprision them, especially if they are criminally insane. Funny to read this when it’s common knowledge the rich commit so much tax evasion the IRS doesn’t bother investigating, and tech billionaires like Thiel are regularly abusing hard drugs and spewing unhinged theories about the end times and an AI god. You can just say you don’t like poor people. You don’t have to use some statistical fallacy that supports your confirmation bias. The reality is that the visibility of criminal acts is inversely correlated with income. Why would a rich criminal spray paint graffiti on a building when they’re making so much money off white collar crime that they can just buy it and do whatever they want? That’s not even getting into all of the things that should be crimes but aren’t, because the ultra wealthy and their megacorps can legally bribe politicians to their hearts content. Or the child sex trafficking. Epstein’s buddies weren’t living rough.
- narrator 7mo ago[flagged]
- alephnerd 7mo agoMenlo Park isn't comparable to Austin though - Austin's equivalent of Menlo Park would be a country club CDP in the Austin Hills like Rob Roy. A better comparison would be ATX against San Jose. Just like how the "rich" residents of Santa Clara county know that you want to live in Campbell, Los Gatos, Menlo Park, Los Altos, Loyola, etc, similarly rich Texans and Austinites live in the Hills. The reality is the residents of Menlo Park and Rob Roy don't want your type, and in a lot of cases tend to be the same people as there aren't many places left where you can trail run, bike, eat Michelin star ramen, and not pay income tax. Just because we make good money in tech, it doesn't make us "them". I highly recommend reading the works of Pierre Bourdieu with regards to cultural capital.
- onlyrealcuzzo 7mo agoMenlo Park has a higher population density than Austin... The majority of it is not Bel Air...
- alephnerd 7mo ago> The majority of it is not Bel Air... Menlo Park was never a "middle class" town. The 101 was always the (literal) redline. The median household income is $210K [0] and it's the same demographic, unlike historically lower middle class but now upper middle class San Mateo [1]. A Menlo Park home address that is on the correct side of the 101 opens the same doors in the Bay that a Bel Air address does in Los Angeles or an Austin Hills address does in Austin. Rich doesn't equal conspicuous, especially in the Bay Area - "Wealth is quiet, rich is loud, poor is flashy" [0] - https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/menloparkcitycalifornia/PST045224 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/menloparkcityca... [1] - https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanmateocitycalifornia,menloparkcitycalifornia/PST045224 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanmateocitycal...
- iknowstuff 7mo agoWhich side is the rich side?
- wcfrobert 7mo agoNIMBYism has never been about preserving neighborhood characteristic, or noise and traffic concerns. Menlo Park is not Big Sur. Sure, some concerns are reasonable and should be investigated, but most of the time they're bureaucratic distractions that's been weaponized by people who want to delay progress and protect their investment. For most Americans, A house is their primary savings account, retirement plan, and probably where they keep majority of their wealth. We don't build new housing in old neighborhoods because it would de-value the investment of too many people. Until we can solve this problem (where people are incentivized to pull the ladder up behind them), we will always have housing shortages. It's just too profitable.
- BenFranklin100 7mo agoIt’s going to take a SCOTUS decision overturning Ambler vs Euclid in my opinion. We certainly will not see zoning reform until the Boomers die.
- terminalshort 7mo agoHate to be the bearer of bad news here, but the boomers will never die. Gen X will become the new boomers, and then the millennials after them. Individual people die, but interests stay the same.
- TimorousBestie 7mo agoYeah, but the inverted pyramid demographics can’t last forever.
- BenFranklin100 7mo agoThere’s a lot of truth here, but two countervailing points: first younger generations own homes than Boomers at equivalent ages; second Boomers are particularly blind to the effects of zoning and strongly oppose development due to see firsthand the effects of 1950s urban redevelopment. They also love cars. Us younger generations will have seen firsthand the negative effects of zoning, we do not possess a visceral opposition to development, and there is much greater appreciation of walkable neighborhoods.
- manquer 7mo agoTo be fair it is not the city/elected officials who wants to retain the parking lots. The downtown redevelopment would probably make the city a lot of money. It is the businesses around downtown who are pushing the save downtown campaign. I imagine the businesses contribute a fair chunk of revenue to the city now and have some influence . Relative to say parts of Redwood City, or Palo Alto. Menlo park has a fair amount of student-ish 4 Unit lots, so it not all zoned SFU.
- rconti 7mo agoTBF a lot of the complaints are coming from businesses that are _probably_ renting. There is absolutely the chance that their business will go under due to construction disruptions before they can benefit from the increased foot traffic once the development is complete. And, of course, once the development is complete, and the value of their land goes up, so too does their rent....
- manquer 7mo agoIt is just not rent that will go up. Menlo Park today has free and ample parking downtown. RWC is paid parking anywhere within few blocks of downtown, all the garages are paid, the garage on Jefferson Av charges more on Sundays. Same thing in San Mateo downtown.
- jojobas 7mo agoIf you owned a 600sqm allotment in Menlo Park surely you'd want it to stay a parking lot and not become vibrant apartment blocks.
- 1-6 7mo agoI don't expect Menlo Park to keep it character for long as Silicon Valley CEOs are fleeing the state.
- nout 7mo agoMenlo Park people are pretending that they are Atherton.
- testfrequency 7mo agoTIL Menlo Park claims to have a personality
- phendrenad2 7mo agoBabies throw tantrums, your job as a parent is to not give in to their demands. But California has a weakened state government due to the governor's will-he-wont-he bid for higher office some time between now and 2092, he's afraid to make waves. If it were me I'd say: you need more housing. And if the fine people of Menlo Park say no, then let them maintain El Camino Real themselves. A home depot employee will be by to unlock the shovel cage for you shortly.
- KolibriFly 7mo agoAustin's example shows what happens when a city actually follows through and allows density where it makes sense