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123 sats \ 16 replies \ @Undisciplined 10h \ on: Over-Regulation is Doubling the Cost - Peter Reinhardt Politics_And_Law
The example that most blew my mind was an estimate of the cost of street side parking requirements (in NYC, I think).
The opportunity cost of not using that space for its most productive use was similar to the expense of the entire welfare system in that city.
maybe it's a perfect example: the visceral anger of not being able to find parking is something that most people in the US have probably experienced, so when some joker comes along and says a skyscraper is a better use of that space, you just want to slap them.
Nonetheless, a car sitting empty on land that is otherwise worth millions of dollars is such a bad use of land. Make all parking private!
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I’m wondering how much parking problems in NYC would decrease, if the parking minimums were reduced or removed, and they started charging for street parking everywhere. Having lived in NYC for over four years, having a car there sounds like a nightmare. A bit of financial pressure would get some people to rid themselves of cars they don’t use, generate revenue for the city, and make parking easier for the people that want to keep their cars.
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If streets are owned by the city, on-street parking is a subsidy by the city to car users. Speaking as someone who grew up in US cities, we've very much been trained to be blind to this subsidy. So, really, it's not financial pressure, so much as removing a subsidy.
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This extends well beyond cities. The whole transport system would look very different without the enormous subsidies to roads.
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One of my favorite Futurama jokes was Fry explaining that nobody drove in NYC because there was too much traffic.
Try this on for size: most major metros probably shouldn’t have any roads at all.
Just think how viscerally annoying that would be!
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While I love the idea, roads seem like a pretty early invention in human history. Maybe we only invented them because we didn't know how to build big enough buildings, but I'd wager that even if we made buildings the size of cities, they'd have roadwats inside them. Bodies need blood vessels.
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From what I understand, it’s not that there would be no car access at all, but that there would be much more limited throughways and much larger vehicle free spaces.
Basically, vehicle access to get you close but not to directly access everywhere.
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Yeah, there are things like that in lots of places. I'm sure they're still a creation of the state, but I suspect that's a closer approximation to what a true free market would yield.
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Or big ass conveyer belts!
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They’d probably be covered.
I think downtown areas would be highly connected, almost like one giant building.
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