By Zach Varnell
When municipalities embrace new technologies, people often refer to them as “smart cities.” However, all too often these technological “revenue enhancers” are nothing more than shakedowns of local citizens.
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110 sats \ 4 replies \ @SimpleStacker 25 Jul
I was pretty surprised to see an article on mises.org complain about dynamic pricing. But I guess when it's dynamically set by a monopolist, then that's the bad part? Or maybe it's the intrusion of technology into our private lives? That being said, what expectation of privacy should there be when you want to participate in a market? We reveal personal consumption details to vendors all the time in order to transact goods and services.
But I'm sympathetic to the author. I've personally been the victim of what I consider an unjust application of automated ticket-issuing red light cameras. They're too rigid and not cognizant of road conditions. For example, if you're going fast because you expect the yellow to last longer, then it suddenly turns red, isn't it safer to just keep going rather than come to a sudden stop--which may endanger the person driving behind you?
In any case, technological integration in city life & urban planning is here to stay. We just need to make sure it's implemented in a sensible and least intrusive manner.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 25 Jul
I was similarly surprised. It seemed like the through line was how these different schemes made economic sense superficially, but the implementations had very perverse outcomes.
Big picture, I feel like the point is that central planning still doesn't work, even if it's dressed up like market mechanisms.
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Satosora 25 Jul
You should have seen how intrusive it was in Taiwan.
Cameras everywhere!
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41 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 25 Jul
Are you from Taiwan? I don't remember too many red light cameras during in my time there, but maybe I wasn't paying attention.
I visited China two years ago and driving around, it felt like a camera flash was going off every 2 city blocks!
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 25 Jul
I just left Taiwan.
They have a lot of cameras everywhere.
They were talking about using cameras to target jwalkers.
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53 sats \ 1 reply \ @BitcoinAbhi 26 Jul
'Smart Cities' won't be smart in 20 years because of technological advancements. There will be another spending on this propoganda. In my View 'City' is a propoganda. People in my country keep on saying that they will go to big cities and be rich but when they go there, they only get pollution, unsafe environment, lot of suffocation and fall in the vicious trap of money suckers. They never get rich but they become slaves of the system.
I believe in making our villages smart enough and providing people with facilities there.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 26 Jul
I definitely wouldn't expect anyone to get rich from going to the city. I thought it was a sort of income insurance for the family. One of the unmarried sons finds work in the city and sends some of that money home so that they have some income in the event of a bad harvest.
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43 sats \ 0 replies \ @Athena 26 Jul
Politicians make these plannings only to show off that they really like the welfare but instead they do it for imposing taxes! Intentions of welfare are nowhere in the 'Smart Cities'.
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32 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE 26 Jul
We call it a master plan for a city here in India! Whenever there's a master plan for any city, people start revolting against it. The main objective for smart cities in India has been making them wider, greener and cleaner. But the money that had been spent for this project is 10 to 15% of India's GDP before 2020. Even now it's around 5-6%. All of people's money for sure.
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21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Satosora 25 Jul
The clean air initiative, if you took a lot of cars off the road, it would seriously help.
People can walk and bike, especially if they live and work in the city.
Look at denmark and their bike routes!
Also, singapore has done a lot on their clean air initiative.
They want every household to have a green plant, and many people plant them on their balconies!
If everyone works together, its very possible for cheap.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 26 Jul
I don't think it's as simple as that, although I also advocate people walk and/or bike whenever possible and have plants. Americans love their cars and they'd rather have them than cleaner air.
As Thomas Sowell says, "There are no solutions. There are only tradeoffs."
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21 sats \ 4 replies \ @Satosora 25 Jul
It talked a lot about how california is shaking down people.
Sounds about right, but it feels that way every time you park in a major city.
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20 sats \ 3 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 25 Jul
The opportunity cost of parking in major cities is unfathomably high. There probably shouldn't be much parking at all, beyond what's needed for handling emergency situations.
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21 sats \ 2 replies \ @Satosora 25 Jul
Right, but it might be time to make public transport a thing in major cities.
If smart cities want to build better, then need to build a good infrastructure.
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20 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 25 Jul
That would be the likely alternative. If parking were appropriately scarce, demand for public transportation would grow accordingly.
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 25 Jul
Most of the time, if you live in the city your car remains parked.
Its just dead weight.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @77edb424fc 26 Jul outlawed
stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.