I read so many letters to the editor back in my old town that were exactly this. "THERES NO PARKING DOWNTOWN AND WE ARE IMPORTANT PEOPLE"
Shit was infuriating
Edit: and for the record there was plenty of parking. You might have to walk a couple blocks but god forbid the hogs have to huff it for more than ten yards
WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE IN THE CITY!? ARE THEY NOT ESSENTIAL TO THE PLACE THAT THEY LIVE IN!?!
Suburbs are so unpleasant, so boring to live in that the main problem with cities is that they are too popular to live in. Yeah, I'm a suburbanite, but I assure you that it is NOT by choice. The SECOND I get a decent paying job my ass is headed to the city where I can mostly bike or walk, and I have actual things to do.
The schools in cities are a disaster zone tho
If you got kids you gotta be in the suburbs for the schools
They vary heavily by district. Houston's River Oaks school districts are immaculate. Third Ward, not so much.
Take a wild guess what the property sells for in each respectively.
and to the extent it might be true it's true because of racism, neoliberalism, and christofascist undermining of schools
It is true. School quality correlates strongly with property values. Often because property taxes are how they’re financed.
Another person said it was because of racism, classism, capitalism etc and they’re right.
Of course, that’s the vile part. Every parent with the means to improve their child’s schooling will choose the better schools over the more centralized and diverse neighborhoods.
We live in a self perpetuating system.
Tell me you don't have kids without telling me you don't have kids
the less those of us who live in the suburbs will come into the city
yeah good. okay :yes:
everyone who says this is appalled by the idea of parking in a garage somewhere and then walking half a mile to your destination, or god forbid taking public transit, oh god no anything but that
Funnily enough, when I first started working downtown, I discovered one of the cheapest places to part was adjacent to a train stop.
I parked a few miles outside downtown and got dropped off directly in front of my office.
Did not understand why everyone wouldn't do this. But then I wouldn't have guaranteed free parking, so I was reluctant to spread the word.
I know when I'm looking for a cool place to eat I ask "what's popular with suburbanites who drive into the city". Always want to patronize businesses frequented by 55 year olds who would rather spend an hour looking for parking than take a train. They have the best tastes.
This might be an incredibly stupid question, but have park and ride schemes ever been tried in the US? I remember that being a novelty in towns in the rural U.K. county I grew up in during the 90s. Still an established thing. You drive from your rural town/village to a parking lot outside the city, and there’s an express bus service that stops you off in a pedestrianised center.
As I say this, I can’t actually fathom any American I know ever wanting to do such a sensible thing. :grillman:
RTA in Cleveland Ohio has park and ride stations. Mostly for buses, but a few of them are at metro rail stations as well.
They used to be popular in the 2000's, I'd see tons of cars parked at the one near where I lived. They used larger coach buses with roomier seating as opposed to their standard buses.
Unfortunately RTA's funding gets smaller every year because the State of Ohio hates the idea of public transportation, so local transit authorities must rely on county taxes as their primary funding source. In a county that's shrinking in population, their tax revenue shrinks as well. The park and ride services were one of the big things that got cut back. They're still there, but they're not the same as they were 10 to 20 years ago.
That’s a shame that they’re cutting them back. I know the right thing to do long-term is to have wider reach of buses and trains so that even driving to the outskirts of a city isn’t needed, but in the interim, it seems like a great way of building nicer city centers and accommodating those outside of them.
My Dad used to take them in the 80s and 90s when he worked downtown. They built HOV lanes so the buses bypassed all the traffic. He didn't use them every day, but he did use them.
They technically exist but Americans have a very real anxiety about public spaces and especially public transportation. It's a real thing, I live in the city and people ask me all the time about how dangerous the subway is and then don't believe me when I say it's fine.
Yes but the parking should really just be mid-density mixed use development with maybe a parking garage nearby for commuters and visitors to use if you ask me
They aren't fucking essential!! They aren't essential at all!! Massively inflated sense of self importance, more people live in the cities that's why they're so dense, almost as dense as every white suburbanite.
Ah yes because cities only exist to cater to the suburbs.
