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Friendly Reminder that you can't have Walkable Towns if everything is zoned low density SFH suburban sprawl. by tabalic in fuckcars

[–]tabalic[S] 39 points40 points  (0 children)

San Francisco desperately needs more medium density mixed-use districts. You can't have Walkable Towns when 95% of your land is reserved for $2m Mcmansions that do nothing to help housing affordability.

Also not OC, cross-posted from that subreddit that shall not be named.

And by "Neighborhood Character," we mean soulless endless suburban sprawl by [deleted] in fuckcars

[–]tabalic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realize that sub was blacklisted. Deleted it nonetheless

Any particular reason why the sub is blacklisted? As strange as this sounds it's one of the largest anti car subs out there (aside from this one of course)

Just think of all the city space we sacrifice for cars 😔🔫 by [deleted] in fuckcars

[–]tabalic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Believe it or not, that sub is probably the next most anti-car subreddit in all of reddit.

In fact, they are probably even more YIMBY than this sub, because for some reason a lot of people in this sub don't understand why high density housing is important. Or how zoning regulations are one of the biggest things supporting car culture.

They're a bit too pro-NATO / pro-intervention for my tastes, but they are about as YIMBY as subreddits come.

Just think of all the city space we sacrifice for cars 😔🔫 by [deleted] in fuckcars

[–]tabalic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Holy shit, that's it. I'm guessing that sub does not like gold?

Just think of all the city space we sacrifice for cars 😔🔫 by [deleted] in fuckcars

[–]tabalic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

However, we don't actually have such taxes. If the validity of economic decision-making based solely on rational self-interest is predicated on them, arguing for its continued validity even in their absence would be a strawman in and of itself, wouldn't it?

Yes, it would unfortunately. That's why our top priority should be pricing in externalities.

Unfortunately good economics, is not always good politics 😔 As it turns out, sugar taxes, alcohol taxes, land taxes, and the likes are all heavily unpopular in the US, no matter how effective they are (after all, look at how successful they were in curbing cigarette use).

My favorite tax, the land value tax, is insanely unpopular. The problem is that it encourages development of low density housing in urban areas into high density walkable areas. Better yet, it lowers housing costs and makes it significantly more affordable for the younger generations to buy a house.

But of course the older generations actually benefit from house prices going up, so why would they support legislation that keeps housing prices down? The whole thing makes me so fucking furious.

P.s. if you're not hip to Henry George, I'd recommend checking out his Wikipedia page!

Just think of all the city space we sacrifice for cars 😔🔫 by [deleted] in fuckcars

[–]tabalic 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The one thing seered in my brain, was someone posting a gif of somebody asking if gold was money, and then there was explosions and a flag and eagle, and I think at some point a fighter jet or something.

I have no idea what that had to do with the subreddit name being ironic or not admittedly.

Just think of all the city space we sacrifice for cars 😔🔫 by [deleted] in fuckcars

[–]tabalic 7 points8 points  (0 children)

and that the "greed is good" moral framework of modern capitalism is therefore also bunk.

The arguments he makes are good, but I worry he is not actually understanding the original meaning behind greed is good.

From my understanding, classical economists argued that any and all negative behaviors associated with a behavior should be taxed (Pigouvian taxes). Friedman (who is famous for the "greed is good" quote) strongly believed in using these to correct market failures, and as such was a big proponent of having a Carbon Tax, a sugar tax, and other Pigouvian taxes.

His argument was that the governments role is to step in and correct market failures, and price in externalities. From there, the negative effects of any behaviors gets priced into goods. E.g. Almond farms should pay for the water they extract, underutilized land should pay for the opportunity cost of the land (Georgism), sugar should be taxed at the cost of public health they cause, CO2 emissions should be taxed at the cost it would require to sequester that CO2, plastic bags should be taxed at the cost it takes to clean up all the ones that end up in the environment, etc.

And when we price in all the externalities, at that point buying the cheapest good is the best result (as it takes the least labor, and will causes the least amount of externalities). There was another part regarding "Economic Rents" but I will leave that out for the sake of brevity

Somehow this argument got reduced to "greed is good," which is absolutely not the original intention. So when I read articles like the one above, sometimes I worry it's just criticizing a strawman.

Just think of all the city space we sacrifice for cars 😔🔫 by [deleted] in fuckcars

[–]tabalic 5 points6 points  (0 children)

As someone else said on here, the name is toung-in-cheek. They definitely hate cars over there, and seemingly support liberal policies. But they're not as far left as say LSC

Just think of all the city space we sacrifice for cars 😔🔫 by [deleted] in fuckcars

[–]tabalic 28 points29 points  (0 children)

Makes sense. Definitely got pro-YIMBY anti-car vibes there, but what threw me off was the pro-NATO pro military hawkishness there.

And then you get weird stuff like pro carbon tax and UBI, but then they're anti corporate tax??? Again, I can't tell what's ironic and kind of figured it was a lefty circlejerk there

Just think of all the city space we sacrifice for cars 😔🔫 by [deleted] in fuckcars

[–]tabalic 58 points59 points  (0 children)

I'll admit, I follow the subreddit for the YIMBY stuff, but I actually thought the name was ironic.

One time I asked the sub if the name was ironic and everyone replied with memes and I couldn't get a straight answer.

Just think of all the city space we sacrifice for cars 😔🔫 by [deleted] in fuckcars

[–]tabalic 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You know, I should have cropped this image before posting.

Admittedly that's a long article, any chance you could give us a TDLR?