Shot in the Dark

The New Dacha

A friend of the blog emails:

I would love it if the pandemic caused developers to incorporate more parking into their apartments. The sky is the limit- we don’t have to use more land just to build out parking. I think of the benefits this could have on lower and middle class neighborhoods in regards to snow plowing, if people actually had space to put their cars. Of course, elite ruuing class liberals look at an article like this and laugh at the poor. They say, “I got my parking garage, and I got you a bike lane, what’s your problem?” Oh, on opportune days, they ride their bicycles and opine about the freedom bicycles give, ignoring the car they have tucked away at home. I would wager that most in this article even supported policies that took away parking and allowed development without adequate parking for tenets. Will they relate their support/votes with problems affecting them?

I’ve written in the past, during my years as a single parent, that a transit and bike-centered lifestyle is pretty much unsustainable, even in the urban core, for middle class people, to say nothing of the “working class”.

Being “able” to go without a car, in this age of fluid jobs and multiple careers and services that families need increasingly centralizing rather than moving closer to people, is perhaps the ultimate sign of disonnected “privilege”.

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Mitch Berg

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18 responses to “The New Dacha”

  1. Maximum Overlord Avatar
    Maximum Overlord

    What the heck is an “advocacy group for mass transit”?

  2. shakingmyhead Avatar
    shakingmyhead

    I went to a neighborhood meeting (Minneapolis) a few years ago about a new retail and residence building going in. They needed neighborhood approval, since an alley needed to be re-directed.

    The plans included 5 parking spots for 14 units (plus ground floor retail). On a street that already has 2 apartment buildings already. No one in the neighborhood wanted to approve it. The developer, when asked about more parking, said that it was twice what was required by the city.

    Point of the matter – developers aren’t going to add parking unless the client specifies it. The city is actually pushing developers to not have parking (or enough parking) and will tell a group of homeowners that they have no right to be able to park on the street that they live.

  3. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    If we make developers provide places for tenants to park their cars, then the tenants will be able to have cars. Cars KILL the planet. How dare you?

    No, no, we don’t want developers to provide places for tenants to park their cars. That way, tenants will be forced to ride the Light Rail, which will SAVE the planet.

    Yes, they honestly believe it. Deep down, New York City makes perfect sense to them and everyone should live like that.

  4. Paddyboy Avatar
    Paddyboy

    Somehow I am not surprised by your complete silence on the shameful insurrection perpetrated yesterday on the US Capital by those who share your views of how anarchy should replace civility. The President encouraged his brain-dead followers to storm the Capital to try to interrupt the lawful, orderly and Constitutionally mandated (and normally entirely perfunctory) certification of Joe Biden as President, defeating this petty tyrant. Your silence on this is shameful. You clearly have NO respect for law or for this Constitution. I have said it before but like the gambler who just can’t stop placing one more bet, I come back. No longer. You are unamerican, Mitch. I would rather engage in debate, use peaceful means to resolve differences but it is abundantly clear by your silence you agree with their conduct or at least refuse to condemn it. No more. You need to move to Mexico and lick their boots, that’s the government type you clearly prefer and one where your mindlessly obedient propaganda will be rewarded. I will find another outlet. As a friend I wish you the best but as a citizen I condemn your willing and obvious complicity in this rebellion. You and your lick-spittle are a secessionists, nothing more and nothing less. You can’t handle defeat, and you excuse it by making up lies like the profound lie of fraud, destroying faith in our government and seriously endangering the continuance of it.

  5. Paddyboy Avatar
    Paddyboy

    Ah, back to moderating my comments I see… yes, I understand why you wouldn’t want the challenges to your lies. I am sure YOU at least will read this. You should be ashamed, Mitch. There is no excuse for your silence. Zero. Condemning what happened yesterday wasn’t a high bar, it didn’t need time to consider.

  6. Maximum Overlord Avatar
    Maximum Overlord

    City planners are a great example of how your freedom is their enemy.
    That’s why city planners hate private automobiles. Owning a private automobile means that you can choose where and when to live and where and when to work, where to shop, etc.
    City planners are convinced that they can make these choices better than you can, despite the fact that they not only know nothing about you, they don’t even know that you exist.
    I am reading https://www.amazon.com/Death-Life-Great-American-Cities/dp/067974195X by Jane Jacobs. In a few sections she describes the miserable failures of the city planners of the 60s and 70s. They have learned nothing since then, they haven’t had to. Our class of elite politicians is not known for their appreciation of empirical evidence.

  7. mjb003 Avatar
    mjb003

    MO- the arrogant urbanists in my neighborhood who hate cars for everyone else, who think they should be planning every one’s lives, use Jane Jacobs as their rationale. So, of course they haven’t learned anything. They must be taking the bad from her books. (I haven’t personally read her, just heard of her from the neighborhood meetings)

  8. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    Somehow I am not surprised by your complete silence on the shameful insurrection perpetrated yesterday on the US Capital

    Because I haven’t published it yet. I will when I’m good and ready.

    *shrug*.

    BTW, Pad? That whole “your silence speaks volumes” has long ago become generally acknolwedged as self-parody. It’s right in there with Jesse Ventura’s “Lack of evidence IS evidence” as a logical fallacy.

    I mean, I can’t help but notice you’ve utterly silent on gang-raping children. Why is this, Pad? Huh? HUH?

    Don’t be that self-parody.

    Well, don’t be it anymore.

  9. bosshoss429 Avatar
    bosshoss429

    Hey Paddywhacker,
    FYI, Mitch has no control over the moderation.

    Just like every other leftist communist controlled media outlet, WordPress decides what you get away with, dip stick!

  10. Maximum Overlord Avatar
    Maximum Overlord

    Peeve’s rambling wouldn’t make sense even if the Dems hadn’t pushed the sham “Russian collusion” hoax for three years.

  11. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    Just so we’re clear about moderation:

    I use a tool (“Akismet”) which screens for words and phrases and other characteristics (like lots of links, as well as phrases like “speaks volumes”) found in spam.

    It puts these phrases into moderation.

    To make things more interesting, my instance of Akismet seems to have lost its authentication key – and attempts to retrieve it keep failing. So it keeps working – but I can’t control it to make certain words or, for that matter, readers pass through the filter.

    I’ve been trying to fix it for literally five years (like, one attempt every 12 to 18 months for the past five years).

    It’s not hurting anything, other than leaving some comments in the modqueue longer than some of you want. For which I apologize – but as it’s not catastrophic, fixing it is down the list of priorities a tad.

  12. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    What are these “priorities” of which you speak?

    How can anything in your life be more important than my instant gratification?

  13. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    Back to the subject, as much of a fan as I am of the two wheeled torture device, I’ve never lived in a place where I could have consistently used my bicycle and public transportation to get to my desired destinations. The trouble is that since jobs and stores change, you simply cannot consistently get to your destination without a second or third bus, if it all. This was the case even back when I was in college.

    Really, we might suggest that/wonder whether the actual goal of the left is to keep the poor and lower middle class out of certain places. Around here, it’s hard to get to county or state parks if you don’t have a car, for example. Want to go to a restaurant or church in the next town? You’re out of luck. Find a great job in the next town over? Better have a car.

    It’s a little better in the cities, but even there, you’re waiting for a long time waiting for that next bus. It matters when your great new job requires you to be awake, alert, and on task, and having frozen fingers and toes from waiting at the bus station or walking the half mile or so from the final station to work is not exactly helpful.

    Plus, the ugly reality is that short of cycling or walking, the most environmentally sound thing to do is to drive. City buses burn a gallon of diesel fuel for about every 25 passenger-miles, which is about 18 mpg for a passenger vehicle–basically a large SUV fueled by gasoline. Trains are even less efficient because it’s hard to move the weight you need to keep the center of gravity/force between the rails–they weigh 3-4 times as much per passenger.

    Like my (environmentalist) brother (and his brother) is fond of saying, the definition of “environmentalist” is too often “person who cannot do math or science”.

  14. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    By the way, for those who are all bent out of sorts at President Trump’s incitement of yesterday’s riots, take a look at this obnoxious thing he said!

    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bringing-a-gun-to-a-knife-fight/

    Oops, that was President Obama. My mistake. But here’s that racist Trump telling people to ride in the back of the bus.

    https://www.mediaite.com/tv/obama-to-gop-%E2%80%98they-can-come-for-the-ride-but-they-have-to-sit-in-back/

    Oops. That’s Obama, too, apparently not having learned about Rosa Parks. It’ll be interesting to see some of the testimony if Congress decides to impeach Trump for reasons like this.

  15. kinlaw Avatar
    kinlaw

    Mitch, I love that you are deleting the other trolls’ threadjacks, but I can’t believe you let paddywhacker crap all over your blog.

    Every one of his posts begins with an ad hominem attack on you. And this one is a threadjack.

    Can’t believe you think this waste of oxygen is you friend.

    No intent to engage in discussion or debate.

    It’s time for him to go.

  16. kinlaw Avatar
    kinlaw

    Let me reiterate: he crap’s all over your blog.

  17. Pig Bodine Avatar
    Pig Bodine

    kinlaw,

    peev, paddyboi, exists solely as an object lesson to others.
    rather than trying to explain in painful and seemingly hyperbolic detail how intellectually slothful, incoherent, and deranged leftists can be, it is easier to simply let patrick/PB/peev/paddyboi out of his box on occasion so that he can reveal himself unadorned to the world! Its a type of public service announcement that Mitch provides; i.e. “there but for the grace of god go I”.

  18. Mitch Berg Avatar
    Mitch Berg

    Kin,

    On the one hand, Pig isn’t too far off…

    …while simultaneousl alllowing that Pad is, oddly enougn, an old friend of mine.

    But for all that, Pig is…not far off.

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