Helsinki Aims To Obviate Private Cars 276
New submitter NBSCALIDBA writes: Eeva Haaramo reports on Helsinki's ambitious plan to transform city transportation. From on-demand buses to city bikes to Kutsuplus mini-transport vans, the Finnish capital is trying to change the whole concept of getting around in a city. "Under the plan, all these services will be accessed through a single online platform. People will be able to buy their transport in service packages that work like mobile phone tariffs: either as a complete monthly deal or pay as you go options based on individual usage. Any number of companies can use the platform to offer transport packages, and if users find their travel needs change, they'll be able to switch packages or moved to a rival with a better deal."
Not a single link (Score:5, Insightful)
No links, Really? in many years of reading his site daily i'm not sure i recall when a story was posted without a single f*cking link to the source material or supporting info.
Perhaps this thing is entirely made up... i think ill start submitting stories now - or is this a Beta story?
Come on guys!!
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Re:Not a single link (Score:5, Informative)
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No links, Really? in many years of reading his site daily i'm not sure i recall when a story was posted without a single f*cking link to the source material or supporting info.
Perhaps this thing is entirely made up...
Right... Like having an internet link means it's a real story...
Look on the bright side, there is a story to link to now: http://tech.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
You clicked though? Going anyplace?
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What? You really want a link? What for? No one ever reads the articles...
Thrilling Stuff (Score:3)
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so some sort of article would be nice.
First you guys complain about broken links in the summaries, and now when there are no broken links in the summaries you're complaining too! Can't an editor catch a break around here?
Another blow to Uber (Score:2)
Yeah links are missing, perhaps because the source is finnish only?
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Uber is illegal in Finland as taxis here need a license to operate and they have service obligation.
Uber would allow the drivers to bypass the service obligation by rating the user with note like "user is in wheelchair" and that would give the driver the option to skip the ride which would be discriminating towards the user ordering the service(although not necessarily directly obvious) and thus bypassing the service obligation.
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It is a blow to Uber because there is no private car left they can use to provide their service with ;D (regardless of licenses ;D )
It was meant as a joke anyway (* facepalm *)
Legal challenges (Score:2)
Expect all sorts of (spurious) legal challenges from the motor industry ... they won't want their business badly dented.
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Given that this one company sells to the luxury market principally, I don't think this change in Helsinki's transportation would affect them very much.
Question of Reliability (Score:4, Insightful)
To me the plan sounds like you end up with every car you use giving you the reliability of a rental, with the "oops no cars are available now" factor of services like ZipCar...
But perhaps in a more isolated culture where people do not abuse things they do not own, the cars will be treated well and availability will work out well.
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No it sounds more like an Uber App but instead of being locked into one transportation vendor they allow you to price compare and shop between multiple competing transportation solutions whether that's municipal bus, car2go, zip car and uber in one hub.
"The city wants to build a framework for an open market where companies can operate and offer their services in different combinations. The City doesn't want to decree what services are offered, but help to facilitate the establishment of an ecosystem that enables private companies to produce a variety of them," Heikkilà says. "There would be several commercial [transport] operators offering these services, in the same way as in telecommunications today. The customers could choose the operator and the service package they want."
Opposite (Score:2)
My town has a thriving downtown - also has services like Car2Go. That's how I know they can at times be scarce or distant. We also have a city bike rental program that works pretty well.
Since there are no links with real info I have to assume the Helsinki plan is like ZipCar/Car2Go, where you just can collect a car somewhere and use it for some period of time to go wherever - but instead of just the one kind of car, it would include bikes and larger trucks too. I just figure if you do go for that and lea
Taixs are leases? (Score:4, Interesting)
1) You have people pick you up and take you places. This will work reasonably well for pre-planned activities - such as your commute, but be very crappy for spontaneous needs. Just like normal taxis.
2) You don't "own" the car, but it can and will stay at your home/office with no one watching it for hours before/after you use it. Some other people may use it during the hours you don't - such as while you are at work or late at night. Effectively you are the renting from a place that delivers and picks up.
Neither of these ideas seem workable to me. Both are not significantly different than existing one time use services, we are simply adding in a long term contract for the Taxis or car rental places (with delivery).
People like owning cars for many good reasons.
That said, once we have driverless cars, such a plan COULD actually work, in large part because suddenly your don't need to arrange for people to drop off your car/pick it up, it does it automatically.
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>> people like cars
Mostly because they don't smell like other people, or what they ate/drank last night. Figure out how to let me have my own personal compartment that I can maintain to my standard of hygiene and i'll happily give up driving.
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Link (Score:2)
I can only say (Score:2)
Yeah!
So what's new? (Score:2, Troll)
Communists have been trying to kill private transport since the Communist Manifesto was published. People who can travel without permission are much more dangerous to the State than those who can be forced to walk at any time.
Cities: an obsolete solution (Score:3)
Many years ago cities made sense. Factories to make steel, shoes, ketchup, shirts and other goods scaled well to gigantic sizes. Having the workers' living quarters hived up in close proximity to their employment was natural as there was no viable alternative. No one was yet doing more than dreaming of pervasive automation. Cities allowed stunningly great libraries and concert halls and baseball parks to be provided.
Yo, things have changed. It is not necessary any longer to clump gigantic numbers of people into tiny areas in which it is impossible to efficiently support personal transportation. It is not technically and logistically necessary for us to live in a milieu in which it is necessary to call some agency to take us somewhere. The internet could be extended in non-commercialized ways to fully provide all the resources of libraries and a great deal more.
I can see a place for a certain supply of centralized areas for those who cannot adjust to living any other way than like cattle. Feel free to phrase it differently. A richness of cultural and service facilities can be provided in built-up areas. But by and large the concept of the city, un-navigable by private conveyance, fighting for innovative ways to move people about efficiently.
What if these built-up areas concentrated on what they are uniquely suited for? What if people traveled to them (and a few lived there) for the culture? Optimize them for that, and make them pay their way doing that.
It needn't be whole-hog Asimov Spacers level sprawl, but living with elbow room and not with jammed-up crowds constantly getting in your way.
Just a thought.
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By the numbers. (Score:2)
Finland has about 3 million passenger cars in use by a population of 5.46 million.
Finland [wikipedia.org], Vehicle stock grew in 2012 [www.stat.fi]
Helsinki has some 390 cars per 1000 inhabitants. This is less than in cities of similar density, such as Brussels' 483 per 1000, Stockholm's 401, and Oslo's 413.
Today, Helsinki is the only city in Finland to have trams and metro trains. There used to be two other cities in Finland with trams: Turku and Viipuri (Vyborg, now in Russia), but both have since abandoned trams. The Helsinki Metro, opened in 1982, is the only rapid transit system in Finland.
Helsinki [wikipedia.org]
Now just force society to accept transit limits (Score:2)
Right now society (jobs, business interactions, legal obligations, etc) are generally structured around the common denominator of automobile transit. Your boss expects you to get to work around the basic parameters of what you can do in a car.
It's great to eliminate the car at some municipal level, now make "the bus didn't show up" or "there were no Uber/Zipcar/Car2Gos available" as some kind of universally accepted, legally unchangeable excuse for missing work, a court appearance, daycare pickup, etc.
One
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a matter of scale (Score:2)
I can commute farther in the state of California than the entire nation of Finland. Solutions that are workable and even desirable in certain locations are not logistically feasible in others.
I was very impressed with the public transportation options in GB, but the distances there lend themselves to such.
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Re:which turns transport into a monopoly... (Score:5, Insightful)
count me out... this sort of stuff just makes me want to live on a remote tropical island and spend my days fishing.
Do you also insist on owning your own elevator? If socialized vertical transportation is acceptable, then why is horizontal transportation so different?
Re:which turns transport into a monopoly... (Score:4, Funny)
Who doesn't want to own airwolf?
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If you live outside major cities your service level would be like Amtrak in those cities - terrible.
You should read the article ... on wait, there isn't one ... here [theguardian.com] is a description of their plan. It involves a range of services, including on-demand self driving cars and vans, easy access to rental cars, etc. They envision that most of these services will be provided by competing private businesses. It is also non-coercive: they aren't banning private cars, just trying to make them unnecessary for most people.
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From the linked story:
The Finnish capital has announced plans to transform its existing public transport network into a comprehensive, point-to-point "mobility on demand" system by 2025 – one that, in theory, would be so good nobody would have any reason to own a car.
Lots of people drive their cars because it is enjoyable to drive. But I guess that isn't a reason to drive.
Re:which turns transport into a monopoly... (Score:4, Interesting)
>> it's like your elevator, only horizontal
Except it's not, because of scale. If your elevator sucks, you can just move to the next building over. If your city's transportation monopoly sucks (or if its workers just want to shut down the system to complain about whatever), you might have to move to a different city for relief.
Re:which turns transport into a monopoly... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Complexity. the "vertical" transport system only goes to given floors in a given building. The roads go everywhere. I can drive from NYC to Los Angeles... and anywhere in between.
This whole congestion issue is a product of poor urban planning. We already have to heavily subsidize and incentivize city dwelling to keep the density this high. And these transport projects are just doubling down on the concept to pack people tighter and tighter for no apparent reason.
Just go live in the suburbs or some other pla
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We already have to heavily subsidize and incentivize city dwelling to keep the density this high ... Just go live in the suburbs or some other place
This is completely backwards. It is the suburbs that are subsidized [reimaginerpe.org], and zoning laws and economic disincentives discourage dense urban cores. Where I live (SF Bay Area), 95% of building permits in San Francisco were rejected last year, while there is plenty of new construction in the urban sprawl extending out east of Livermore and south of San Jose.
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His rants are often off topic, and factually incorrect, so I WISH he would keep them bottled up! :)
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Rent control
Rent control is a DISincentive to invest in urban housing.
Project housing
Housing projects are no longer being constructed, and many have been torn down.
EBT cards
There is nothing particularly "urban" about EBT cards. The poorest places in America are rural.
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Rent control. Doesn't exist only in cities.
Project housing - Doesn't only exist in cities
EBT cards. - Doesn't only happen in cities. There are More SNAP/EBT per capita in suburbs and rural communities. Of courts,e I'm sure you know nothing of the actual numbers and go off misconceptions.
you are just as dependent on the system as anyone.
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Do not ignore the most important basic service that we're trying to reorganize for efficiencies of scale, healthcare... it is remarkable how long it can take to get an ambulance in Lapland.
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count me out... this sort of stuff just makes me want to live on a remote tropical island and spend my days fishing.
Do you also insist on owning your own elevator?
I insist on living and working in locations where I don't need an elevator... a remote tropical island would work well for this.
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This kind of government mediated market(that you call a monopoly) has a remarkable history of functional success in specific areas of economies in Western(and Scandinavian) Europe.
The main concern against monopolies is the trivial formation of a trust, wherein market actors collude to set prices that maximize total sector profit, rather than total sector productivity. This particular arrangement doesn't appear to fit that criteria, for the moment, though I'll remember your allegation if it turns out I'm wr
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You wanting to reserve space for the big numbers of the large, personal things called cars, both in terms of parking space and having to cover half of the city in asphalt, with the subsequent growth in distances between points (because of lower density), makes the city less accessible by anything other than a car and deprives others of their ability to just walk or bike their way around, is less aesthetic and causes air pollution... and besides, you couldn't just rebuild the central Helsinki area (which is
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What a coincidence, I have a plane ticket right here on Oceanic Airlines (flight 815), and I'm willing to sell it for only 4815162342 Dogecoins.
Re:which turns transport into a monopoly... (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure, but not the cars, taxis, buses, etc.
I'll never live anywhere that won't let me have a car or where for whatever reason cars are uneconomical. I just refuse to live like that. Some people like living in cities where only mass transit is practical. I really don't see why people pack themselves in that tightly. What is the point of doing that in the 21st century. In the pre-digital pre-airplane world I could see the point. But today? Why...
It makes no sense. Spread out, people. Its a big world. Doesn't anyone want to listen to music without having to worry about whether the neighbors will object? Doesn't anyone want a dog or a garden or just some space that is theirs?
I think the big cities are anachronisms at this point. I don't see why we bother with them. With the right communications we could run the same economy with employees distributed across the country pretty much where ever they wanted to live.
This is not an attack on cities... if you really like living cheek by jowl with people then by all means... pack yourself in. It just seems there are increasing problems with the idea.
Security/crime issues, education issues, political issues, transport issues, economic issues... just lots of stuff. I'm sure it has good qualities but I don't see how the pros outweigh the cons for any but the enthusiast.
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"I really don't see why people pack themselves in that tightly. "
It's the herd instinct. It's strong in most people.
Re:which turns transport into a monopoly... (Score:5, Insightful)
I question whether that is a real thing. If you consider our history, we didn't live in anything like this density. What is more, instinctually we have no bond with practically anyone in the city. They're just faces. They mean nothing to you. You don't know who they are and they have no lasting impact on your life. Any one of those faces could die tomorrow and you wouldn't even notice.
So tell me again about this herding instinct because it frankly sounds like bullshit.
Re:which turns transport into a monopoly... (Score:5, Insightful)
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In the US, professional football is actually sustained by television... not stadium attendance. What is more, you have many teams in small cities or even towns that do quite well.
The Green Bay Packers for example are based in Green Bay Wisconsin... which has a population of about 100,000.
So there you go... football team... at 100,000... now explain why you need to have 15 million people in the same place?
As to bands and other entertainment venues, you can't be telling me you live in the city to go to music
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You're right about the stadium, but his point is still valid. There are things that are far easier to do with group in Cities.
" I know a lot of people that live in New York and they never go to plays, theater, shows, concerts, or anything. "
Yes, the 12 people you know in New York city don't do any of the stuff.
There are hundreds of museums in New York. Many of them are very busy most of the time.
"For one thing, you could commute for that sort of thing"
that raises the bar and make it less likely to go there.
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It is not just "fun" things. Cities are more productive than rural areas. Bigger cities are more productive than smaller cities.
It is not because the more productive people move to larger cities – that variable has been controlled. Bigger cities offer economies of scale, allows deeper areas of expertise to developed, and networking effects. And if one wants to argue that in theory the internet can overcome the need for physical proximity, hard data argues otherwise. In the past 30 years, productivity
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"we didn't live in anything like this density."
false.
" instinctually we have no bond with practically anyone in the city."
sounds like you have issues.
I don't live in a city, but walk across one everyday. I know many people by name. I know my neighbors by name.
My only problem with cities is noise.
Re:which turns transport into a monopoly... (Score:5, Interesting)
I do. I have a yard and two dogs. Once in awhile we plant a garden. I can even play music. Plus I can walk to local bakeries, breweries, restaurants, hardware stores, beaches, parks, etc.
A lot of the time, between biking and walking your legs are the only transit you need. If not, there are buses, trains, taxis, and services like Car2go and ZipCar.
I understand that kind of lifestyle is not for everybody, but the worst thing we can do is spread out more. That has lead to all kinds of problems.
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I too, live in a city. In fact, one of two fastest growing cities in the US. Where I live, I have to have a dog under a certain size, and if this gets violated, the dog can get seized and goes to the pound. Music? Sure, if I use cans, but otherwise at any reasonable volume, I get the popo or HOA coming by, especially after 7-8 at night.
Buses? If I work banker's hours and don't mind walking a mile to one of the relatively sparse stops, sure, but after 6:00, they stop running. Bike it? The college stud
Re:which turns transport into a monopoly... (Score:4)
Sounds like you live in a broken city. No buses after 6 PM? Even my rural town of 10,000 people runs buses later than that.
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You know what should be illegal? Forcing others to live the way you expect.
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Well why not? The commu...err I mean 'humanists' have already shown up with theirs. People who call themselves 'humanists' usually mean 'marxist humanism', and they support culturally marxist views.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... [wikipedia.org]
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How do you know he is from Italy?
You don't want to let him get all single family homes made illegal? YOU FASCIST.
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The only currently know cultural toxin is conservatism.
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Cities aren't just downtown apartments and high rises.
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Living in the country is an anachronism (Score:5, Insightful)
Back before the days of public sewage, I would understand living the country. Before laws against air pollution, city air was shit. I don't understand why people would ever want to be so distant from one another -- we've a social species. We don't need distant farms at this point.
I love that there's music at night, made live by humans -- and sometimes I even get to dance with the people making it! How in the world are you supposed to find an orchestra to play with in BFE (I play clarinet -- not exactly a great solo instrument)? If you like gardening, there's community gardens all over that I don't need to tend every single day.
Cities are also easier on the environment. By centralizing transportation, waste management, and education, you achieve savings just from the economies of scale. Cities subsidize the rest of the country as it's literally not efficient to have roads/phonelines/internet/etc to nowhere -- destroying the environment in the process. As far as crime, I like having a decent police force so I don't have to own a shotgun.
Issues with racists, idiots, homophobes, and the chain score hellscape that litters small town America -- I have no idea why anyone could ever love such a thing except out of ignorance.
Re:Living in the country is an anachronism (Score:5, Informative)
You are more social in a small town. You actually know people and they actually know you.
As to distant farms... go to your grosery store and tell me where the fruit in the produce section came from. Bet its farther then 500 miles. If you're in the north east it could be well over two thousand miles. So that's just a silly statement.
As to live music at night, you can get that anywhere. Go to a rural Italian farming village. They have music every night. Its THEIR music made by THEIR people for THEIR people. You act like music didn't exist before this absurd population crush. The ancient city of Athens 2000 years ago had only about 140 thousand people. Of that only about 40 thousand were both male and not slaves. Want to bet they had music, art, plays, etc?
You don't need a big population for any of that. You just need culture.
A modern example would be Santa Fe New Mexico. They have a population of about 70 thousand... and a full Opera company, plays, music festivals, many art galleries, a big artist community, etc etc etc.
As to cities being easier on the environment, you're only saying that as an alternative to an endless suburban sprawl. I would agree that packing people in would be better then an endless Los Angeles with single story houses going on for hundreds of miles.
However that is not what I am talking about. I am instead talking about small scattered towns with lots of empty space between. You can't tell me the small town is hurting the environment more then the mega cities. That's just silly. The concentrated waste that comes out of those cities takes massive facilities to make anything less then horrifically toxic.
As to cities subsidizing the rest of the country, that is a product of our political system not a need of rural communities. Rural communities send their representatives to washington to ask for lower taxes and less regulation. If/when they cannot get that, the representatives ask for what they CAN get instead. Over the years the rural communities have gotten these compromises instead of what they actually wanted which was to be left alone.
Logistically, there is no reason they couldn't provide most of these services themselves. If anything, the cities have made efforts to stop small towns from setting up their own ISPs. We get articles about it on slashdot all the time. read one of them.
As to racists, idiots, etc... those are found everywhere. Literally. Everywhere. You can get concentrations of them in some towns and maybe a town might be run by such people. But that's just a roll of the dice. You get similar things in big cities. I will grant the big cities tend to have very bland consistent ineffectual politicians that don't especially represent or inspire anyone. Yes, they're rarely racists but they're also much more often corrupt products of machine politics. That is, they're not racists because what they really are is opportunists in it for the money.
As to ignorance, I've lived in cities, suburbs, and rural areas. I question whether you've ever stepped outside of your bubble. And that being the likely case, I question your right to call anyone else ignorant on the issue. Your arguments were mostly stereotypes perpetuated by television that drones buy into because they don't know any better.
Re:Living in the country is an anachronism (Score:5, Insightful)
"A modern example would be Santa Fe New Mexico."
Which is a city, last time I checked. So you argument is: City life isn't all that, look at all this cool stuff you can do in the city.
How much night life is there in Chama, NM? Silver City?
Am I responding to a troll? (Score:5, Interesting)
First, air in cities is generally worse than outside cities. You'll be able to find counter-examples, say outside a rural factory, but generally, no matter where you go in the world, city air is worse than rural air.
You're right that we are mostly a social species. However, this means different things to different people. Maybe you are more social than most. Personally, I have a family I enjoy seeing, and other than that I'm quite happy interacting with just a few other people every week. I neither want nor need more. The difference between the two of us seems to be that I'm willing to let you lead your lifestyle whereas you're unwilling to let me lead mine.
You're right that cities are easier on the environment on a per capita basis. Of course, there are also plenty of ways that people could be more distributed in a more environmentally advantageous fashion. If you have any interest in the subject and a certain level of intelligence it wouldn't be hard for you to come up with some ideas. Travelling around in other first world countries in Europe would also give you plenty of other viewpoints.
Additionally, while it's true that cities do in some ways subsidize rural areas, where do you think your food comes from? Other cities? Around here, stickers reminding us that "farmers feed cities" are quite common. Thank you for reminding me that there are people out there like you who need reminding. Finally, it's very rare for roads/phoneline/internet/etc to lead "nowhere". They lead somewhere, just apparently to areas you don't think are necessary.
Since you're the one painting "small town America" with one wide brush that includes racists, idiots, homophobes and chain store hellscapes, I'll throw that one back to you and state you're the one with the perception problems. The world outside your city is much bigger, and more important, than you seem to make it out to be. There are plenty racists, idiots, homophobes and chain stores in urban environments, and plenty of intelligent, tolerant, and educated people working in small business in small towns and rural communities all across your country.
For the record, I've spent close to a decade living in the US. I've lived in some of the world's largest cities, and worked in and travelled to many more. I feel very fortunate and privileged to now live on a farm in the country. Overall, my quality of life here is better than anywhere else I've lived.
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So you live on a farm, but you community needs sticker reminding the their food comes from farmers? That doesn't speak well for the average intelligence of your area. Everyone I know in the city knows their food comes from farmers and ranchers.
Anecdote:
I've never been run out of a city for being an Atheist, but I've been run out of several small communities. Literally.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
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Your other comment about Santa Fe is equally specious. Can you really not figure out what people are saying, or do you take a perverse and misguided joy in pretending to misunderstand everything you read?
I know plenty of athiests around here and they fit in as well as anyone else. I'm not going to defend whatever communities you've
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Where I am now feels near-optimal. There's enough around that I can get to restaurants and stores without much effort, LA is about an hour and a half away, so the more big-city attractions are reachable if
Re:Living in the country is an anachronism (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in both. I live in the city on weekdays, and in the country on weekends and holidays.
Guess which I prefer.
In the country, I have to travel 20 minutes to the town that has the grocery store, gas station, hardware store, liquor store, and pizza takeout.
In the city, I have to travel 20 minutes to the grocery store/hardware store, and favourite restaurants. The distance is much shorter but there are more people in the way.
In the country, I can sit on my porch and listen to birds, frogs, wind, and not much else.
In the city, I can sit on my porch and listen to wankers with loud diesel trucks, or loud motorcycles, or loud music.
In the country, the air smells clean.
In the city, the air smells like.... people/exhaust.
In the country, if I need emergency medical care, I can drive to the hospital in 20 minutes, and be seen by a doctor in under an hour.
In the city, if I need emergency medical care, I can drive to the hospital in 30+ minutes and be seen by a doctor occasionally in under 8 hours but usually in under 16 hours.
In the country, my water comes out of the ground and tastes like water.
In the city, my water comes from under my street and tastes like bleach.
Obviously, there are some advantages to living in the city and other advantages to living in the country.
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I don't understand why people would ever want to be so distant from one another -- we've a social species. We don't need distant farms at this point.
Generalizations like this don't justify forcing people to conform, which many here advocate. There are plenty of anecdotes showing how many of the most successful people were loners, or at least, did their best work while alone. The cultural noise floor in cities is way too high. As far as farm work goes, modern 'careers' are becoming so toxic with the expected hours/week load, unhealthy sedentary configurations, and passive aggressive social laws/dynamics, that rural work on the farm is starting to beco
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Please name one city in your country where cars are economical without subsidies, such as sales taxes to finance freeways, and without preferential treatment, such as minimum parking requirements to force business owners to build more than the economically optimal amount of parking.
In my country (the USA), I don't think any such city exists.
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"such as sales taxes to finance freeways"
All of them. In fact I can't find a single city that uses sales tax for roads.
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Culture, efficiency, knowledge sharing.
Yes, knowledge sharing happen in cities in ways that could never happen on the internet, and visa versa.
"It makes no sense."
It makes a lot of sense, actually.
"Doesn't anyone want to listen to music without having to worry about whether the neighbors will object? Doesn't anyone want a dog or a garden or just some space that is theirs?"
All of which is possible in a city
A city is safer. There have been many studies on this.
What economic issues? saving money? making more m
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It's not an all or nothing idea.
This does seems to be the new meme, though. I am seeing this great "comeback" pop up all over the place.
I guess the left really do get their news from the same place.
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Vodka is antifreeze. How do sober people (i.e. foreigners) get around?
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Nokian spiked bike tyres are very good. Even Continental spiked bike tyres are also made in Finland.
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"Younger generations in general don't identify themselves with their car like older generations did."
Its nothing to do with identity, its simply because they can't afford to run them.
"get you there while you enjoy the morning news, reading, etc"
yeah yeah blah blah. There's something that already lets you do that - its called public transport.
"For those that really like to have their hands on the wheel and to own CDs"
When you actually learn to drive sonny you might understand the attraction. In the meantime