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It looked like yet another weird symptom of San Francisco tech culture: a cluster of people sitting on the side of a road, working at desks placed within the boundaries of a parking space.
But WePark—a project led by San Francisco-based web developer Victor Pontis—was actually a manifestation of an idea that has become more popular in the last few years: Cities use space inefficiently and prioritize cars over people. The people at the desks were attempting to reclaim a sliver of space for human use. "Car parking squanders space that can be used for the public good—bike lanes, larger sidewalks, retail, cafes, more housing," Pontis said. "Let's use city streets for people, not cars." (There are also WePark franchises in France as well as Santa Monica.)
Pontis said he got the idea from a Twitter exchange in which Github's Devon Zuegel pointed out that eight bicycles could fit in one park spot instead of a car. Urbanist Annie Fryman, responded, suggesting that the metered parking spot be used as a coworking space instead.
Source: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pajgyz/rogue-coder-turned-a-parking-spot-into-a-coworking-space
(Score: 4, Insightful) by schad on Monday May 06 2019, @12:07PM (4 children)
Yeah, this is a little weird. WePark's beef isn't that "cities... prioritize cars over people." It's that cities don't prioritize the people that WePark likes (people who don't have, would prefer not to have, or would at least be willing not to have, cars).
This is especially moronic in the US, where in the majority of the country cars are absolutely mandatory. There are really very few places where you can get by without a car at all. And, somewhat paradoxically, the less you need your car, the more time it spends "wasting space" in a parking spot. I'll certainly agree that a parking garage is a better place for a seldom-driven car than alongside the street, but then I imagine we'd see these people squatting in a parking garage and complaining that it should be turned into an apartment building.
Some people are just looking for excuse to be outraged. The specific reason doesn't matter so much.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @01:01PM (1 child)
Even worse is.. why didn't this guy rent the parking place, and put a tent with 4 beds in it?
Isn't that helping more? Helping the homeless?
Yet.. the city will evict those homeless too. But I guess evicting people with laptops is some horrid social evil, right?
Right?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday May 06 2019, @09:25PM
> Yet.. the city will evict those homeless too.
I know, right?
Last time I arranged for a friend to host a whole bunch of undocumented homeless guys in the back of a truck in Texas, all hell broke loose because of some A/C problems...
*ducks*
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @03:14PM (1 child)
There. FTFY.
And big thank yous to the auto industry and Robert Moses for prioritizing auto industry profits over the good of the nation.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday May 06 2019, @09:26PM
How is that flamebait?
How is it even controversial?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr