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As rents soar, tenants organize local protests. But what's needed for a national housing movement? | CBC News (www.cbc.ca)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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[–] 6 points 3 years ago (1 child)

There are many problems with the idea that every community should be so maximally walkable that you don't need any other modes of transit. Some urban uses like parks require local low density in an urban setting and they can easily get large enough where 20min walking barely gets you across. Also the social network of people even just including the closest friends and family usually even in dense cities spreads out at least a few km. Also super tall buildings aren't actually particularly efficient. Also some services greatly benefit from a certain centrality that can never be in walkable reach for all people of large cities e.g. universities or other more specialised institutions. Transit and bikes are huge enablers for people to freely live their life as they see fit, and some level of global interconnectedness is probably needed forever. Build one efficient medical supplier, steel mill, semiconductor FAB or generally any larger factory and walkability is immediately gone just because these facilities need lots of space, and their entire supply chain would be much less (thermally/CO2/resource) efficient if we were to split theses factories to enable local production.

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  • [–] -2 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    Also the social network of people even just including the closest friends and family usually even in dense cities spreads out at least a few km.

    Who do you think is going to maintain friendships across a few kilometres? Maybe the hardcore walkers, but the average person is just going to find new friends, just like they do now when distances become too great.

    their entire supply chain would be much less (thermally/CO2/resource) efficient if we were to split theses factories to enable local production.

    That's a feature. Have you seen how much Canadians bitch and moan about wealth inequality? Splitting up central operations into small, local operations is how you beat wealth inequality.

    But I get it. Change is scary.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Nah Change isn't scary, maximizing any single concern in the real world is just too shortsighted. Also not accepting transit or bikes as a part of walk-ability is just confused. Last month I traveled ~400km 206 bike 180 transit and just 8km on foot and 1km in a car. The 180km transit were traveled in a time slightly longer than the 8km walking. This travel is only for maintaining social connections, I don't commute and I have 2 Supermarkets on my street still it is very important to me to be able to move in this way. Even if I could easily find new friends or get my family to move so close walking would be viable, still travel would be important to me just to experience a diverse collection of places and people. Nobody in a modern Context will ever consider a few km a far distance, you can feasibly walk 40+km in a single day bike 140+km in a day and take a train almost 2000km in a day, its nonsensical to discard the later two just because they use technology, especially in places where this technology exist.

    Sure generally I agree splitting and localizing things might be part of a way to more equitable wealth distribution but at the same time, for some essential industries it is largely impossible, just because of the limitations physics gives us. We should take control from the owners of these industries and hand it over to the workers for real democratic control and not destroy thermally efficient production processes. Because thermal efficiency is actually not the same as profit, which is the primary reason for wealth inequality. But I get it even the slightest threat to property rights is scary :P

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

    We should take control from the owners of these industries and hand it over to the workers for real democratic control

    The workers already do have full democratic control over these industries. The perception of ownership is something invented by the workers. That's the thing about democracy, though, democracy favours the strong and pushes the weak aside. We're here because the workers scare easily. They just want their little acreage out in the middle of nowhere where they can hide from other people. Hence why our cities ultimately end up like rural areas, with isolation from people and requiring vehicles to do anything when they occasionally decide to emerge from their shell.

    But I get it even the slightest threat to property rights is scary :P

    All you've suggested is that the workers should start to exercise their democratic rights more. That's not scary. That's how it is supposed to work. But good luck. It is quite true that talking to your MP/MPP/MLA/councillor is a scary proposition for most. The few who are not bothered by it thereby take control of the wealth.

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