Comment by Nifty3929
6 months ago
Free, common-use things are awesome - until the tragedy of the commons sets in and ruins it for everybody. This is true of so many things that start free and then later require payment. And everybody gets mad about it.
Chicago has "residential zone parking" for the areas of the city that are primarily residential. For $30 per year per car, you get to park on the street in your local zone (2-3 city blocks). Nobody else is allowed to park on the street in that zone. For visitors, you can buy a sheet of stickers for $1 per sticker that enable 1 day of parking. But you can't buy more than 3 sheets in a month (they keep track).
I've always wondered why NYC and other big cities don't do this. It costs so little, yet makes it much easier to park where you live.
Density. If you paid for a parking permit then there's some expectation that a parking spot will be available for you near your house. Except in NYC residents outnumber parking spots 20:1 in some neighborhoods.
I imagine you use prices and rationing to restrict the number of permits to avoid this issue.
30$ per year basically means it is subsidized. Imagine the revenue if they would rent out that space for anything else.
Maybe my view is too European, but why would you subsidize car ownership in a city?
Seattle has this. 2hr parking if you dont have an residential parking zone registration for your car (it's based on license plate).
Surprisingly they charge $190/yr per car for this.
> Surprisingly they charge $190/yr per car for this.
Don't feel too bad. In Chicago, it's a $30 optional add-on to the annual sticker that everyone has to buy whether they park on the street or keep the car in a garage. The annual sticker cost is based on the weight of the vehicle; it can run from $100 to $500 per year.
Residents love these policies but local businesses tend to hate them.
Business zones (IE arterial streets) use metered parking
Tragedy of the commons is caused by out of sync motives. Like a mismatch in protocols that people speak, which is partially explained by culture and upbringing (only partially of course). That is, tragedy of the commons is a symptom not a cause. Not something that happens just by virtue of something being a part of the commons. The more people you have, the more opportunity for those to be out of sync too
In the case of the coffee shop concept, I’d speculate since there’s not hundreds or thousands of years of history in Korea to establish a proper protocol for what is acceptable to do in a coffee shop, anything goes. Until Starbucks can establish from an early age that coffee drinking as the only culturally appropriate thing you should be doing in a coffee shop, and you may feel morally corrupt, be socially ostracized, or go to hell for your sins otherwise
> a proper protocol for what is acceptable to do in a coffee shop
i had thought that the accepted protocol for making a cafe a working space is to purchase at least one item on the menu per hour.
Except a space owned by corporation is not a commons. It’s not free and not controlled by the people who use it.
It is designed and completely controlled by a for profit corporation for the purpose of making profit.