I’m not saying that a fleet of self-driven cars will be cheaper than buses in the short term, but there are some real advantages:
-Incredible convenience compared to buses;
-Zero driving time not at capacity (assuming a system that can send the right-size vehicle for the passanger–I order a car for myself, I get something dinky, whereas if my whole family is going I get a sedan)
-Fewer accidents;
-No pay for drivers.
The convenience might be most important. My current mass transportation option to get to work by 7:30 requires me to leave the house at 6:23, walk ten minutes to the stop, ride the bus for 17 minutes, and then walk from the bus stop another 15 minutes or so to get to work at 7:05. I’d do this with a first-grader in tow. That’s not something I’m willing to do; thus I have a car. If I can schedule my self-driving vehicle to be at my house at 7:15 every morning to drive me and my daughters to school in an 8-minute drive, I can probably get rid of my own car.
I suspect many people would make a calculation similar to mine. At which point we’d see a lot fewer owned cars, which woiuld suck for Detroit but hey, things suck for Detroit anyway. We’d see a lot fewer accidents. If self-driving cars are electric (whcih c’mon, seems pretty likely), we’d see some serious reduction in pollution, especially if the power’s nuclear.
As for library books/teaching responsibility, I want to distinguish between three situations.
I don’t have a huge problem with limiting adults’ ability to check out books if they owe too much in fines. That’s a wise shepherding of tax dollars and keeps the library in shape.
I have a problem with denying adults the ability to use resources in-library (e.g., computers) if they owe too much in fines. That’s punitive, doesn’t help the library keep in shape, and is going to make it more difficult for poor people to rise out of poverty.
I have mixed feelings about denying kids the ability to check out books based on fines. On the one hand, if kids can check out books but their parents can’t, that seems ripe for abuse (“Jimmy, go get me that copy of Left Behind, they won’t let me check it out!”). On the other hand, promoting childhood literacy is a major mission for libraries; and kids should not be held responsible for their parent failings. I might support a policy that finds a middle ground: every child must have an accountable adult on their card, and once the child owes more than $5 in fines, only children’s books may be checked out on that card or on the adult card. Late fees may be forgiven at the librarian’s discretion. If books are consistently lost, a cap might be placed–maybe the child is limited to checking out one book a month until the lost books start returning.
The goal is to keep the library open to kids while reducing the financial burden on the library. Yes, it’ll still be a burden, but that needs to be balanced against the problem of denying children in poverty access to a valuable resource and building an ethic of reading.
I am a bit above the poverty line. I work a minimum wage job. I prefer not to divulge further details; I’ve had bad experiences in the past sharing my life story and having my life picked apart by conservative posters berating me for not being more successful.
I agree with all of this, except for the dollar limit (it should be higher) and the discretionary part - should be a prescribed practice. Otherwise it opens the library to charges of inequitable treatment.
I’m primarily interested in poverty as concerns its effects on kids, given my profession. This isn’t a “think of the children!” situation where I’m pulling at heartstrings; rather, our current social structures result in 22% of children living in poverty, and it has a devastating effect on their social and cognitive development, and even if we’re willing to abandon poor adults to their own choices, I don’t think that’s an acceptable policy for kids, nor do I think we’re doing anything effective at all to change the social structures that have this effect.
Effect effect effect. I used that word a lot, didn’t I?
Raising the dollar limit makes a lot of sense–I based that off my local library’s cutoff for checking books out. But removing discretion in favor of consistency is not something I’d favor. Too many bureaucratic rules instead of allowing individuals to exercise discretion IME leads to a lot of the problems with government institutions. I’d rather allow librarians to use their judgment.
With discretion, it means that a child can be prevented from checking out books forever. That shouldn’t be the case. The fees should be forgiven after a set time period for children, regardless of circumstance. Make the adult fees higher to cover if necessary.
Ah–I see what you’re saying. I’d want discretion to err only on the side of mercy. If there are exceptional circumstances in a child’s life (dad suddenly moved out, packed up everything including the kid’s book, to take an example from one of my kids earlier this year), I like giving librarians the chance to cut the kid a little slack.
But yeah, I’m not married to the details of the proposal I wrote, and ideas like periodic forgiveness of kids’ fines make plenty of sense. The general idea is that libraries should have policies that never ban a kid entirely and that encourage kids to develop the habit of regular library visitation, even if such policies are more expensive.
Interestingly, this doesn’t seem to apply to direct provision of the basic needs themselves. That is, the best way to cope with people who can’t afford food is to feed them. The best way to cope with people who can’t afford healthcare is to provide healthcare for them.
Yes, I agree that material assistance (food, shelter, medical care, etc) is far better than cash assistance if your goal is to solve people’s needs for food, shelter, medical care, etc.
While I generally favor material assistance (not sure if there’s a better / more common term for it) over cash assistance, I think the “Utah solves homelessness and saves money while doing it” storyline is a bit oversold. I don’t think they’re making an accurate accounting of the costs before and after. For example, here’s an LA Times article on the subject. It says:
There’s an important data point missing if we want to know if the program actually costs the state money overall or saves it money: how much does the state spend on “hospital visits and jail” for people who participate in the Housing First program? Is it more or less than $6k/year?
I don’t think that’s true at all. My kids who don’t have Internet access at home, and my kids who live in poverty, are almost a complete overlap. Increased information doesn’t level the playing field; it just raises the bar for everyone.
While poor people are less likely to have internet access than rich people, the “digital divide” favors young people (a.k.a. “kids”) far more than elderly people, and urban residents are far more likely to have internet access than rural citizens. cite
I’m sorry your gut tells you that you don’t want to live alongside poor people. I’m a lower class person. I’ve never been arrested or convicted of any crime. I’ve never committed any act of violence. I have zero debt. I show up to work on time. I call in sick maybe one day a year. We are human beings just like you, and we wish to be treated with dignity and respect. Imagine replacing everything you say about poor people with the word “black”, and realize how offensive your generalizations are.
Look, I have no reason to doubt everything you said about yourself. You’re probably a really nice guy and a great employee and neighbor. But many poor people are not. If I were given my pick of three hypothetical neighborhoods, let’s say the only data point I have on them is median income of the neighborhood:
A) median income is $25,000
B) median income is $50,000
C) median income is $100,000
I’d choose to live in C if I could, B if I had to, and I’d do everything I could to not live in A.
That’s not to say that all poor people are bad, but my general expectation is that in neighborhood A, I’d have more stuff stolen out of my yard and off my porch, more trash being thrown or blowing into my yard, more problems with loud and obnoxious neighbors, more police visits to my neighborhood, etc.
If more poor people acted like you, you wouldn’t see this opposition to them moving into middle- and upper-class neighborhoods, but you do, because they don’t. Do you really not understand this?
Sure. So? We’re talking about whether the information age mitigates the effect of growing up poor. Old people have nothing to do with that question, and there are plenty of poor folk in rural areas.