The amount of people getting 0 upvotes for calling this shit ugly is kaczynski inducing
Guys the issue isn’t (mainly) that these are all identical cookie cutter houses without a grass lawn, or what they’re one step away from apartments (these are worse than apartments), or even that it’s “high density” housing (it’s not really, they’re still single family homes).
the issue is this sort of development is a fucking zoning dystopia that manufactures human misery. I think north Americans who haven’t been outside USA or Canada will often forget that the majority of the world and most of human history did not have towns carved up into “housing zone” and “everything else” zones.
The extinction of mixed use zoning has been devastating on communities. It leaves people in food deserts. it leaves people more sedentary and pedestrians more at risk because of car dependency. it leaves children alienated, depressed, and much more dependant on their parents for longer when they need a drive to go anywhere interesting. Not to mention a lack of any profit generation besides property taxes leads to suburbs consistently being subsidized by the inner cities because they are economic sandpits with 10x the asphalt, piping, and utilities needed because every home needs its own independent setup.
Having swaths of land designated for absolutely nothing but residential development is a waste at every level. Hell, even communist bloc housing was smart enough to keep a ground floor for business space, many have small groceries or stores to keep things walkable.
This setup is an extremely common sight in eastern Europe. They aren’t American style non-perishable food desert corner stores either, they sell fresh meat and produce and many are open 24 hours. The nearest thing you can get around here to “European” style zoning (we had it too actually, we just bulldozed it all lol) is probably Montreal because Quebec prides itself on french identity and architecture/city planning is no exception.
I stg the north American white middle class is so agoraphobic they built themselves into misery pods, but hey at least there’s no undesirables in the neighborhood bringing down property value so in the end it was all worth it. And yes a lot of it does all come back to racism. A combination of white flight from urban areas and the exclusion of black veterans from the G.I. bill lead to these homogenized ivory towers of nothingness.
cant stop thinking about how in portal 2 one of the science projects in the Bring Your Daughter to Work Day exhibit room is signed by chell suggesting that shes the one responsible for that giant potato and that at least one of her parents was an aperture scientist that glados killed
kid chell forever
For whoever needs a transcription. I attempted to preserve the extra capitalization and typos I saw.
<On a poster board titled: Energy of the Future!>
PROBLEM
My dad said somebody at the cafeteria ordered too many potatoes so everybody has todo a science project on potatoes now for Take Your Daughter to Work Day and lunch will be french fries. Mr. Johnson said we could use as many potatoes as we liked for our projects But I’m only going to use one. I asked my dad if I could do a different project because I already did a potato Battery project in class last year and he said no, Mr. Johnson would get mad.
HYPOTHESIS
Probably the potato will do the same thing it did last year for my class project, except mabe not because I had a new potato last time and this one is pretty old. My dad says his hypothesis is whoever ordered all the potatoes will probably Get fired
CONCLUSIONS
Last time my potato battery produced 1.5 volts. This time it got 1.6, so I guess it doesn’t mattir how old the potato is. The current from the potato battery did not produce enough volts to power anything important. if I usd more potatoes maybe I could have gotten more volts, but the one my dad brought home smelled and I didn’t want more.
YOU’RE FUCKING UP YOUR TEETH AND YOUR MUSCLES AND SHIT
WHEN I CATCH YOU WITH ONE OF THESE I STEAL A FEW MINUTES OF YOUR LIFE FORCE. WHEN YOU ARE NOT CLENCHING WHEN YOU SEE ONE OF THESE, YOU GET TO STEAL A FEW MINUTES BACK. WE’LL SEE WHO’S LEFT STANDING IN THE END
I don’t think welfare fraud is a problem period I genuinely don’t. I don’t care when it happens and it means nothing to me. I’m glad. As if the government doesn’t steal from you every day lmao… I don’t give a damn
It’s also literally not a problem because there isn’t enough welfare fraud happening to even be a problem to any reasonable human being. It’s practically nonexistent, in fact.
My first “real job” out of college was working for the welfare fraud and collection line.
My God.
If ever there was a job that made you despair for humanity.
I learned two things there:
1. People are petty-ass bitches who can’t stand to see their “neighbor on welfare” doing “better” than they are.
2. 99.9999% of the time there was no actual fraud, just a GROSS lack of knowledge as to how the welfare system actually works on the part of both non-recipients.
Example: Had some guy report his neighbor for owning an “expensive antique car”. Said car was a 1978 Buick with no remaining paint, no hubcaps, and was at least fifth-hand. At the time, the year was 2002. I politely explained that a) that’s not a classic car and b) he should pity his neighbor the gas mileage and insurance costs. The caller said he had not thought of that and hung up.
My other favorite was someone calling to report that their “neighbor on welfare” who was a single mother with no income or support had her children in a “private school”. I asked what the name of the school was. Said private school is actually a charity-run orphanage and school for children who have no parents, or whose family situation is less than stable. I informed the caller of this and they hung up without a word.
Someone else called and felt that their “neighbor on welfare” should have to sell all their jewelry, antiques, family heirlooms, and collection of vintage sports memorabilia before they could be eligible to be “given free money” by the state.
The system is old, overtaxed, convoluted, and being forced to function in a way that was never intended. Like the workhouses of the 19th c, welfare was originally for out of work men. But the people who wound up using it were women, children, the disabled, and the elderly. This continues to this day.
If there’s fraud, it’s minimal to the point of barely existing. Ya’ll are just greedy, nosy, entitled assholes who can’t mind your own damn business. If you REALLY want to do something about “all these people on welfare” try, I don’t know, ACTUALLY HELPING THEM. Offer to watch their kids. Make them a casserole. Drive them to the store. Don’t make their lives harder than they already are. I guarantee, their lives are a LOT harder than yours.
If you REALLY want to do something about “all these people on welfare” try, I don’t know, ACTUALLY HELPING THEM.