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Comment by LordKano | Hacker News Reader

We're seeing this happen in my city.

Areas that were on the verge of becoming urban wastelands 15 years ago are now upscale.

They won't ever admit it but city planners are trying to use economic forces to reverse the white flight of the 60s and 70s by pushing poorer, darker people out into the suburbs and attracting a more affluent, whiter demographic into the city. They're billing these things as quality of life enhancements but all they're doing is making traffic less tolerable.

This city has half the population it did 60 years ago and the commute is as terrible as ever.

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I live in one of these areas and very close to my downtown job, and when I first started my career I absolutely couldn't afford to live here. Worse, the never-ending clamor of removing more traffic lanes for bike lanes continues on, even as traffic only gets worse. There's definitely an aspect of "I got mine, fuck you" at work here and definitely an attraction to keeping the 'wrong' people out. I find myself thinking like this sometimes and try very hard to fight it. I find the bike crowd is almost exclusively white and relatively well off and I don't think that's a coincidence.

I also think there's something wonderful about having streets and enough traffic capacity to allow people access to every part of the city and region. We shouldn't be building silos of rich areas that are foot or bike traffic only. Its just a big 'keep out' sign especially in my town where bike lane usage is low and 6 months out of the year unusable due to the cold.

Here, the bike lanes are unusable from November through March but the mayor keeps pushing to have them added at the expense of car lanes.

I kinda wish this would happen in my city, where motorists rule, and the brave cyclists are treated like inferior annoyances. I do agree these "rich" areas should not be limited to a select few.

Yes its really 'brave' to ignore all traffic laws and scream at pedestrians while you dangerously weave in traffic with headphones on and without a helmet because "bikes are more nimble than cars, so the rules don't apply to us."

Lets stop with the generalizations. There are shitty bikers the same way there are shitty drivers, the difference is shitty drivers get ticketed while shitty bikers function with impunity.

> while shitty bikers function with impunity.

Plenty of cyclists get tickets, even if they're fully compliant with law, because some police are so ignorant of what the laws are.

You must disabuse yourself of the notion that it's the job of the police to enforce the law. It's their job to enforce order.

Shitty drivers kill.

>We shouldn't be building silos of rich areas that are foot or bike traffic only. Its just a big 'keep out' sign

I'm not sure what do you mean. Do you imply that poor people cannot afford to walk or cycle, only to go by car?

Where I live this is pretty much the opposite, but I'm pretty sure even where you live a not so well off guy can also park the car, get out and walk into a street reserved for walking. If those bikers are so well off, they probably won't steal the car.

Only rich people can afford the rent in locations that are convenient by non-car modes. The poorest drive the farthest because that's where housing is affordable for them.

Yes, in a big (in area) city, poor people mostly can not afford to live near work and must move by car/bus.

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