Comment by alexasmyths | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alexasmyths | Hacker News Reader

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American cities were generally not shaped directly by the companies, rather, by the economy made from those companies.

Lots of cars = big stores = possibility for suburbs.

Exxon did not say to the President: 'build suburbs because it's good for cars'.

I believe Google has considerably more goodwill - at the same time...

We've known for 100's of years how to build good cities

Cities are about people, culture and architecture - not 'wifi' and 'hyper-loops'.

Many North American cities are trying to get people to bicycle - yeah - that's retrograde ! and good. We don't need tech for that.

Utopian thinking usually ends up in dystopia because of the arrogance of the 'visionaries' - they over emphasize some things, and fail to recognize the underlying, important things.

I can't think of a single 'modern' city, truly designed in the modern era that is a glowing example of 'how it should be'.

All the great places to live are old - built before cars, interesting architecture, and some kind of local culture with nice people, low crime, fresh air. That's mostly what you need.

Want a hyperloop? Sure. Put it underground where nobody can see it, and it serves it's function: getting people from A->B.

> Exxon did not say to the President: 'build suburbs because it's good for cars'.

Yes he did. A few examples of what oil/car folks did: dismantle public transit, make sure negative externalities of cars are not directly paid, lobby congress to pay for 90% of highways and make transit funding less/harder to get, get into wars for oil, take over planning departments at highly regarded colleges and change curriculum to churn out car focused planners.

Don't forget that Eisenhower created the Interstate System [1] which was car based and heavily advertised for traveling for Americans, while also being a national security need for military transport.

Creating the interstate systems did kill trains but also greatly influenced where cities and economies sprang up. It also made the US a car culture and locked it in, which worked great for big areas of undeveloped land at the time, and allowed people to move around more freely.

I'd love a president or government in the US to do the same and make an electric car interstate system, basically just giving it to companies like Tesla or others with conditions. Basically start adding electric car charging stations and add an iteration to the interstates, make them self-driving capable and more.

Or a president or government policy to get gigabit broadband across the nation as a new baseline of digital transportation of data that will open up unforseen new products and markets.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System

> Many North American cities are trying to get people to bicycle - yeah - that's retrograde ! and good. We don't need tech for that.

When there are no bike lanes it's a problem.

Tokyo is what I would consider modern and is miles ahead of most of the big cities I have lived in or visited. Just having public transport that respects their customers (unlike the TTC in Toronto) is already a big improvement.

Tokyo is so dense that they have a need for that.

TTC is killed by the unions.

The Toronto Subway has changed collectors - 7 of whom, in 2016 earned more than $100K.

I'm not making a political statement - just indicating that public transit in Toronto can't move without the unions - and unless you want to pay through the teeth - and keep jobs around where they don't need to be ... no future.

In Frankfurt, most stations have no staff, it's mostly the 'honour system'.

There are some 'token machines' in Toronto but it's archaic in 2017 to be paying people to 'make change'.

I'm fine with 'employing them' but surely there is something more productive they could do.

The one competitive advantage I see them having (and they don't usually even do that well) is giving directions. If the city has to shut down for a few days to kill the unions I am all for it. Multiple delays getting from point a to point b and dead aircon for an entire summer is inexcusable after you've seen how well a city transit system can be run.

If it takes Google scanning my Google ID and filling out a CAPTCHA to get on the subway to achieve this then so be it, the current system embarrasses me when I have foreign friends visit.

This is it.

Some systems are so backwards they will never be fixed, they will be disrupted. But don't discount the power of unions.

You could have, in Google Village Toronto - literally the coolest and most advanced transit system in the world - and the TTC Change Collectors could still be there.

It takes a mayor or Premier who is basically willing to burn a ton of political capital to take them on - and it never happens.

Current Premier Wynne is bribing the unions for votes.

It's a problem with populism - and one of the ugly/secret reasons that public transit is not expanded in more places: bureaucracy, complexity, unions, cabals, systems-in-place.

I don't like Google, but yes, let's hope they can disrupt public transit.

> I believe Google has considerably more goodwill

I wish this idea would die. They are an ad company. They want to stuff themselves into every facet of your life and milk you for information.

If someone told me 20 years ago that people would become "fans" of massive advertising companies that engage in mass surveillance at levels that would make the Stasi blush, and delude themselves into believing those ad companies "care about them and just want to help", I'd have called them crazy.

Now, watching it all actually unfold, I'm starting to wonder if I'm crazy.

You're not crazy. Ad companies are great at marketing themselves and getting better and better. Many people buy into it although and it's concerning how aggresive Google, Facebook and Amazon are with bringing their eco-systems into every facet of our lives.

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