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Comment by 32kfjh23 | Hacker News Reader

How does someone saying that things could be built better come off as high level elitism? I’ve stayed in small European towns where they have the cultural amenities of an American city perhaps five to six times its population. Normal people can live good, healthy lives there. Normal people struggling to survive while driving everywhere with few healthy options in sight is a manufactured issue.

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When someone says :

  "Its the overweight, white trash, lower back tattoo of aesthetics."

It completely comes over as high level elitism.

That is certainly true. But the problem with stroads isn't merely one of esthetics; they're expensive and inefficient, and they exist primarily because everything is designed around suburban car owners who want to do everything by car. They're completely inaccessible to anyone who can't afford a car. Stroads are themselves elitists because they exist for people who don't live there, don't care about the neighbourhood, about accessibility for others, or how much economic or environmental damage it does, as long as they're not inconvenienced by it.

Old city centers turned into massive thoroughfares destroy the communities that live there. Whole communities get sacrificed for affluent car owners from the suburbs. But this is not just harmful for poor people, it's also bad for the economy in general; they're inefficient, cost too much money to maintain, don't make enough money, so they require constant influx of subsidies, and this sort of development has lead to the bankruptcy of several US cities. It's not sustainable from any perspective.

When someone objects to comparisons of taste, they insist that everythinn has essentially the same merit. Which is often hypocritical as they'd be rather found dead than with a lower back tattoo themselves.

Not just elitism, it's actual racism, quite simply. Can you imagine the outrage if it was "overweight, black trash, gang tattoos of aesthetics"?

It’s not the same. Black Americans are still fighting for their right to not get shot at by police. White America is seething that Trump had his election “stolen” from him and is scheming to put him back in power in 2024.

Don’t see how acceptability of racism follows from police shootings

> overweight, white trash, lower back tattoo

is elitism. Even if it's right, it's elitism.

If our options are trying to remain status quo or becoming “elite” (as if thats a thing) well then I am not picking status quo. We should build things that inspire is what I am saying and yes I used a visual imagery of the least inspiring most tragically basic thing (that someone willfully chooses to become and do) that came to mind.

You think equating poor civil design to "poor white trash" is doing your part to change it? The only way you could improve things is to post this kind of garbage on your elitist internet forums and smugly deride anyone who objects? That is what is elitist.

Hope that clears things up for you.

Is there anything as elitist as saying "Hope that clears things up for you."? As if you are an arbiter of clarity.

I'll do my part building things that are pretty and useful. You do whatever you think is best.

You can we we advocate for this position in a less snobbish way. It’s times like this I feel like a real idiot for expecting more from this site than the average Reddit trainwreck comment thread.

Guess what, you’re not that much better than everyone who disagrees with you.

You're on an elitist forum, you get what you pay for. Just because half the commenters here fancy themselves sharing the struggle of the working class does not mean they actually respect or care about the "trash".

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