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Comment by bluefishinit | Hacker News Reader

> The Greening America’s Cities initiative launches with $50 million for urban greening efforts in five cities–Albuquerque, Atlanta...

This is ironic given that Atlanta currently has 85 acres of prime greenspace that the city is spending $90M+ to turn into a police training center:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cop_City

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Never attribute to irony what can be attributed to fuckery.

I don’t know Bezos or Amazon’s stance on cops but I do know that corporations loooooove police - it’s where cops came from. I wouldn’t be surprised if this infusion is specifically to detract from the bad press of Cop City.

Oh wait, I do know Amazon’s stance - I was lying, you see. Amazon, via Ring, has really cozied up to law enforcement. The terms of what they can and can’t do with your data have gotten looser and looser when it comes to sharing data with LE, and this includes the Neighborhood app or whatever. Crime on your street? Ring can hand over all recording data from that time from the cameras on your street without the owner’s consent.

So, given this, I’d be very curious to know how much influence this will have on City (sorry about the emoji, I have an auto replace and got tired of “fixing” it). I’d also be curious to know if similar Urban Warfare centers are planned on the other four locations, as the one in Atlanta is certainly being watched closely by other departments looking to get in on the action (and tax dollars!) of simulating high speed chases and no knock raids!

Do you have any pointers to the history of cops coming from corporations? In the UK, they came out of a government response against the inefficiencies of volunteer enforcement groups in the 19th century, and were mostly opposed by civil liberties groups (including the City of London, which was, I believe, was an institution dominated by merchant interests even then).

The podcast miniseries Behind the Police does a better job with the details, but policing in the US came out of two places: in the north, it came out of protecting the assets of businesses. In the south it was the same thing, but those assets were…people. Either way, policing came from the need for those with money to protect their “property”.

What does it mean to attribute something to irony?

I was just making riffing on the quote “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”.

The idea there being that OP said it was ironic, and my guess is that it’s less ironic and more intentional.

FTFA: >The $90 million[2] construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center began in spring 2023 on a 85-acre plot of land in the South River Forest, DeKalb County, Georgia....

>...Once complete, the center is planned to be used as a training center for police and fire services and is expected to open at the end of 2023....

>265 surrounding acres of the site will be used as green-space.[6]

265 acres of green space sounds good?

It's a forest now so cops-only green space is a downgrade in a couple ways.

> given that Atlanta currently has 85 acres of prime greenspace that the city is spending $90M+ to turn into a police training center

You mean the not prime green space that was a prison farm and illegal waste dump site for seven decades?

Ding ding ding. He means exactly that.

It's an okish natural area right now, but it's hardly pristine wildlife, and while I'm not a huge fan of the APD - I don't think that removing training opportunities (and potential revenue from surrounding areas that use the facilities) is really the right solution.

For context - I've been in Atlanta 34 years, and live in South Atlanta now.

Frankly, I don't understand the "cop city" drama. It feels entirely manufactured.

No amount of money is going to fix public policy and citizen apathy. The change needs to be grassroots and cultural, not pushed down by someone with $150B to his name.

Cop City? Oh yea, Amazon is funding that effort.

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