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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

I'm torn on this one.

On one hand, you don't own the street in front of your house. It's public and anyone can park there. And that's very fair.

On the other hand, I've lived in suburban neighborhoods without enough parking, and they look so run down and shitty--every street looks like Fast Eddie's Used Car Lot. If I was looking for a suburban home to move into, I would probably skip a neighborhood with streets blighted with parked cars everywhere. And definitely taking a lot that used to be zoned for a single family home and dumping a 14 family apartment on it will quickly turn a neighborhood into that street parking blight.

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That's pretty crazy, almost the opposite of my own experience. The very desirable neighborhoods where I live are the streetcar suburbs near downtown that were built before the prominence of the car. A lot of on-street parking because the lots weren't sized for driveways, but because the neighborhood is actually walkable and mixed-use it's where everyone wants to be.

Street parking doesn't have to be horrible. Look at some of dense super expensive inner suburbs of London for examples - pretty little flower baskets hanging from beautifully painted Victorian wrought iron street lights, hewn stone gutters etc. Charming++

Poorly _maintained_ (cleaned, resurfaced, policed) streets are ugly. Streets are poorly maintained when the property tax base is insufficient.

Increasing density can amortize the cost of maintaining the streetscape over more households.

Ban free street parking. Then the developer of the apartment building has to build parking. Or carfree people self-select themselves into that building.

So? Pay up to move somewhere where everyone else is rich enough to share your tase if you don't like it. Or move more rural and deal with those tradeoffs.

That's exactly what I did! I would prefer to not have to up and move away from blight, but if residents vote for it, who am I to object? It's a free country.

At least you put your money where your mouth is.

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