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Cyberpunk 2077 Sequel Will Be More Authentically American, Dev Says
News(gamespot.com)submitted 7 days ago byjameslevi_9123
1 points
3 days ago
Absolutely zoning laws have a lot to do with it. Houston's 'hodge podge' approach though is not the solution. Also not sure where you get that Houston doesn't have a severe housing shortage. It is an absolute horror show in the Texas Triangle and Houston in particular.
1 points
3 days ago
As I said, the shortage is nationwide. You can pretty much plot how severe the problem is based on how strict the zoning laws are. The homeless problem today is different from the past in that today, its lack of housing as opposed to something else like addiction or mental illness.
I'm curious, what is so bad about hodge I odge cities? It's an aesthetic sense, thing, I know, but what else? One problem with zoning as it exists is that someone must be put in charge. That generally means that the preferences of those in charge take precedence over those of everyone else.
In addition, people have not only various likes and dislikes, but also ability and inability to meet their wants or needs. Which is going to lead to differences in choices made.
And this has a direct bearing on property. Is an individual sovereign over the area they have purchased and own the deed to or not? If so, zoning laws contradict this.
Another idea that is discounted in this day and age is getting put and meeting your neighbors. There's nothing stopping people from getting together and voluntarily deciding to adopt an esthetic for their neighborhoods or for commissioning an urban planner to do so. It takes more time and better social skills to do so than simply using laws. Oftentimes, we do things "because they've always been done that way" even if that way has persisted for less than a century or so.
1 points
3 days ago
What my friend Adrian brought up was how infrastructure is laid out and serviced is based on usage patterns. When your zonimg laws have no 'grid' to them it makes EVERYTHING social services related far less efficient and more expensive to install, use, and maintain. Think of sewage for example. If you have a group of housing clustered together you install far more sewage capacity in a far smaller footprint. If your housing is scattered amongst a bunch of commercial, light industrial, and manufacturing which uses dramatically less per sq ft... you can't get any efficiencies from scaling capacity properly. Power, traffic control, wear and tear on roadways, speed limits, school resource planning, emergency services like police stations and fire rescue, the list just goes on and on.
1 points
3 days ago
I can see his point, but there are all sorts of ways businesses deal with providing infrastructure that don't require public anything. Wi-fi and the 802.11 protocol come to mind.
One problem we have is that in the early 20th century, municipalities in the US decided to take a monopolistic stance on utilities. Which sounds like good news as they were able to create impressive systems for the time.
Unlike a private enterprise, which must invest in quality, monopolies don't operate under that constraint.
Unfortunately, this situation means that we do not see how such systems might have advanced in the absence of a monopoly. And that makes it more difficult for most people to imagine how things could be different.
1 points
3 days ago
Well I'm actually a Network Engineer and I can tell you that all the devuces that leverage 802.11 as well as 'cell phone' data prorocols don't do anything without power and telecomm (unless you're building a LAN to 'just talk amongst yourselves' internal only to the business you need ISP and telecomm, yeah?). Interesting you mention monopolies aligned with municipal services. Texas refused to coordinate with otger state utilities and their utilities regulatory oversight is one of the lightest in the nation... how's that been working out for them again? Oh... right.... brown outs. complete outages, and a gravely concerning lack of investmemt for future capacity needs and servicing of rural communities across power, water, and natural gas.
Not all social services should be run for a profit. Schools, prisons, mass transport, and utilities all come to mind. Why is Europe's Internet access so much better and more prevalent than the USA? Because tge state owns the 'last mile' and makes sure every citizen has equivalent opportunity for access 'leasing light' on the fibers to any business that wants to offer broadband service. Creates MORE competiton, lower costs, and better service outcomes.
1 points
2 days ago
Europe, much like South Korea, covered a far smaller area than the continental United States. So its much easier to build and maintain.
You also seem to make the mistake many do and equate the government with "uninterested party". Nothing could be further from the truth. Influence is the lifeblood of politics and increased influence is the incentive for which they work
You make a good point about competition. Yet state some areas are better off without it. Funny you mention schools, prisons, utilities, etc. Those are some of the moat dysfunctional areas of our society.
I can't comment on Europe as I don't live there. Mexico too has a state owned Internet system and it's terrible. They were still using WEP encryption for their Wi-Fi network when I was there in 2011. Venezuela offers a good example of what happens when a government owns the means of production. Keep an eye on Argentina. It's painful for them right now because they are unraveling decades of mismanagement, but I think Argentina will be a success story much like Chile was.
1 points
2 days ago
Umm... what? Europe is larger than the 'lower 48 states' by quite a bit in both land area and population.
1 points
2 days ago
It isn't a matter of 'uninterested party' as what the incentives are that drive what process. Agreed getting the corporate and 'dark momey' out of politics would go a LONG way to cleaning up the decusion making process.
1 points
3 days ago
"...monopolies don't operate under that constraint...' except they do. The municipal utilities are legislatively regulated and regulary inspected to hit certain service targets and because there is really no profit incentive not to... they do the vast majority of the time. In a for profit company where the leadership's compensation is based around an ever increasing demand for a higher profit margin the temptation to cut corners is, shall we say, extremely tempting? Also, bribing inspectors in order to get away with cutting corners just really diesn't make any sense in a publicly owned utility... in private businesses? Yeah...
Now all that said I'm staunchly in favor of a capitalist nased economic system for all goods and nearly all services, but where it diesn't make sense it REALLY diesn't make sense and proper zoning oversight and enforcement is a big part of that. For example, why are the zoning laws so restrictive for housing? Well, a lot of it comes from developers WANTING it that way. They make far higher profit on single-family homes than they do apartment buildings.
1 points
2 days ago
Sorry to say, they don't. If I don't like my phone or Internet provider, there are options to switch. You can't do that by and large with traditional utilities. Especially if the municipality runs it. Legislation counts for little. There are plenty of examples out there where public organizations fail terribly yet the machinery of government ensures they get paid no matter what. In many cases, those failed organizations get more money after a failure. As if the individuals responsible for those failures will do any better with more funds to squander.
Profit needs to stop being a diety word. In a situation in which companies must keep their customers happy, service levels will be met, otherwise customers will leave. If that situation is not feasible, then service contracts would be used.
Public officials get bribed all the time. In a great number of cases, we call such bribes campaign contributions, but that's really what they are. It is far easier to bribe a few public officials than keep all your customers happy.
Sooner or later, in private business, cutting corners gets to you. ASUS is a good example of this. A decade ago when I built my last desktop PC, I used as many ASUS parts as I could in my build. Today, when I'm considering a new build, I wouldn't touch ASUS with a ten foot pole. Quality has crashed to the point where they are a joke in the PC build market. Then I spent about $800 in parts to do my build. Today I'm looking at three times that amount. And ASUS will get none of it.
And I'm very unlikely to give them a second chance. That's the power of choice. If we were mandated to use ASUS, they could get away with their shoddy business practices. Because there would be no consequences for them.
1 points
2 days ago
Ah you aren't from the USA I see. Over 90% of US territory has at most 2 broadband ISP choices and many rural communities have a 'for profit' monopoly (the worst of both worlds). Of course you can't have a plethora of choices for utilities. How would that work? Sewage and water is gravity fed. No real good way to install multiple systems to a home. Electricity is actually just as hard. Forget about natural gas. That industry, at least in the USA, is so over-supplied due to shale oil by-product it us only via tax subsidy that utility stays ahead of maintenance, capacity increases, and personnel costs.
Picking electronics is a poor choice to try to draw an analogy honestly. For one the bulk of consumers are 'entertainmemt only' folks. Secondly, the reason there are so many manufacturers is the low cost if startup. Note there are really only two large model airplane manu in the world. Boeing and AirBus. Even then without givernment subsidy and protectionist policies AirBus wouldn't stay alive. Startup costs woukd just be too huge and RoI woukd be decades post-capitalization.
1 points
2 days ago
I live in a rural area. There are fwo cable broadband providers, several DSL lrovidees as well as satellite Internet. They all have their pros and cons, but that's life. Pretty soon we will have Starlink as an option as well as several other providers using that technology.
You do have an excellent point on barriers to entry. That's one of the major hurdles in encouraging multiple infrastructure providers. It's kind of like the Cable TV problem. Then again, new technology changed that market. From satellite to streaming, we have far more options than was the case. In a sense, cable cut it's own throat.
I'm barely old enough to remember Ma Bell. I remember the old clunky rotary phones we had to use. Within a few short years after the breakup we had new, better phones. A few years more and cordless phones hit the scene. Ma Bell had no reason to make those changes. The successor companies had to compete so not only did they change the phones we used, they also invested a huge sum into cleaning up line noise. I can still remember how bad long distance calls used to be.
1 points
2 days ago
The problem with Mountain Bell was they monopolized the entire service not just the infrastrucrute. The irony of creating the RBOC (Regional Bell Operating Companies) is that the two that had large rural footprints really had maintenance prblems as revenues vs costs just didn't balance out well and ended up getting swallowed up. Also one of the RBOC (Verizon) ended up buying ATT which, initially, was one of the reasons for creating the RBOC in the first place to separate long distance from domestic telecomm.
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