denis123

Montreal is also affected by UHI. UHI is a very localised phenomenom and also exists in subburbs. For instance, there is a very strong UHI 250 yards east from where I live while there is a cool island just west from where I live because there is a park. The problem can be mitigated by a number of measures. Here, it is now mandatory to put a green or white roof when it needs to be replaced.

Montreal?s Heat Island: How nature keeps you cool this summer

Developing a hotter L.A. - LA Times

cooker

Smaller in terms of smaller regions? That would work for me. That would potentially lessen the transfers of fund between regions. Would each region build its own highways? That way less populous regions would have less roads, paid for by the people who lived there.

Mobile 155

It has taken a long time to get to this point but it should be clear the best LCF reasons are only realized by the individual practicing it. Whenever a movement forms and attempts to project what is best for everyone someone suffers or someone is the target.

Once we hear the proposed solutions are for the greater good we need to realize that is not an absolute truth for all of us but only for a targeted group. If the solutions cause even more problems then even more solutions have to be devised and a whole new group gets targeted for subsidies or for taxation. It never changes. We can only reach common ground when we accept that everyone is simply living in a way that is best for them and their families. Trying to get them to accept a change because someone else wants them to be more concerned with what is best for someone else's family or the state isn't going to work I don't believe.

cooker

Yes, subsidization is social engineering. And yes, we should preferentially subsidize social goods as opposed to personal preferences. And yes, like you, I have some ideas on what those those social goods might be. Stop me when I say something you disagree with.

cooker

have we reached that consensus?

tandempower

These are statement being made at too general a level to be valid. How do you know that this is true, "whenever a movement forms . . ." "someone suffers or someone is the target." You shouldn't assume but rather analyze the specifics. You are trying to villify anyone and everyone who would attempt to make things better for anyone beyond themselves. That in itself is disturbing.

It really depends. Automotivization and the automotive road network system were both advanced for the greater good, as is the socialist concept of robust economic growth and job creation being good for everyone. Movements have consequences and limits. People have to be honest in exploring those along with the potential. What you're doing is basically just sowing the seeds of fear for the unknowns of change and progress. If nothing else, we need to be lucid about the negative consequences of doing nothing and continuing down the path we're on.

This is naive. Just because people are living in a way that seems best for them and their families at the moment doesn't mean it is ultimately sustainably good. Let's say someone is spending 150% of their income each year by borrowing against the equity in the family home. That may seem to be what's best for their family at the moment, but when they lose their home to foreclosure, it will seem like they should have done some family budget cutting reforms instead of spending away their home. You can't just validate people's choices because it's what they choose. People make bad choices for seemingly good reasons. Lots of people do. Often they make choices that seem rational or good from a certain perspective, but that isn't enough to guarantee that they are really doing the right thing. People may not want to hear when they're wrong, but if they value truth and honesty over pride, they'd rather hear that they're wrong and have a chance at preventing or resolving problems than hear that they are right to protect their pride.

Honesty, humility, reason, commitment to doing the right thing, willingness to find out when and how you're wrong, willingness to change for the better: how about those for common ground?

I-Like-To-Bike

And what you think would work for you and your selected/preferred group of comrades who you think share your values interests,and priorities, IS what your scheme is all about, isn't it? Time to quit dressing up your scheme with a cloak of "fairness".

Tolls to be charged for every street and road? No free rides for anybody, anywhere? All public transit systems to be paid for in their entirety (built, operated, maintained and financed) by the users only through the use of the fare box? No "subsidies" for anybody, eh?

I-Like-To-Bike

I've disagreed with you since your first post touting of naive social engineering/taxing schemes to promote gentrification, penalize the middle classes for not living like you and a select group of progressives.

I've disagreed with you since your first post touting of, in effect, exemption from paying for public highways, roads, streets and highways by the progressive gentry who would inhabit and perhaps benefit from your insular brave new world of exclusive access to unsubsidized passenger funded/furnished transportation systems running on private rights of way or toll roads.

Mobile 155

Do you really believe the rest of society has less reasoning power than you do? Do you really believe your suggestions have shown a regard for the common good of people living different from your suggested solutions? If so you should read some of your own posts about the hunger games, pyrimids and trees running their tap roots down the provided water supply.

Most people do have a budget and most people try to live within it. Normal families work to provide for the needs of each member to the best of their ability. Do some or even quite a few overspend? Sure they do but they are not fools that are moved by the unseen forces of the powers that be to overspend. Most people work hard to make a living car free or not. They do plan for the future by working towards a retirement, trying to get an education and even assuring their medical health.

Just because people don't see what you want to believe doesn't make them stupid. Many of us in here can disagree on how things work and some of us disagree for many different reasons but that doesn't make them stupid or obtuse as you seem to be indicating. To assume your solutions are so good we should all see the enlightenment you have received from on high is to assume the rest of us have had no experiences or ability to reason what is for the greater good of our own families or even our own communities.

I may get frustrated with Roody and Cooker for having a different point of view than I do. (I apologies up front for using this example and names) but I don't assume they haven't thought about their stand and have reasons for them. I don't know about others here but i am not impressed with the intimation that so many of us don't realize what we want in life and how much of what we want is for our good, at the time, and for our community, in the future. Just because you do not see yourself as part of the status quo does not make your opinions Avant Garde. They often sound more like they were from L. Ron Hubbard. IMHO.

tandempower

If I thought other people had less reasoning power than I do, would I really bother posting my best reasoning on public discussion forums like this one? Yes, I apply reason to the task of contemplating what is good for people, myself included but others as well. This is what I would think any good-hearted, reasoning person does. Many people are not good-hearted, however, at least not until they overcome the seductions of pride, fear, etc. that prevent them to rising to the task of being a good human being. Life is a struggle. People are not always in a situation where they feel empowered to do the right thing, but often they wish they were.

I never post anything with the assumption it's a perfect idea as I have construed it. All I do is post ideas. I welcome constructively critical feedback. What I get mostly is negative, unconstructive feedback like this ridiculing my ideas from a narrow perspective without considering the reasons I arrived at them or what aspects of them might need further work, even if the prospect for success doesn't seem easily reachable. Your attitude is nothing by negativity, nay-saying. If your point-of-view isn't constructive, you can better keep it to yourself. You just want to fight to put others down. No good can come of that.

The overspending was just an example. You're not good with understanding the broader purpose of an example, I guess, so you just launch into a discussion about the example itself, which becomes a thread sidetrack.

The only thing that makes someone stupid is getting hung up on things like intelligence and stupidity as ego-attributes. If you are more worried about your intelligence making you look smart or stupid than you are about effectively applying that intelligence to problem-solving, that's stupid.

You use ad hom reasoning to put some people up and others down instead of reasoning about content. You just create fights and wars this way. You shouldn't be allowed to do that on a public forum. Why don't you clean up your mind to prevent the discussion from falling into the bickering gutter?

cooker

You're disagreeing with what you think, or claim, or have rushed to conclude I am saying. I am not proposing to penalize anybody (unless removing part of an excess entitlement is penalizing) and I made it clear that I don't know which would be the best of several possible policy shifts that might promote a more fair allocation of resources. I'm raising them for discussion, but you're so convinced your going to disagree with everything I say that you just keep repeating the same objections even after I've addressed them.

"It works for me" as an argument. Figure of speech and all that.

I've explained this before. We can't and shouldn't undo all subsidies, but if an analysis shows they are disproportionately flowing to one group, or causing unintended consequences, like the "drivers' paradise" of Southern California having the worst air pollution in the United States, then they should be re-examined. Are you disagreeing with that?

I personally don't require much infrastructure - I usually bike to work, which costs my city very little, and when I do take public transit, I ride on the least subsidized system in North America. And I am not asking for a fare reduction. If I am receiving more subsidies than the people of Brampton, outside Toronto, then by all means lets rectify the problem. But wait - analysis after analysis shows that they are getting the subsidies, and they are getting it from everybody in Toronto including working class people. Even Toronto drivers are subsidizing them- what should we do about that?

Mobile 155

Your last paragraph says all that is needed. It is not an Ad Hominem attract if I can assert you are what you assert is your position. If the positions and solutions you have presented are the best you have then my post was right on target because the things I pointed out are assertions that were made in the post I quoted. I am sure there are forums I could get kicked off of but I don't think you can demonstrate that I should not be allowed to post.

tandempower

Ad hom means focussing on the person instead of the content of the discussion. It starts ego-bickering battles when one person says, "you do X," and then another responds, "no I do Y and YOU do X . . ." etc. The discussion shouldn't be about 'you' or 'me' or any other posters, but about content. If your best argument against my content is that it's mine, then you're not relying on actual reasoning to criticize anything. It's also ad hom to say things like, "most people don't want X." Talking in terms of more than one 'hom' doesn't make it less ad-hom.

Maybe avoiding ad-hom argumentation would be the best common ground for any discussion.

I-Like-To-Bike

Oh? You mean you didn't already provide a given model where all areas that you think are "sprawl" ARE "demonstrably a bad thing" and are a problem that MUST be solved/altered by whatever means possible, democratic or not?

Didn't you provide it a given that assumes a limited/non existent desire of residents of urban areas for personal mobility, and an assumed limited/non existent desire to leave the urban limits, and no need for buses or commercial transportation of products running on any public road outside of the city?

Now you are willing to "discuss" the means to reach your version of acceptable ends, but just as long as everyone accepts your set of priorities and lifestyle standards as the only acceptable first priority for all public transportation funding policy and the only acceptable lifestyle?

Your idea of "discussion" sounds an awful lot like another LCF poster with self described "good" or "progressive" ideas: Agree with my assumptions, or you are wrong or negative or insulting or worse; or I really meant what I wrote and called demonstrably fact and givens about "fairness" are only my opinion and open to varying viewpoints/opinions different than my own.

Mobile 155

Dude read your own post. Just before the last paragraph you said I was stupid or that my methods were. Then you went on to tell me what I was doing and shouldn't be allowed to do.

The ideas about Prrimids and trees was yours and I reject it and most others. I reject that life is like the Hunger Games that was a presented idea.

I reject that I shouldn't be allowed to post and I reject the idea that any of this helps reach common ground or promotes LCF or Cycling.

tandempower

I said this: "The only thing that makes someone stupid is getting hung up on things like intelligence and stupidity as ego-attributes. If you are more worried about your intelligence making you look smart or stupid than you are about effectively applying that intelligence to problem-solving, that's stupid." In other words, stop fighting about whether someone thinks you are stupid or not and just speak your mind. If you do it to create ad hom attacks and defensiveness, you're part of the problem and not the solution. If you can't have a content-based discussion without fixating on what people are saying about each other, then you're likely to just keep pulling everyone down into ad hom exchanges. Don't you see how this works?

You don't understand the reasons underlying these things I said. It reminds me of the scene from Idiocracy where the guy says that if water causes plants to grow, how come there aren't plants growing in the toilet? At a superficial level, it's possible to ridicule things that make sense on a deeper level. When you ridicule things in this way, it undermines the deeper reasoning that was behind them.
https://youtu.be/-Vw2CrY9Igs
It's not about what you should be allowed to do. It's about what you should and shouldn't do. You should self-police to stay in a constructive mode of discussion, not ad-hom attack/defense. No one should require forum-policing. We are all adults here, or we should be.

cooker

As I said, you are objecting to what you think I said.

You are correct on at least one point. I said sprawl is demonstrably bad, and I explained why I said that. You have not shown how it is not harmful or how it is beneficial. At least Mobile 155 has argued that it has benefits (while ignoring the downside) but you have provided no relevant content. In fact, for all I know, you may not even disagree with me and may just be arguing to be contrary. Besides lots of stuff is "bad" or harmful, and we don't ban it as a society, but we certainly shouldn't publically fund it either.

And no, I don't think it necessary to solve by any and all means - I wouldn't bulldoze Irvine California, for example.

And no, I am not proposing non-democratic means to solve it - that's pure invention on your part. I am proposing ways to limit the harm, primarily by shifting funding, and of course should only happen democratically. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure that a lot of undemocratic, behind the scenes deal-making actually goes into promoting sprawl, and you may well suspect that to be true too, but would never admit it.

No, I have never assumed or suggested any group has no desire for mobility (where do you get you material!??) although perhaps I have suggested people might choose to drive a bit less if it cost more or were more inconvenient, which is a pretty obvious statement, shown to be true in past gas crises, or by the well-known observation that the more roads you build the more traffic you get.

And no, I never said there is "no need for buses or commercial transportation of products running on any public road outside of the city". W…T…F…?? That’s absolutely ridiculous and your wildest flight of fancy yet. Unbelievable.

Somewhat correct. My argument has a part 'a' (sprawl is harmful), 'b' (sprawl is encouraged by bad and unfair economic policies) and 'c' (ideas on what to do about that) and if we don’t agree on 'a', there is not much point in discussing 'b' and 'c'. But that’s fine, you are welcome to argue with me only about 'a' if you wish, and we can defer 'b' and 'c' until later.

Hopefully you will assess what I say on its own merits. I may agree with some things other posters, including you, say some of the time, and disagree some of the time.

I-Like-To-Bike

What roads that are beyond the city borders are you willing to "subsidize" for intercity travel as well as for cargo trucks, and heaven forbid, for city residents to travel outside of city limits, as well as for city residents to receive food, products, goods and services? Do you think all commerce will be telecommuting or walking from city townhouses to the nearby office to the local grocery selling local artisan foodstuffs or at restaurants serving up overpriced meals in artisan pottery??

In your future shock scheme will the privileged city residents subsidize the transportation costs for the middle class and low income people to commute to the city from affordable housing in "bad areas" to provide to the gentry the teachers and policeman, fireman and tradespeople, cooks, cleaners, bus drivers, repairman, baristas, doorman and all the other necessary/desired services provided by people who can not afford to live nearby?

cooker

Answers to all this can be found in previous posts of mine in this thread and in many other threads, often in response to your challenges. Have you found any evidence to refute any of my positions yet?

Mobile 155

For a minute there before I got sidetracked I think it was closer. I have always tried to hold to the Live and let live motto or philosophy and small government fits that better than large ones. Not as extream as the George Carlin quote but the general idea.

cooker

I'm sure if you thought some group's behaviour or a government policy was unintentionally hurting people, you would try to intervene or at least speak up about it, just as I would. We just don't agree on which specific situations merit that intervention.

Mobile 155

I would have to be convinced that the hurt was the problem of the group. Not just politically but actually. My first assumption is live and let live. As long as there is legitimate disagreement about the benefits of a behavior verses the problems then no I would not intervene. I would be even less likely to intervene if one group was being targeted for a behavior and another group doing the same thing was not simply because of the country they lived in.

In in your example of the things we disagree on I might step in on the side of the very group you oppose because of that live and let live ideology. If I thought the group was being unfairly targeted

cooker

In other words, you pretty much agreed with my post, which was about principles. You would intervene if there was harm, even though you and I don't necessarily see harm in the same situations. So there are limits to "live and let live" where harm to others is involved.

Mobile 155

Limits but fewer than most.

Walter S

You believe that? He repeatedly "thinks you said" a variety of things that don't really even resemble what you said. I wonder if there might be another reason for his posts?

He wants to run with your post and elaborate on it for you while taking it to an extreme that most people will disagree with and then sling all that back at you while taking the easy argument against such extreme positions and sit back, amused while you try to sort out his exxagerations and respond point by point.