Three hour parking

[somjournal.livejournal.com]

You can now park for three hours at lots in Davis Square. Weigh in on the change on our blog.

Comments

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

I was mostly pointing out that it was completely hypocritical to me to call someone who does not own a car an elitist. Know what I mean?

I know what you mean but I don't agree. There are many factors that make car ownership more or less necessary -- family structure; proximity of jobs (a problem which increases in complexity the more people there are in the household); physical (dis)ability; time constraints; ability to afford neighborhoods with good public transportation. Some people have the good fortune to have these factors align in a way that makes it easy not to own a car, because the costs of that choice are low. But for some people the costs of that choice are high.

You don't seem to acknowledge in your rhetoric that the costs of that choice vary tremendously for different people, and that you are tremendously privileged to be able to make that choice with low costs. Not recognizing that privilege, and going on to criticize others who may not share it for having made a different choice, in fact strikes me as blithely elitist.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Tremendously prividged? The way I see it, a car costs a lot of money to own and run. Only priviledged people can afford them. And getting a license is a priviledge that some folks don't have (kids, blind people, people with epilepsy, etc.). So, you see, it seems like the priviledge must lay with the folks who can have a car.

Personally, I couldn't even afford a car when I did have a job. Now that I'm unemployed, I can't even afford rent, let alone a luxury like a car. However, if you'd like to share some money with me, I'd be happy to have you call me priviledged!

Though, obviously, I'm more priviledged than many people, since I do at least have some cool friends, can still borrow good books from the local library, have a reasonably good education, am not starving, and have a nice bike. So I'm happy to have those priviledges.