The Effects of Uber and Lyft in U.S. Cities
The entire innovation of ridesharing was taxi dispatch, with a smartphone. It was only a slight incremental improvement over the existing state-of-the art. More convenient access to &quot;rides&quot; is a bandaid on the mistake of building communities for cars instead of people, with systems that by their very nature concentrate wealth and encourage poverty.<p>I started driving for the taxi company in 2012 [0]. The company already had a GPS-enabled dispatch system. The whole metropolitan area was split into 2 mile x 2 mile Zones. This was how fare dispatching worked from the drivers&#x27; POV: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=cVmm3kECLxw" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=cVmm3kECLxw</a><p>@WrathOfGnon comments on traditional development. Ex: &quot;The organic way of city growth: mature cities, rather than growing like a cancer out of their bounds and limits, send out colonies to form new ones. Léon Krier illustrated it thus: [...]&quot; - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;wrathofgnon&#x2F;status&#x2F;1149093724137242624" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;wrathofgnon&#x2F;status&#x2F;1149093724137242624</a><p>Most of Phoenix was developed in the post-WWII period. Modern Phoenix is entirely dependent on cars and air conditioning. It&#x27;s not very human-friendly.<p>If our dear leaders wanted to deal with the &quot;transportation&quot; problem, they&#x27;d start with the economic insecurity of those at the bottom, who are living from week to week. At the end of my taxi driving period (when my roommate was no longer paying their half of rent), I was driving for 2 weeks to make rent, then 2 weeks for the rest of my expenses.<p>&quot;What an excellent starting line: &#x27;The problem of poverty must, by its very nature, be one of vital importance to any civilized community.&#x27;&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;wrathofgnon&#x2F;status&#x2F;1599036434765451264" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;wrathofgnon&#x2F;status&#x2F;1599036434765451264</a><p>If housing was built around &quot;cooperatives&quot;, people&#x27;s best financial option would be living in a compact environment where you don&#x27;t need a car, rather than moving out into the suburbs &amp; commuting 1 hour to work. But housing is an exercise in wealth concentration, where the only way for most of us to achieve stability is to participate in the lunacy of single-family-home ownership.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=32059201" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=32059201</a> (my earlier comment about deciding driving for &quot;Rideshare&quot; companies didn&#x27;t make financial sense)