Cities have begun to modify their financial behavior, not on the constraint side but the policing side. In my neighborhood, the city has begun to enforce parking meters from eight a.m. to 10 p.m.--including saturday and sunday. Ticket fines have been doubled. Like the famous speed trap communities in the south whose municipal economies are entirely dependent on passing travelers nabbed for "speeding violations", the cities are expanding their incomes by expanding their intent.
Parking meters have always had the purpose of keeping parking available in commercial areas so those local establishments could serve customers. The parking was always available; no one could just leave his car and tie up the parking space forever. It encouraged customer flow. Now the government sees the parking space as a revenue source and is actively milking the spots for cash. The effect is not to keep spaces available for parking to benefit local businesses, it is to discourage parking at all. Restaurants especially are seeing the effect.
Government's new purview is the fine-tuning of society, the readjusting of genetic and cultural inequities and the balancing of fortune. It is a smiley face. But every once in awhile the real, self-serving predatory visage peeks out. And these small moments reinforce the growing popular belief that the government is simply not on the citizen's side.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment