• 0 Posts
  • 31 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: July 18th, 2023
  • Humana@lemmy.worldtoFuck Cars@lemmy.world•Reminder that the smaller a town or village is, the MORE pedestrian/bike/transit friendly it should be -- not lessEnglish
    11·
    1 month ago

    From a certain point of view a small town should be more walkable than a big city but that all comes down to planning. I’ve lived in several small towns over the years. Let’s compare 2 for example.

    Isolated oil industry town of 990 founded in the 1950s. You cannot function without a car. Only a dozen or so businesses or places to go. Everything is far apart, literally ZERO sidewalks. Two high speed highways bisect the town, obviously no sidewalks means no crosswalks either.

    Historic 1800s ranching town turned into a resort destination, population 8,000. I never had a car living here and never wanted one (I’d bum a ride to go hiking). Several hundred businesses or places to go, but sidewalks everywhere. Traffic had recently been calmed as the mistakes of the previous decades of car centered design became obvious to the town. The highway through town had a lower speed limit and several safe crossings. The streets were originally planned out before cars and euclidian zoning were a thing. Was very pleasant to be a pedestrian.

    In theory the town of 990 could have been even more walkable because combined together all the towns businesses and destinations would have been maybe 10 acres. But instead they were spread out in different unconnected parcels which had dangerous highways between.

  • Humana@lemmy.worldtoAskUSA@discuss.online•Should HOAs be banned?English
    6·
    3 months ago

    The city I grew up in (population around 30,000) made HOAs mandatory for any development of 5 or more homes. Why? The city council got fed up mediating disputes between neighbors. People would go and expect the city council to get involved if their neighbors fence was ugly, or the lawn was unkept, or their party was too big. It started happening every meeting so they decided forcing everyone into an HOA would force them to solve it themselves.

  • Humana@lemmy.worldtomemes@lemmy.world•WOKE SADDLES
    13·
    4 months ago

    “Affirmative action” is literally just recording metrics. It’s wild to me how many Americans think it’s a quota or DEI hiring program or something.

    Basically if a company receives over x dollars per year in federal contract money (there are different thresholds for veterans, disability, and race) they have to keep some voluntary data (applicants, interviewees, offers given, accepted, promotions) on file for 5 years. If your business doesn’t take enough federal money you do nothing. This data is not reported to any government agency or anything, it sits in a dusty binder in HR. If nobody ever files a discrimination lawsuit, it just gets shredded.

    If somebody does sue claiming discrimination the dusty binder is retrieved so the judge can look at it. The plaintiff still has to prove their discrimination case in court, and the AA data could just as easily exonerate the company in court too. This benefits veterans, people with disabilities, as well as racial minorites.

    This is honestly a pretty weak program, people being discriminated against usually can’t afford to sue a company, which is why some states took it a bit further. The extreme hate right wingers have for these few data points is also interesting to me. They have done a good job marketing their talking points to the left too.

    Source: former corporate AA/EEOC compliance specialist, apparently you all hate that this job exists.

  • Humana@lemmy.worldtoFuck Cars@lemmy.world•As a bike rider, I forget this is a thing. Asked my neighbor, he pays $350/month in insurance alone 🙃English
    41·
    8 months ago

    I was once rear ended at a red light. I was knocked unconscious and the driver drove off. A few kind witnesses called police who took a report. They got half his plate imprinted on my bumper, but never tracked him down. I had State Farm, and I was even paying extra for the “uninsured driver coverage”. They said they couldn’t cover it because until they had another driver’s information I was automatically at fault, even with the police report and witness accounts. They said it didn’t count as uninsured driver because it’s possible the guy had insurance. I was flabbergasted.

    In the end I had a concussion and needed to take time off work for recovery and my short term disability insurance ended up suing State Farm because they didn’t want to pay for my medical treatment. State Farm agreed to cover medical care but only if it was recorded as my fault and I paid my deductible. In anger I tried to switch insurance companies but found out they have a shared database and since it was recorded as a hit and run my fault, nobody else would take me. And State Farm jacked my rate up 30%…