Tales of Cities

Yes. Sure. Why not. Give them an island. Semisopochnoi Island sounds ideal.
All those nice people in one place. Problem solved, and by itself too.

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Now a Burbclave, that’s the place to live. A city-state with its own constitution, a border, laws, cops, everything.

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A good read.

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Libertarians always forget about food and bears.

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And then the bears moved in

Great story or novel title. Band name instead?

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image

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They’re a lot more welcome than the bears!

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Just an FYI on this… the current streetcar is a loop downtown from the King Center in the Old Fourth Ward over to Centennial park… it’s very tourist centric in that. The original plan was to take a leg east along the Eastside beltline route over to Ponce City market, which again, would be good for tourists most likely, and more well-heeled folks who have moved into Old Fourth Ward. Now they’re talking about legs going south in what looks like would be more aimed at giving people in more working class and historically Black parts of the city greater access to the city center… MARTA has a heavy rail line that goes south to the airport, but east and west of that is only served by busses.

So… this MIGHT be a good thing?

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I’m for that. I hate that they made a showpiece trolley for the tourists. several miles of rail that say “we don’t care about the people that live here.” but getting the trolley started with whatever they could get and building outward did make sense politically.

otoh, the Eastside beltline is clogged with foot traffic that the rest of the beltline is not. it would be cool to pass one giant trolley full of people on one clearly defined set of rails instead of fifty individuals who walk unpredictably.

on the third hand, people should probably be getting more exercise than sitting on a trolley; but the beltline really ought to have a trolley.

what I want more than anything is for them to connect the two ends of the north section with just the regular path. what we’re calling a belt is not, yet. it’s still a horseshoe. but the northern neighbors probably fight everything or they haven’t acquired the property yet or something. I do welcome the start of trolley service.

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Yeah, I agree with all that. I’d love for the entire city inside the belt line to have a minimum of cars - more walking paths, bike paths, trolley service, bus service, etc. Of course, none of that matters much if housing continues on the upward spiral that it’s on in those intown communities (look at YOU old fourth ward!), both inside and outside the beltline. Only wealthy folks will benefit.

But we need more heavy rail, too. I have a friend who lives off Druid Hills, and she has a drive a while to get to a MARTA station either way. I’d love to have a line that goes all the way out to Athens, up to Cartersville, west to Coweta, south to Macon, etc, etc… A girl can dream… :sob:

Oh, I’m sure that’s a large part of it… Bunch of dicks up there. :rage:

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yeah, every couple years there’ll be something about rail to Athens, which is perfect because students would definitely use it, and then all the areas in between would have access to either Atlanta or Athens without having to drive (including the airport.) but nothing ever seems to happen. but the more rail infra ATL gets, the more likely a spur to Athens would seem to be.

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Part of the problem is the northern part of my county gwinnett… despite the southern half down here being solidly blue and quite diverse, the northern half is still dominated by reactionary whites. During election season, they keep putting rail/MARTA referendums during the primary vote, which they know has much smaller turn out, and the reactionaries come out to vote it down every fucking time. I suspect the same would happen out in Walton and maybe even in Athens/Clark Co.

Agreed. It only makes sense eventually.

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The ironic thing is, proximity to light rail raises property values. Logically, Republicans should be all over it.

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Yeah, but the part of the city where this is is Democratic and Black majority (thought just barely now), and they don’t want Democrats or Black people to have nice things.

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Kansas City has also been rebuilding its streetcar system, but I think it’s mostly in a touristy area. A lot of it was developed while I was in New Jersey, so I’m admittedly not up to speed. I should investigate.

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