Peak car - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_car <comment><USER2> I'm part of this phenomenon. I don't own a car but instead cycle to work, use public transport a lot, taxis, and, on the rare occasions I need to drive myself, Zipcar. There are a lot of things I like about Zipcar but I'll point out two that are not directly economic: I don't need to worry about the car once I've finished with it (a real concern in a big city with vandalism, theft) and I can rent different size cars (5 seater for normal times, 7 seater if I have lots of guests).

<comment><USER3> I fear we are part of a small self-selecting group that has chosen the convenience to living in densely populated, well connected cities and are relatively well-off. I doubt you'll hear a lot about "peak car" outside these small groups or areas.

For many, I suspect the car represents a great deal of freedom in exactly the same way that not owning a car means to this self-selecting group: making a decent living, access and comfort, etc.

The real aim to force the decline of car use is sustainability, efficiency and equality. It's not going to happen without huge investments and will affect the whole economy negatively for decades, which is why Governments shy away from doing anything very serious about it.

In the meantime, I'm also happy to not own a car, cycle to work, etc. But if I lived outside central London I would get one immediately.

<comment><USER4> _I fear we are part of a small self-selecting group that has chosen the convenience to living in densely populated, well connected cities_

I think there's also the issue of differing definitions of "convenience." I used to live in a city where I walked or used public transit to get everywhere. Now I live in a suburb and drive everywhere, and I find most of the things I like to do MORE convenient. Yeah, in the city it was easy to walk to bars and restaurants, but I don't eat out that much, and I'm beyond the age where I want to hang out in bars.

As just one example, I like to cook at home, and grocery shopping when I have to carry everything in my arms is a pain in the butt. I know people like to talk about how much fresher your food is when you buy just what you need every day, and that sounds great, but I have a lot of other things going on in my life. Having to plan time to go to the grocery store every day after work is a hassle. Being able to drive five minutes to the store, park easily, and carry my stuff home in my trunk, is vastly more convenient than what I did when I lived in the city.

Having lived both ways for several years, I will never willingly go back to living in a densely populated city.

<comment><USER5> I agree with this. I can drive to a store, buy what I want, and then drive home faster than friends of mine who live in San Francisco can even get on a bus to get to their destination. Walking around through crowded urban streets carrying valuable items you just purchased is also sub-ideal. I can buy things that are large or small, or that require refrigeration: no difference. I can make multiple stops without having to carry a ton of stuff through all my subsequent stops, as I can leave the stuff in my car.

My car is essentially a portable home I get to take with me wherever I am: it has first aid equipment, it has water and snacks, and secure storage. If you are optimizing for convenience, the correct choice is to separate things by networks of roads and use cars: that's why they exploded in popularity. You do want to live near where you _work_ , but most of the people commuting long enough distances to make that matter are doing that due to economic issues (cost of living), not due to fundamental requirements for car deployment.

The issue is just that it isn't sustainable: it uses too much energy at too high an externality cost for us all to have this amazing level of convenience. It requires too much land to be paved and too much oil to be burned. But people should not confuse sustainability with convenience: dense urban areas that are not conducive to cars are not "convenient". To the extent to which people who live in them think they are convenient, it is because they don't understand most of the downsides they know about to cars are caused by dense urban environments.

<comment><USER6> >> '...dense urban areas that are not conducive to cars are not "convenient'."

I'm carless here in the city, and my very heavy groceries from two different stores are about to be delivered by Instacart. I'm lounging around in my PJ's. If this isn't convenient I don't know what is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Almost everyone gets a car when they have children, in the UK it is considered a necessity. However not so many people are starting families when compared to former times, they are starting later too. What this means is fewer purchases of family cars and all those journeys to shops and schools.

We are also creatures of habit so we stick to the transport we know. What happens when previous generations literally clog up all the roads with their cars so there is no room for the cars that a new generation would potentially own? I think that this has happened, owning a car would be impossible in many parts of most city or town centres. If not actually impossible, just very expensive or a lot of hassle when it comes to parking. Why go through all of that when you can just hop on buses and trains, to catch up with games/reading/emails on the phone/tablet?

Once you have a generation that have settled in to using public transport or cycling the barrier to entry for motoring is quite high and there is no peer pressure or real benefit to having a car - unless a family comes along.

Whilst pockets of 'peak car' may exist in cities realising that the car is totally impracticable, there will be growth in more pointless journeys between pointless places beyond the realms of suburbia. Outside the cities there is universal belief that you have to learn to drive as soon as possible, getting a job would be impossible without an ability to drive there. Hence inexorable growth, a long way to 'peak car'.

<comment><USER8> However, this is about car use rather than car ownership - I agree that _owning_ a car is still regarded as normal for parents but I see a lot of people, including my own family, behaving in ways that reduces the amount we drive. There are a lot of factors in this including improving public transport (e.g. I rather like the trams here in Edinburgh even though the project to install them was a fiasco), greater use of cycles - including people taking young kids on bikes, very strict new drink driving laws here in Scotland, reduction of parking spaces in city centers, park and ride schemes round cities etc.

<comment><USER9> This is based on old data, but when I was working in energy consulting the number of miles driven per registered vehicle did not change much from year to year except when there were supply disruptions. Also, miles driven was an estimate based on hard numbers like the number of registered vehicles so not a great indicator. Here is some recent info on US vehicle registration:

[http://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/06/21/has-america-already- hi...](http://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/06/21/has-america-already-hit-peak- car/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is so relevant. In Sweden, there is currently (for the last 15 years or so) a big push to build new and bigger motorways. At the same time, Bil Sweden, the Swedish interest organization for motor traffic, publishes statistics on the share of the population having a driver's license.[1]

Ever since I found this document I've been convinced of the decline of driving. The statistics are per age group, and the only age groups where the population share with a driver's license are still increasing are 67 years and up. All the rest seem to have peaked during the last 15 years. 18 year olds are the exception, where there is a small increase during the last few years. Still, it's at around 30% up from 25% ca 10 years ago, while it was 50% in 1989.

Cars are so old school. And the explosion engine is just... Well it feels like steam punk to me. I just don't get the fascination. This is from a guy who's currently working to get a license, since I moved back out to my family's farm from the city. I still view it as good to have, not something that excites me at all.

[1] [http://www.bilsweden.se/statistik/korkort](http://www.bilsweden.se/statistik/korkort)

<comment><USER11> > Cars are so old school. And the explosion engine is just... Well it feels > like steam punk to me. I just don't get the fascination.

A lot of people don't "get" my fascination with programming. Others don't "get" my fascination with American football. Others don't "get" my fascination for living in population sparse areas.

There's nothing to "get" other than the fact that all have different likes and dislikes. Some people like cars for their freedom, for their solitude and/or for their speed. Maybe there are other reasons too!

<comment><USER10> Of course, and that's ok with me. I guess I'm coming from a place where it was expected for a boy to be fascinated with mopeds, tractors, cars, cranes, anything with an engine. Not that there aren't many in my generation who, like me, never shared that fascination, but it was still expected, or it felt like that in a way, you get me?

And to not like that, and not even get a driver's license (regardless of whether you really need it, or a car, having access to great public transport and communications and whatnot), making certain people - in your own family, even - disregard you automatically, like you're not actually a man, or you're not actually grown up.

I've come to terms with all that now, and I understand it way better than when I was in my twenties and younger, but it still exists, and again, to me it's just weird.

To clarify, I don't look down on e.g. my father for not "getting" computers and the Internet, even though I know it would be a great resource for him. I get the feeling that it's not mutual, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I read an article by a good journalist and nonfiction writer about "Peak ___".

On one hand, I think it's an interesting concept for annotating historical events that are likely to happen. On the other hand, i think the "peak oil" idea of an inevitable supply crisis was generally poorly explained and understood.

On the positive side, if we start by identifying relevant historical Peak X points, we might get something useful. Cars are a technology. Does technology peak? Have we passed "Peak Agriculture?" Will there be a "Peak Literacy?"

We need a better historical account of how things peak for this perspective to be useful for anything but long term business strategy.

[https://www.straight.com/news/818136/gwynne-dyer-forget- peak...](https://www.straight.com/news/818136/gwynne-dyer-forget-peak-oil- weve-reached-peak-everything)

<comment><USER13> We are definitely way past peak employment in agriculture.

<comment><USER14> Are we ?

I don't know either way but the countries with fastest population growth tend to be ones with lots of agriculture.

<comment><USER13> Lots of agriculture, yes. But as productivity improves, everyone needs less people working in agriculture.

Here are some graphs over time: [http://ourworldindata.org/data/food- agriculture/agricultural...](http://ourworldindata.org/data/food- agriculture/agricultural-employment/)

<comment><USER14> I'm interested in total numbers, not proportion of the population.

<comment><USER13> Read further. They have those, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The article lists San Francisco as having total vehicle kilometers traveled as having declined "-4.8%"; but I would be more interested in seeing the suburbs, too; does it matter if local city centers are declining if the surrounding suburbs are all increasing?

I work in SF, and I don't drive any miles in SF. But I drive ~35 miles daily to get to the public transport (CalTrain[1]). There's a less-driving-time public transit route to work, but it doubles to triples the commute time, which is unacceptable.

That said, I also don't "commute solo" … the difference between the HOV and non-HOV lanes is too great.

I also lived in Providence, RI, for a bit; there the transit system suffered two interesting "failures":

1\. it was quicker for me to not take the bus that went right in front of my house; walking was routinely faster. This was mostly because…

2\. the bus I was connecting from arrived 2 minutes after my connection had left.

(and if you're going to encourage _more_ people to trade driving for public transit, CalTrain is going to need more capacity; trains are routinely full: i.e., there is so little room that it is difficult to board the train, let alone sit.)

<comment> semi-extrinsic If your work is within walking/running/cycling distance I think those options essentially always win over anything else in densely populated areas.

I recently spent half a year in central London, 6 km from home to work. I would run or longboard it in < 40 minutes one way, taking the tube or bus took > 60 minutes door-to-door, so even including a quick shower running was faster. If you count in the money saved on not taking the tube, not needing a gym membership, and the time saved by not having to do any workouts after you come home from work, it's a big win.

I did have to limit myself to 3 days running a week (2 days longboarding), or my knees started complaining. Also, London: fix your goddamned pavements, they are un-bloody-skateboardable. We have invented concrete and asphalt, you don't need to use cobblestones everywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This makes no sense unless the distribution between rural vs. urban populations changes. If most of the projected population growth (to 10bb people by 2083 [1]) happens in areas where there is mass transit, then great - this seems plausible. If the % of the population growth continues to be what it is today (close to 50/50 [2]), then this just cannot be plausible. 5bb people in 2083 is unlikely to be result in fewer than the number of drivers that there are on the roads right now (roughly 1bb) [3].

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth) [2] [http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/world-...](http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/world- urbanization-prospects-2014.html) [3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle)

</comment><comment><USER17> Matt Yglesias's recent article on how car commuting is actually on the rise in the US: [http://www.vox.com/2015/4/29/8505097/car- commuting](http://www.vox.com/2015/4/29/8505097/car-commuting)

Was surprised when I read that. He also ascribed some of the misperception to a young urban journalist echo chamber effect.

</comment><comment><USER18> Cross country, UK public transport is a shambles. As far as I can tell, it excels at two use cases - infrequent journeys and/or too poor to own a car, or so rich that the cost is irrelevant.

A cross country train here essentially has to be booked in advance. Random example - London to York, ~200mi journey, £110 anytime single ticket one way.

And that's for a single person. Add in a partner, friends or children and watch the fares explode into the stratosphere.

This nonsense doesn't happen on the London Underground, or on a local bus.

Basically, public transport turns life into a game of 'what will I do in x weeks time?'... the only people that really buy tickets for 'now' are business travellers and the elite.

It bothers me that the only reason I really want a car is for the journeys that are actually the most trivial to solve. A train ticket from A to B should never cost more than fuel and depn that a car would use from A to B. Yet it does. eh.

(If you book weeks in advance it's sort of OK. But that's not life. Not a life I want to live, anyway.)

Heh. Just had a look at travelling to my hometown for a weekend. A few days out. Few hundred miles. 160GBP return. To me that's basically a troll fare. It's basically matching the fuel and depreciation on a new van, except one person can make the journey with a suitcase or two. Ace.

<comment><USER19> When I was travelling with my SO we ended up in Manchester and needed to get to London. I can't remember the exact fare but it was something like 150 pounds each for the one way train ride ($580 AUD total) vs a similar length trip in Australia which would have been about $110 AUD total.

A complete rip-off IMO.

<comment><USER18> It really is just hilariously broken. I do not understand it.

Many people seem to hanker for re-nationalisation of the railways. I just want to see sensible business methods really.

If you price railway tickets reasonably you have a potential market of millions. Perhaps even 10M+. If you price them as toys for the rich, everyone drives cars. What is going on here? Bonkers.

I take budget coaches because they let me book at short notice, often at 1/5th the price or less.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> >The theory is disputed by the UK Department for Transport, which predicts that road traffic in the United Kingdom will grow by 50% over the coming 25 years

Any insight as to why they would predict this if road traffic empirically has been flat since the nineties?

<comment><USER21> Because their budget is dependent on their own forecast of road traffic?

<comment><USER22> Not as simple as that I don't think. Despite figures about decline in road traffic, there is a big division between London, where the traffic decline has been most (indeed, Wikipedia provides no ex-London numbers) and the rest of the country, where public transport is much worse. For example half the bus journeys in England took place in London.

The UK currently buys more new cars than anywhere else in Europe as well, partly due to credit availability, but clearly there is demand, and there is a huge pro road pro motorist lobby, as is clear when fuel taxes are increased.

So I think the DoT have ended up reflecting largely this pro car part of the UK.

<comment><USER23> I buy new cars in the uk using credit but don't drive them much. My baseline miles per week is 0. Occasionally we use our car at the weekend. Still, I buy a brand new expensive car every few years. I guess I just old enough to.be effected by the idea of the car as a status symbol, but young enough to be caught up in urbanism.

<comment><USER22> So you rent a status symbol to put outside your house? What an easy thing to just stop doing.

<comment><USER23> Gosh you're right, I'll do it right now! Thanks!

<comment><USER22> Get yourself one of these instead [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Headington_Shark](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Headington_Shark)

<comment><USER23> I see it often enough already. In fact, I'd rather it was on someone else's house. I would forget it was up there if it was on my own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's interesting that most of the countries with observed post-peak-car figures are relatively advanced countries, but most of which have had very good public mass-transit for a very long time. Yet the downturn didn't really occur until around 1994.

It's important to realize that this peak has occurred not just after the construction of mass-transit systems, but after the widespread availability of the internet has allowed for telecommuting.

I live in a not-super-well connected suburb mass-transit wise, but my whole area has Fios. Because of that I've basically worked from home for the last 5-6 years. My most recent job even has a corporate policy favoring telecommuting because it lets them keep facility costs low. We have to come in 2-3 days a week for face-to-face meetings and other coordinating activities, but they offer robust remote access solutions, BYOD, etc. and make it very welcoming and easy to telecommute.

I've recently become surprised at how many of my neighbors work for places with similar policies.

<comment><USER25> Yes: the main driver in car usage decline is better software and networking.

You already named remote work, but it does not end there.

There are remote games, remote movies (Netflix, YouTube), remote shopping (Amazon), remote communities (HN), etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm curious what happens with driverless cars. Do people go more places without the hassle of actually driving? Do car miles go up because the cars drive in circles in lieu of parking? Or does it go down because we view driving as a variable cost more than fixed?

</comment><comment><USER27> This doesn't really take into consideration the growing middle classes in developing nations who will soon be able to afford automobiles.

<comment><USER28> I was thinking this as well. Car use seems to grow with industrialization and spread, then apparently shrinks with automation and urbanization. And if you look at the population that is entering into more general industrialization you see growing market for cars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> As long as we have suburbs we cannot erradicate cars: suburbs lifestyle imply that we use cars.

So the decline of cars proves the decline of suburbs. Thank god.

<comment><USER30> Not necessarily - in America yes that is the way things work at the moment, but not all over the world. There are may suburbs with good public transport where having a car is less necessary.

<comment><USER29> It's very difficult to have sustainable/economical public transportation with the population density existent in the suburbs.

<comment><USER12> It's not necessarily impossible.

Some big Australian cities work reasonably well with 'cars optional' suburb. They have an overall feel and lifestyle that I imagine would be familiar and comfortable enough for most American suburb dwellers.

For a quick and dirty snapshot: Suburbs are considered similar to small 'urban towns.' They typically have a train station (some Sydney suburbs have cool ferry stations) at the centres and the suburb stretches for a 1-2 mile radius from there. They are usually denser and have a more town center feel near the center. Inner city suburbs feel more urban. The really distant suburbs are more car centric and often have a semi-rural feel. Suburbs on the Dandenong foothills in Melbourne are a cool example of this.

Basically the nearer the city centre and suburb centre you live, the less cars are necessary or convenient. It's not extreme though. Most people have cars everywhere but the level of use varies. I would estimate that >50% live someplace where car free living is possible without too many trade offs.

Realistically though, the way to prevent cars is to make them unaffordable. That's an option, but I don't think you can call it a victory for quality of life by itself if it's achieved by making something people want unaffordable.

<comment><USER31> You are talking about something that has very little to do with the population density and zoning of an American midwestern suburb: What we mean is something like this, where having no car makes you a second class citizen.

[https://goo.gl/maps/U5qhh](https://goo.gl/maps/U5qhh)

What you call a suburb is more like what in Spain are called 'ciudades dormitorio': Small towns with a much higher population density than the american suburb, and that have good communications with downtown. People live less than a mile away from a train station that drops them in a public transportation hub in downtown Madrid. It's still a suburb, but it has absolutely nothing to do with what an American describes.

<comment><USER32> They are called the same in English: bedroom town.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Since most people here are American, I figured I'd share my own story. I'm Australian and don't drive, except occasionally motorbikes in more liberal countries where a license is not required.

Having lived in a few places and now having a child, I can tell you that in my experience not having a car is a pain in the ass outside of major city centers in Australia, New Zealand and most of the US. However, it is super easy in China and Europe. In China you use taxis and long distance trains/places/buses. In Europe things are often walkable and there are great train systems and many airports.

To me it feels like the US, Australia and New Zealand bought too heavily in to the 1950s suburban dream and the car society around it, and now have a lot of catching up to do. Unfortunately, reclaiming streets from cars is difficult.

Wisdom from India: _The Highway and Automobile culture are symbols of totalitarian cultures which deny people more sustainable and equitable alternatives for mobility and transport._ \- Vandana Shiva, February 19, 2004.

Another instance of "we out-capitalism'd you!" from China: _China has the world 's longest [high speed rail] network with over 16,000 km (9,900 mi) of track in service as of December 2014 which is more than the rest of the world's high speed rail tracks combined._ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- speed_rail_in_China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China)

<comment><USER34> Those are bizarre definitions of "totalitarinism" and "capitalism".

<comment><USER33> It seems we have an ism-schism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I use my car almost exclusively for long distance trips, so it stays parked near my home most of the time. But I still want it parked there, because I can decide at any time to make a trip and just go. Not worry about rental pickup/return times, reservations, mileage limits, etc. I was getting a new car last year and there was about a month after I sold my old one and before I got the new one. Almost immediately after selling the old car I felt like one of my freedoms was taken from me.

</comment><comment><USER36> I have been thinking this will change as self driving cars becomes more prevalent. Commuting by car is very inefficient since all the time spent driving is wasted (compared to public transport were you can potentially work on the way to work, or cycling/walking were you get exercise). Self driving cars that are sufficiently good to handle the commute most days would change this and allow you to live further away from work in places that lack public transportation.

<comment><USER37> If you own a car today it spends most of it's life sat there waiting for you. Not so the self drive car which can be off doing errands - picking up those Amazon deliveries for instance - or working as a taxi for someone like Uber and making you some money by providing the individual, door to door, on demand public transport we want. This is gong to have a significant impact on how many of us own a vehicle I would imagine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> How does this theory affect the BRICS? (edit: The atlantic has an opinion here: [http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/10/the- rich...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/10/the-rich-worlds- peak-car-moment-car-sharing-carpooling-car-ignoring/263086/))

<comment><USER39> In Brasil, the nascent middle class consumes cares. It's a status symbol and a dream for many. It's a different culture. In the big cities (São Paulo, Rio, etc) the public transportation is miserable. Buses and Metro are overcrowded and Metro doesn't have a good penetration. So, no, in Brasil at least, no Peak-Car for quite some time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Car production continues to climb. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry#World_motor...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry#World_motor_vehicle_production)

There was a slowdown in 08, 09, and then back to growth. Internationally, it is expected to keep growing according to the auto manufacturers. Growing markets will account for a lot of that, for example in India auto ownership is at 1/10th the US and expected to continue to grow for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER41> I think the peak is happening because it's a lot more expensive to own a car and people prefer to share or borrow one when they really need it.

For instance parking ticket has skyrocket by 300% this year in paris, fr ! You don't want to have a car parked there ...

[http://www.metronews.fr/paris/stationnement-a-paris-les- tari...](http://www.metronews.fr/paris/stationnement-a-paris-les-tarifs- explosent-pour-les-riverains/mnln!baMJWQiXCTmws/)

</comment><comment><USER42> With the advent of public transport, it looks like more people are moving to the city. This may also take into account people not needing to own cars, because of the ease of use of Lyft and Uber.

</comment><comment><USER43> I hope this is true, but I suspect self-driving cars will cause an upward inflexion.

<comment><USER44> Who knows, they might enable much better service levels in public transit too.

<comment><USER43> Absolutely — let's hope so. (Of course, there are plenty of public transport systems that could run automated but don't owing to regulations or unionization -- a relative of mine used to work as a driver on BART, which essentially involved reading and occasionally pressing a "deadman" button.)

You can easily imagine the cost of taxi service going down to the marginal cost of fuel and vehicle wear-and-tear, which would be far cheaper than private ownership. But I suggest that will ALSO vastly increase passenger miles. (It might yet reduce the carbon footprint of car manufacture.)

The biggest cost for driving is time (gas, etc., a distant second). Efficient taxis will lead to less car pooling, more trips (because they will be less expensive in money and time -- you can watch TV, read, or chat with friends while driving).

It's hard to see how this can possibly reduce passenger miles.

Also imagine the increase in drug abuse! Now a pub crawl can continue while driving, and on the way home.

<comment><USER44> > vastly increase passenger miles

Ok, this might break the "peak car" but I'm fine with increasing passenger miles as long as passenger-CO2 and passenger-congestion go down. A self- driving minibus that you can call like a taxi but share with other passengers is my equivalent of the flying car :-)

<comment><USER43> > I'm fine with increasing passenger miles as long as passenger-CO2 and > passenger-congestion go down

Yes but the idea that people will opt for a minibus over an individual taxi when the cost is trivial is optimistic. The marginal cost for a trip is gas + maintenance. The way to drive down emissions is to _make people pay for them_.

One of the "advantages" of driverless is that passengers will likely become less sensitive to congestion (because they're reading or sleeping). It's again hard to image much effort going into reducing congestion if people are less likely to notice it.

I don't see how this scenario reduces emissions or congestion.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazon Ring is hiring editors to push local crime news to its users - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/amazon-owned-ring-wants-report-crime-news/588394/ <comment><USER2> As if pushing ever more news of "crime" (much of which may be inconsequential, entirely non-criminal trivia, judging by the kind of material mentioned in the article) at the public will somehow make our society better/happier/safer.

Didn't _Bowling for Columbine_ suggest that a key element in America's fear- driven and violent society, when compared to its northern neighbour, might be the extent to which US media already focuses on such reporting (if I remember right -- it's been a long time)? This sort of toxic, alarmist "news" is already poisoning our social fabric; so let's double down on it and focus even more on feeding people's fears. Great.

<comment><USER3> Here's a relevant opinion from Newt Gingrich on the matter of perception of violence vs. actual trends

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnhJWusyj4I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnhJWusyj4I)

<comment><USER4> This, moreso, seems to emphasize how much partisanship has gripped everybody. For instance homelessness is substantially down across the US. [1] But of course certain areas, especially in California and New York, do not follow this trend. And so for people in these regions and especially in certain areas of them, homelessness is very much an issue, aggregate stats notwithstanding.

Imagine having the same interview, except now have an advocate for focusing on homelessness as an issue and a journalist who keeps interjecting 'but homelessness across the country is down!' Now furthermore, have somebody go and insert laugh tracks when the homeless advocate speaks. People would react to it entirely differently even though it's the exact same logic, just with the issue being discussed swapped. I think this is mostly reflective of partisanship, as it emphasizes that the logic itself is not what people are mocking.

Increasingly often we mock or support logic based not on the soundness of said logic, but whether it affirms or challenges our views and values.

\---

But more on topic I completely agree that the media holds some responsibility (I imagine many people even outside of New York and California believe that homelessness is on the rise, contrary to the data) but there's also the very real issue that aggregate stats do not necessarily represent local conditions. There are also a couple of other factors to consider.

People are much more influenced by relatively recent changes rather than changes that happened decades ago. For instance the violent crime rate has been increasing recently. That it's far below the levels of the 90s is probably not much comfort for those in areas where it's increasing. Another issue that increases in population can see a rate decrease, but the number of incidents increase or remain stable. If the population increases 10% and the murder rate declines 1% you'd see an increase in the number of murders happening. That it's at a lower per capita rate is, once again, probably not very comforting to those in the area.

[1] - [https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in- america/homeless...](https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in- america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness-report/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A neighbor recently got a Ring out of some security concerns (partner got deployed for a year and they have two young kids). However, I've think it's made things worse in some ways:

\- Every potential interaction is viewed with suspicion

\- Everybody who walks up to the door prompts an interruption wherever you are (on your smartphone)

The local neighborhood sharing aspects of Ring strongly remind me of NextDoor, whose suspicion raising and general uselessness can pretty much be summed up in this tweet:

[https://twitter.com/bestofnextdoor/status/112232088963729817...](https://twitter.com/bestofnextdoor/status/1122320889637298177)

<comment><USER6> I have a few coworkers who recently got Ring devices. Now I see them constantly checking their phones and watching the security footage. The level of paranoia this device creates is pretty remarkable. These are rich tech workers living in low crime neighborhoods too.

Having a security camera isn't a bad idea at all, but one that gets you to check it constantly like it's instagram can't be healthy.

<comment><USER7> As a counterpoint, I live in Arizona (hardly rich tech workers living in my neighborhood, excluding me). Tons of people here have them and almost every instance is either just a delivery person OR literally someone trying to steal crap from their porch etc.

<comment><USER8> > OR literally someone trying to steal crap from their porch etc.

To significantly reduce the chance of package theft, I got a simple outdoor cabinet (no lock) and put up a sign on my door asking deliverymen to place packages in it. They do it 95% of the time now, so it's very difficult for a potential package thief to know if there's anything to steal at my door.

Specifically, I got one of these and spray-painted it to match my house:

[https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/storage- furniture/outdoo...](https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/storage- furniture/outdoor-organising/josef-cabinet-in-outdoor-dark-grey-art-00168990/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It starts to get good halfway down:

 _I downloaded Neighbors—you can do so without owning a Ring doorbell—and plugged in my address in boring Arlington, Massachusetts, a city of 45,000 that recorded zero murders and only seven robberies last year. It decided I needed to know that someone in the uniform of a local lawn-care service had recently knocked on someone's door instead of using the doorbell and, when no one answered, left. Also, there was a building fire two towns away, a couple of days ago.

Also, two young people, one male, one female, wearing identical T-shirts and lanyards with name badges, carrying clipboards—likely trying to get signatures for some cause or another—rang a doorbell and then walked away when no one answered. "Anyone know who they are?" the post from a Neighbors user asked, perhaps concerned about Islamic State infiltration of the Boston suburbs. "Call the police," one helpful commenter replied._

</comment><comment><USER10> I hate these things and all the things that go with them (NextDoor, etc). They promote a world where we're all locked in our boxes peeking through the blinds at each other and checking Twitter to see what's wrong.

When we don't trust each other, especially the people in our local community, we move towards a slightly worse world.

This is part of the same phenomenon frequently discussed on Hacker News where children are not allowed to play outside freely anymore. We're all convinced the world is full of Bad People who need stopping.

<comment><USER11> Nextdoor depends on where you live and who you live near. I've learned a lot about my city and local politics from my neighbors. It's a great place to get recommendations for local contractors. I live with a lot of nice people around and I appreciate getting the exposure to that.

There are definitely stories about needle sightings, break-ins, and package thefts, but I've found needles at the park and I've even had police come to my door asking about a dead body found nearby in a tarp. It's not like staying off of Nextdoor really stops my exposure to bad things, but I do get to learn more about my neighbors and keep in touch with what's going on in the 'hood.

<comment><USER12> Your local forums are better. If you lack them, they are easy to setup and can become a small business.

<comment><USER11> Can you point me to an example of a successful local forum? There's Craigslist for buying/selling items and the local subreddit for discussions, but both of those encompass the wider area of the city as opposed to the neighborhood.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I live in a very affluent and safe area in Central Indiana. Yet my Next Door and FB neighborhood group has lot of posts from people living in fear of "rising crime" due to the constant stream of crime reporting from various sources.

I'm fine with being "aware" of what's happening but there needs to be sensible curation of the info.

<comment><USER14> Nextdoor is amazing for that! Every time a car backfires there are multiple posts about "Gunshots in the area!?"

Helicopter flying overhead? be sure to follow the multiple "Police choppers looking for a perp in our neighborhood!" posts.

People revel in fearmongering :(

<comment><USER2> And then wonder why the society is so trigger-happy?

<comment><USER15> The best summary of next door is "twitter for old people".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great, now old people are going to get even more paranoid about the ever- decreasing crime rates

</comment><comment><USER17> Please tell me this is fake news.

I turned off Ring notifications because they were, in fact, making me fear my neighborhood. I try to be safe in my neighborhood. These notifications don't change that. They just make me scared.

<comment><USER2> It's "Job ID: 836421 | Amazon.com Services, Inc.", if you want to pursue the opportunity. Doesn't mention anything about being posted on April 1st... [https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/836421/managing-editor- news](https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/836421/managing-editor-news)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have a Ring doorbell camera and a camera in our garage, mostly to see if the garage door is closed. The "crime alerts" are annoying, so I've basically turned off all the notifications. Looks like amazon has figured out that crime sells security equipment.

We had a problem with teenagers were ringing our doorbell and screaming late at night around 1 a.m. It became a nightly ordeal, and sometimes several times a night. Sometimes they would kick the door and run away. Surprisingly, some of them were teenage girls. Since my wife is pregnant, I knew this had to stop. There is no way I wanted to deal with this with a newborn infant.

The comments on NextDoor are funny to me because it is filled with wingnuts and busy bodies. When I asked for advice on how to handle this situation, I was shouted down by social justice warriors who told me not to call the police because it was racist. I said fine, I'll just tell the registered sex offender who was recently released from prison (for abducting and raping a young woman) that there are young women harassing us, oh and by the way, all are neighbors are conditioned to ignore their screams and we won't call the police... because it is racist. Oddly enough, none of the social justice warriors replied to say I shouldn't.

I called the police and posted the videos on YouTube and sent them the link. They found them and calmly talked to them. Problem solved.

</comment><comment><USER19> There is a new podcast called Running from Cops. It is about the TV show COPS (the "bad boys, bad boys, what you going to do" theme show)

It goes in to how the show make viewers think there is a lot more crime going on than there actually is. The show producers profit off this

[https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/missing-richard- simmons/run...](https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/missing-richard- simmons/running-from-cops-headlong-season-3)

</comment><comment><USER20> This is an entirely inflammatory and baseless article.

Yes, you should care a bit about local crime. If someone in your neighborhood is stealing hubcabs, maybe it's a good idea to park in the garage. Likewise, if there's a spat of minor vehicle burglaries, it's probably wise to make sure your vehicle is locked.

Yeah, is some idiot going to theorize that the salesman who ignored their no soliciting sign a secret islamist infiltrator who is casing their house? Probably. That doesn't undo the value of the other things because silly people exist.

On the other hand, when there are bad things happening in your neighborhood like serious break-ins or joggers keep getting kidnapped, then you know, harass your local police department to step up patrols and act accordingly.

Crime as a whole lowering doesn't mean crime in your neighborhood isn't happening. Yes the world is getting more peaceful as a whole, but yes, you can still be mugged and killed.

<comment><USER21> My house was broken into last year. I wish I had Ring then. We never found any leads and police were unable to do anything.

Since then I have gotten Ring and definitely feel more secure. We even found footage of a man stealing our mail and were able to confirm with Ring app footage from a neighbor that the man stealing the mail was the same stealing their mail.

<comment><USER22> > My house was broken into last year. I wish I had Ring then. We never found > any leads and police were unable to do anything.

> Since then I have gotten Ring and definitely feel more secure. We even found > footage of a man stealing our mail and were able to confirm with Ring app > footage from a neighbor that the man stealing the mail was the same stealing > their mail.

In that case was, the culprit ever apprehended?

<comment><USER23> As a victim of package theft, I'm going to say, no.

Even with a picture of a car, and a decent photo of a face, there's not much that can be done. You need a license plate. There's no way to identify these people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Crime reporting is big business. Besides 'Ring', look at the opportunistic hyping of fake hate crimes, ala Jussie Smollett. The desired outcome is the same: Injecting fear into people, causing them to buy something or vote a specific way.

It's despicable. It pits people against each other.

</comment><comment><USER25> Back in the earlier days of the Internet, one of my first web apps I created as a reporter was a local crime map (inspired by, but much less sophisticated than Adrian Holovaty's chicagocrime.org [0]). This involved contacting each police department individually and asking them to email me the data. A couple of departments were happy, because they didn't want to pay to develop their own online map. Others (small jurisdictions) didn't have the IT process in place. But there were also large departments that definitely had a data process, but declined to participate (and I didn't really have the capacity to start a legal fight for it, since this was a side project, and I was the sole developer).

What I had been told unofficially, even by departments that did agree to send data, was that publicizing the data was perceived to have possible negative consequences -- such as scaring off potential home buyers (this was during the housing bubble). My point is that crime has always been a big draw for local news organizations, and this includes data applications like crime maps. But even ignoring how it might distort public perception of crime, there was always a pretty implicit downside to a local publisher in making their own community look like a shithole. Not just the negative feelings, but the price of real estate (and those real estate advertisers).

From what I can tell, Ring's proposed news service is just for Ring customers? That is, a non-Ring user (or someone not in the local geofenced area) might not get to see the crime news for a given area, in the same way that any Web user could visit a public crime mapper like chicagocrime.org. So the Ring news service gets all the upside of the attention that crime news draws without the same downsides that would usually be part of a publisher's news equation. This, added to Ring's already inherent appeal to customers paranoid about local crime, might lead to problematic incentives in their crime coverage.

[0] [http://www.holovaty.com/writing/chicagocrime.org- tribute/](http://www.holovaty.com/writing/chicagocrime.org-tribute/)

</comment><comment><USER26> I see ads on my neighborhood nextdoor literally every 4th story about how Ring stopped a robbery in <YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD HERE>

</comment><comment><USER27> If you want just the personally important hyperlocal crime news, your local police department might have an alerts email list that they use judiciously. Cambridge, Massaschusetts, USA, does this well. The advisories seem to be prompted by exceptional events/situations that people should know about (e.g., rash of B&E following a pattern in a particular neighborhood, or a rare shooting). If your local PD doesn't do this, consider asking them. Email list is vastly better than pushing you to follow them on Twitter or Facebook.

A city-wide genuine news outlet that cherry-picks important things from the police crime log, and follows up with additional reporting, is also good. And some awareness of the gist of it is important as a voting citizen and community member (e.g., you should be aware that, in some neighborhoods of your city, people might have justifiable fears of being hit by stray bullets, or how close to home the opiod epidemic, and read some of the journalism that personalizes ordinary people who are killed).

However, following every little hyperlocal thing exhaustively, or reading/watching for sensationalism/entertainment doesn't sound like a good idea, or at least is a huge time sink. Also, the reader/community comments can be spirit-crushing.

Separately, journalism is best done without any potential conflicts of interest. Most outlets I can think of have ownership that appears questionable (e.g., a big company/person with an interest in influencing public perception, or with other business before the politicians on which it's supposed to be a Fourth Estate check), but that kind of ownership shouldn't be the norm, and we should try to move away from that.

</comment><comment><USER28> They are already relying heavily on local police force to help them sell.

Now this.

</comment><comment><USER29> It's propaganda 101, destabilize regimes and states by instilling fear in the population and mistrust of institutions. The fact it's also profitable is a happy coincidence.

At the very least, the perception of rampant crime is a problem for local politicians; they're seen as incompetent and not doing their jobs. The worst? See fascists regimes of ww2.

I own and pay a monthly monitoring fee for a home security system, not because I value the things in my house, but out fear some nut job would try to harm my family. This is not rational, the odds are near zero, and it wouldn't _stop_ a determined attacker anyway, but it is a deterrent. And I don't want to kill anyone, even if it is often "justified" (castle doctrine). There's definitly money in fear.

</comment><comment><USER30> They probably found that many people lose interest in their Ring if they don't see a purpose for it, so they're manufacturing a point. The more your Ring tells you about crime, the more afraid you'll be, and want your Ring around to keep you informed about crime.

</comment><comment><USER31> This must be censored to protect the public from antisocial thoughts.

</comment><comment><USER32> nextdoor already does a great job at that. and in realtime.

</comment><comment><USER33> This article seems rather inflammatory and focuses on what other news stations do too much for an article centred around an Amazon product, I think.

I'm of the opinion that local crime reporting an neighbourhood watches and whatnot should be handled by the actual locals, instead of a giant corporation, but this article doesn't seem to support this view, either. I'm left to wonder what this article would suggest, because it seems to be suggesting doing nothing is better than locals handling it.

</comment><comment><USER34> Just release a robot teddybear that threatens you if you try and leave the house already.

</comment><comment><USER35> The "selling fear" narrative seems pretty far fetched and cherry picked. Crime happens regardless of your opinions. Reporting it might actually make a difference since it will at least help people be aware of their area safety and attempt some organized effort to address it.

Yes, the way to address it might be buying security devices and yes, Amazon could profit from this (but not necessarily).

Either way, crime will happen regardless and this has nothing to do with Amazon or Ring. It's not like they are actually putting criminals in the streets or making up stories about crime to boost sales. The article make it almost sound like that.

The dichotomy here is whether you want to know if crime is happening around you or you want to be oblivious about it for whatever reason or belief. That sounds more like a choice, not like an imposition.

If you're going to demonize reporting facts or news about crimes, and you are going to raise concerns about the potential conflicts of interest between reporting and profits, you should start first with a sound judgement of journalism as a whole. As far as I know most newspapers and media outlets are for-profit businesses, so their motivations might be as obscure. And this includes, The Atlantic, the publisher of this very article.

And that actually reminds of a wise spanish saying that seems like a good fit for this journalistic piece: "El ladrón juzga por su condición" ... That means "The thief judges by his condition"...

<comment><USER25> Most critics of journalists, and many journalists themselves, would agree with you that profit-motive is a main factor in deciding (consciously and unconsciously) what gets covered as news. And stories about crime have long been clickbait before "clicks" were a thing, e.g. the aphorism, "if it bleeds, it leads".

Here's one interesting writeup about the "Murder of the Century" in 1897, which is said to have sparked a new era of tabloid reporting: [https://archives.cjr.org/review/headless_body_in_newspaper_w...](https://archives.cjr.org/review/headless_body_in_newspaper_war.php)</comment></comment>


Standards-defying functional-programming macros for the C preprocessor - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mcinglis/macrofun

<comment><USER2> This is surprisingly clean and well-commented. Good work!

Jens Gustedt's P99 is a similar resource: [http://p99.gforge.inria.fr/p99-html/index.html](http://p99.gforge.inria.fr/p99-html/index.html)

Can anyone else speak to whether he is interpreting 220.127.116.11 of the C11 standard correctly? [http://www.open- std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1570.pdf](http://www.open- std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1570.pdf)</comment>


The Pure CSS3 Content Slider - <AUTHOR> http://iamceege.com/pure-css3-content-slider/ <comment><USER2> Neatly done, though I'd really prefer these things come with at least a blog entry describing how it was done.

Mainly I'd love to know if it's reasonable to modify it towards your own use. Looking at the CSS it seems like a lot of very tiny and hairy tweaks, that would require someone who is both technically adept, and _very_ visually adept.

The CSS is here: <http://iamceege.com/pure-css3-content-slider/css/slider.css>

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>----

Update: The download has a version of the code with some very helpful comments. Not so useful for my purposes, but very useful if you wanted to learn more about the techniques used to build this thing.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>----

Update 2: Here's a blog entry by the other on the building of it: [https://forrst.com/posts/The_Pure_CSS3_Content_Slider_Look_m...](https://forrst.com/posts/The_Pure_CSS3_Content_Slider_Look_ma_No_JavaSc- TJ8)

</comment><comment><USER3> Very nicely done, but I wouldn't use this with iFrames for the time being. I started playing with the Wiki article and the slider jumped around a bit incrementally until it decided it was "done" sliding at an incomplete stage. It has since been synced like this: <http://i.imgur.com/0LSDk.jpg>

</comment><comment><USER4> Harry Roberts (@csswizard) did something similar, but fluid width a while ago

[http://csswizardry.com/2011/10/fully-fluid-responsive-css- ca...](http://csswizardry.com/2011/10/fully-fluid-responsive-css-carousel/)

<comment><USER5> @csswizardry ;)

But thanks for the link, much appreciated :D

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3203834>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice job. It works great in Firefox, but crashed my Chrome (osx 10.7 15.0.874.106).

</comment><comment><USER7> That is really nice ... but did he really just say "the awesome folks over at W3 Schools" ??

<http://www.w3fools.com> ("W3Schools: an Intervention")

<comment><USER8> I don't get this. He's produced something that you find "really nice", leveraging a resource and thanking said providers of the resource. And still they get dumped on... for what?

And with a page that appears filled with nitpicks and a level of pedantry that doesn't really matter to people who're just starting out with HTML/CSS/whatever else is being served up by W3Schools, or looking to learn something quickly. Basics which can then be used to develop deeper skills, as is wonderfully demonstrated here, and build expertise in a manner similar to how most people progress - iteratively, over time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is great, thank you! My startup focuses on creative people such as designers and developers, and so far only 2.4% of out visitors have been IE users, so this is perfect for me!

Thanks again!

</comment><comment><USER10> Can I suggest you put the code on github to allow people to easily track changes and contribute and share improvements

</comment><comment><USER11> Please put this on Github for awesome contribution. It might be useful for people to track the future change.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wonder why he didn't take the few extra steps and use HTML5 as well. It's still good though.

<comment><USER12> I don't understand why that was downvoted. These days CSS3 is married with HTML5, it seems like it would make sense to have your page in HTML5 as well. BUT I did talk to the creator and he admitted he hasn't got around to learning the HTML5 elements yet, and that's totally fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Beautiful work. I felt the jolt upon entering was a little unnecessary but still. Just gorgeous work. Downloaded source. Thanks :)

</comment><comment><USER14> What cool stuff am I looking at and not noticing? I see a website with solely static content.

<comment><USER15> What browser are you using?</comment></comment>