

San Francisco stops startups selling public parking spaces - nbarry
http://pando.com/2014/06/23/disruptors-to-arms-san-francisco-stops-startups-selling-public-parking-spaces/

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hawkice
This has the potential to actually start people asking whether "free market
solutions" make any sense in issues of public good. There are reasonable
points to be made on this specific public parking issue (few of them shared
with e.g. discussions of public healthcare, which is a philosophically related
debate with completely different details). I hope the standard becomes "What
works?", but perhaps that makes me naive.

That all being said, the only way San Francisco (or any other city) can
possibly manage these problems is through a combination of taller buildings
used as housing and excellent public transportation.

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nbarry
Crowdsourcing can be used nefariously, too. The specific opportunity of
squatting on public parking spaces, then "selling" them to higher bidders,
exists because parking is sometimes priced below market rate. And even if it's
priced at market rate, the market rate will be artificially boosted if
squatters suddenly take up all the spots.

But opportunities like this exist all over the place. Crowdsourcing and
coordination are great when they lead to new opportunities, but it kind of
sucks that companies like this are out there coordinating for the sake of
monopolizing some existing resource.

