If you reclaim a parking space for another use (such as building accommodation for families or an animal shelter), you're not depriving the car of anything, it's an expensive, large piece of metal and is not sentient.
Next, you'll say that you're depriving car owners from the practicality of parking their vehicles anywhere they like. I'm perfectly fine with depriving car owners from this convenience to allow a human being to have a roof over their head. (speaking from direct experience as I've just minutes ago had to park my car 1km away from home because the city is currently building housing and has restricted parking space nearby)
Then, some might argue that one should be ashamed of helping animals while humans are suffering. That's the exact same train of thought with «we can't allow more migrants in, we have to take care of our "own" homeless people».
This is a false dichotomy. Western societies inequalities are growing larger and larger. Me trying to do my part is insignificant. Me donating to human or animal causes is a small dent into the mountains of inequalities we live on top of. Us collectively, we do make a difference, by donating, voting and generally keeping our eyes open about the world we live in...
Finally, an entirely anecdotal pov: I've witnessed several times extremely poor people going out of their ways to show solidarity to animals or humans. I've also witnessed an awful lot of extremely wealthy individuals complaining about the poor inconveniencing them by just being there, whose wealth was a direct consequences of their ancestors exploiting whose very same poor people.
So we should never have parking lots, because they could be repurposed into homes for homeless people?
I feel this is only really relevant to high-density cities that are being underdeveloped because of local regulations and NIMBY. Most of America has plenty of space when it comes down to it.
And aren't the parking lots this article is talking about basically public access parking for beaches? Do ya'll really think it's reasonable to say we need to remove public beach parking because it could be better used for condos? Because that's dumb, and that quote I responded to was said as if parking is a violation of human rights because it takes away room for shelter.
In all honesty, I'm not sure I understand your train of thought[0]: why would re-purposing beach parking into housing be dumb as an absolute?
There are probably places where that would be dumb and others where the community as a whole would benefit from increased housing availability?
Most of America has plenty of space but why would anyone agree to live in bumfuck nowhere? How could they make a living out of nowhere (remote jobs are, in the grand scheme of things, a drop in the bucket)? Why should they forego access to health services, community & the fabric of society? Some human beings enjoying being solitary but we all crave to various degrees of social interaction.
To answer your comment in a too simplistic way: if parking does take room away from shelter, yes, absolutely, that's very bad urban planning & if done on purpose is a "violation" of the rights of those who needed that shelter. Except that life & urban planning aren't always that cut and dry and we need parking space, shops, warehouses, factories, housing & animal shelters and a myriad other things, as well as stop urban sprawling as much as possible.
[0]there might be a cultural/language bias generated by me having english as a 2nd language
No, we should let people willing to pay market price for the land live on it if they wish. Or park. Or garden. Whatever. Just not make taxpayers subsidize car storage.
If you reclaim a parking space for another use (such as building accommodation for families or an animal shelter), you're not depriving the car of anything, it's an expensive, large piece of metal and is not sentient.
Next, you'll say that you're depriving car owners from the practicality of parking their vehicles anywhere they like. I'm perfectly fine with depriving car owners from this convenience to allow a human being to have a roof over their head. (speaking from direct experience as I've just minutes ago had to park my car 1km away from home because the city is currently building housing and has restricted parking space nearby)
Then, some might argue that one should be ashamed of helping animals while humans are suffering. That's the exact same train of thought with «we can't allow more migrants in, we have to take care of our "own" homeless people».
This is a false dichotomy. Western societies inequalities are growing larger and larger. Me trying to do my part is insignificant. Me donating to human or animal causes is a small dent into the mountains of inequalities we live on top of. Us collectively, we do make a difference, by donating, voting and generally keeping our eyes open about the world we live in...
Finally, an entirely anecdotal pov: I've witnessed several times extremely poor people going out of their ways to show solidarity to animals or humans. I've also witnessed an awful lot of extremely wealthy individuals complaining about the poor inconveniencing them by just being there, whose wealth was a direct consequences of their ancestors exploiting whose very same poor people.