In what ways? Apple, IMHO, has been jumping on every proverbial band wagon. And some of its 'better intended' changes like ATT seem only to have been to stifle competition while they set up their own solution.
Well, the alternatives is Android and... not really much else, for a full-featured smartphone. Say what you will about Apple, they're not perfect, but they have a better track record w.r.t privacy than Google in every way.
I'm not saying I like what Apple is doing here, but I trust Google a lot less with my data.
This! Sure you might need a Google account for your android but you don't HAVE to use all their services.
First just don't use Gmail, docs, search, chrome and co. But even better get a Pixel with Graphene and Google's invasive tactics are even more limited.
However it is sad that a company like Apple that used to produce superior hardware with superior UX is falling apart on all fronts - hardware (especially pricing), UX (hello glass design), software (macos just getting worse every release without adding ANYTHING of value)
And now introducing more and more ads while keep selling you "pro" laptops with 512GB SSD :-/
I've lived in various European cities where I was not able to vote for various reasons. Such as living hotel long-term, living in a holiday home, being semi-homeless, sub-letting, crashing on someones couch. Seasonal workers, migrant workers or people with unstable employment are typically in this situation.
What do you think makes someone who’s pretty much just passing by entitled to push their opinions on the locals who’ve lived there their entire lives? Especially when that person
likely won’t suffer the longterm consequences of it
I get the sentiment about "why would I let people who aren't going to stay long term decide how the city is run?" but in the end it creates a city that is indifferent or even hostile to people in that situation. It ends up disenfranchising a population that will always be there, even if the people who make up that population is constantly changing.
Thank you. I know people who have lived in Amsterdam for over five years but can't vote for local politics because of their legal status or because they are illegally subletting due to the shitty housing market in The Netherlands.
Don't complain about people not being engaged with local politics if you don't allow them to vote.
The ones who will “always be there” can get their papers for permanent residence done and vote. If they don’t want to (or can’t since they don’t have the legal grounds to even stay there for longer), then they shouldn’t have a say on decisions that can permanently change things about the place.
There will always be the population of people who will be in short term housing or similar situations, but due to their circumstances the individual people will come and go. 5 years from now the makeup of the itinerant population may be almost entirely different, but the people in that population are in the same circumstances, especially if they don't have any political representation.
Who is going to speak for the people who aren't allowed to vote?
In my country, citizens without a permanent address (which is very few people, those who have no place of theirs mostly register at someone elses for easier administration) can still sign up and vote, so that leaves us with just the people who don’t have the permits to even stay here permanently.
I’m also not expecting to fly to country X, book an airbnb for 6 months or get a summer job, and then just somehow be entitled to vote there.
That is only possible with stable and legal housing. Not everyone is privileged to be in that situation, especially not with the housing market in many countries.
With your thinking you are creating a class of subhumans where you enjoy the benefits of their labour but you are not allowing them to vote. Like African Americans in the US not that long ago.
A yes, why didn't I think of that! Let me just completely ignore the broken housing market, the 15+ year waiting list for social housing and scrape together... lets checks... €400k for a small appartement with a 45 minute commute to work.
Do you have any clue how privileged you sound here? This is peak "have you tried not being poor" attitude.
While I don't know about European countries, given this is an article about America it's worth pointing out that you can, in fact, vote in the US while homeless[0], using a friend/family's home, shelter, or religious center as your address.
Actually yes, that is by design. There is a reason the US had property ownership as a requirement to vote in the constitution. Whether removing that requirement was correct or not is up for debate. But there is a distinction in a democracy between an active citizen and a passive citizen. An active citizen is someone that has skin in the game and is a willing participant in the process. A passive citizen is someone that does not engage in the process, or does not actively have skin in the game. The thought espoused in the enlightenment was that someone with property would be tied to the location long term and would therefore have interest in the long term success of that town/state/nation. Someone who is only in a town for a year doesn't meaningfully have stakes in the town. They don't really care if the schools aren't funded well enough, or if the roads don't have long term maintenance budget, they are only going to care about immediate needs. Someone with a house, that has children or grand children, they are going to not only care about now but 30 years from now as well.
It was because they thought that landowners would direct the votes of the people who lived on that land. The same reason was given for not allowing women to vote. https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1645
Ancient democracies, including those of Greek city states like Athens, restricted voting to landowners because prior to the invention of the printing press, only aristocrats could understand the issues being voted on.
Yeah I know. My point is that in the US, in 2026, whether voting should be restricted to property owners is not "up for debate," except maybe among a certain set of cranks.
Eh, a growing set of cranks. The diversity of political opinion in America seems to have exploded over the last decade. Cranks are now serious contenders for power and influence.
> Ancient democracies, including those of Greek city states like Athens, restricted voting to landowners because prior to the invention of the printing press, only aristocrats could understand the issues being voted on.
This is such bullshit. Pre-literate societies were not ignorant societies, they were not stupid societies, they were not issue-free societies. The printing press gave rise to literacy which then gave rise to both books and print-based issue campaigning. But the idea that before people were able to read they were also unable to understand "the issues being voted on" is ridiculous. People ate, built, got sick, got hot, got cold, got injured, were richer or poorer ... everyone had a framework in which to understand "the issues being voted on".
You could argue it wasn't an educated understanding, and that might be correct depending on your understanding of what "education" is. But the idea that people couldn't actually understand stuff until literacy arrived is just ridiculous.
So are the justifications of Adams and Blackstone. Literacy was the justification given by early Greek democracies with written legal codes, though some, like Athens, later broadened eligibility.
Everyone affected by the laws passed have "skin in the game".
Someone renting an apartment and working a job in a community definitely has skin in the game in regards to local tax rates, building regulations, public amenities, etc.
Sure but there’s degrees to this. If you’re a day laborer renting a room at the local motel, it’s a lot easier for you to say “screw this place I’m going to the next town over” than for someone who has their kids enrolled in the highschool and a mortgage.
Everyone has skin in the game but some have way more.
Renters can also enroll their kids in public schools. And in terms of mobility, renters might be stuck in a one- or two-year lease, far longer than it might take to sell a house.
Maybe those transient homeowners are the ones who shouldn't get to vote...
I think you're kind of (completely) missing my point. Who signs two year leases at a motel?
Obviously someone with a kid enrolled in school and locked into a long-term lease is not transient and has a comparable amount of skin in the game as a homeowner.
Whatever idea you have about how black Americans live is bizarre. And despite being ignorant of us, you attempt to silence discussions by acting like you are us.
There people have residency, they just don't live in a stable form of housing that allows them to register as living in the city. But some of them have lived in the city for years.
I saw your other comment with regards to the Netherlands. If that’s where you’re located, you only need to have a stable location once. Then you can register. Another person can’t unregister you from there, so you can vote even if you then move to a hotel.
Only question remains is how you want to deal with mail, but there are workarounds for that.
...and sorry: Thats absolutely OK. I do not want strangers stopping by for 3 - 4 years to be able to influence the politics of my country? Thats totaly understandable?
I would never to ask to vote at a remote place where I do not live permanently, yet where I even not a citizen?
Somebody who spends 3-4 years in a place has an immense interest in how it's governed. Their view is 100% as valid as yours, and they should have equal voice, if we are going to judge people based on how long they live somewhere.
I live in a college town. Why shouldn't student voices be represented, when they are a huge chunk of our community?
Maybe I'm too US focused, and have been accused of that a lot recently, but your views are fundamentally at odds with basic democracy as I see it as a US citizen.
There's a massive difference between "will be in a place for 3-4 years maximum, then leaving" vs "has been in a place for 3-4 years but is planning on staying permanently." In the former case their interests are going to be short-term and might not align with long-term residences. Per your example, university students would vote against allocating funds toward schools or playgrounds, because they know they're not going to be raising a family there. Or more globally, you have the population of "digital nomads" who are working in Vietnam/Thailand for a few years before they come back to the US.
It's pretty debatable if these temporary residents should have the same voting rights as permanent residents, since their interests are going to be at odds with long-term residents. I would not be happy if schools got defunded because university students who are only going to be there for a few years wanted to lower alcohol taxes.
Permanent residency/citizenship being a prerequisite for voting is used as a (very imperfect) screening for this.
A city isn't just for the long-term residents. It must serve short term residents too. Those interests must be represented.
In the US, people get to vote where they live. We used to require silly things like owning land or being male or being white, but that was a really bad idea.
It is not debatable at all if short term residents should had the same voting rights as long term residents. It is very settled constitutional law in the US, and a completely radical idea to suggest changing a principle that has been fundamental for the period of time when the US has been a strong country.
> Per your example, university students would vote against allocating funds toward schools or playgrounds, because they know they're not going to be raising a family there
I think you have very bad intuitions here. In my college town, long term residents get upset that college students vote in favor of school funding, because the long term residents have kids that have already graduated and they don't want to pay for it anymore.
Shorter term residents have significant disadvantages in local politics, as local politics is largely a function of long term relationships and getting the word out on obscure elections where there's almost zero coverage of candidates, and for positions where few know what they do. Depriving short term residents of even using a vote is a huge perversion to the idea of democracy in the US.
> It is not debatable at all if short term residents should had the same voting rights as long term residents. It is very settled constitutional law in the US, and a completely radical idea to suggest changing a principle that has been fundamental for the period of time when the US has been a strong country.
Sorry what? Only US Citizens are legally allowed to vote in federal and state elections. This explicitly excludes a vast swarth of short-term residents who are there on school visas, work visas, or permanent residents who haven't gotten citizenship yet.
Because people do not vote "for local interests" but for "the interests they are carrying with them according to their believes", which are usually not on par with the interestes of the long-term-resident local community.
So what? Why does that matter on being able to vote? Shouldn't people bring their values to voting, isn't that the entire point?
Should we deny long term residents the right to vote becuase they aren't voting in the interests of short term residents? I don't understand the principle here, unless you think that short term residents are not residents, or full people, or something.
That is OK but OP should not be complaining about people not being engaged with local politics if you are excluding a large part of the people living in the city from voting.
Are a large part of the people living in a city the kind of semi-transitory-but-also-there-for-years people you describe?
I'd wager that's a small proportion of almost every city. Most cities will have tourists who are visiting for a few days or weeks, and long term residents who have a permanent address there. The percentage of people living full time in hotels or airbnbs must be tiny. Perhaps in high cost of living cities there's more "hidden homeless" living on couches, but even then it's not going to be "a large part" of a city.
I don't have sources but for cities like Amsterdam I wouldn't be surprised if 5% of the population isn't registered with the municipality for various reasons. But have been living there for years. Plenty of people I know would sublet empty rooms of their social housing apartment, which is highly illegal but for some people the only way to find a place to stay. But you obviously can't register because then the person subletting would be kicked out.
Among those that are registered to vote locally, most don't. Regardless of whether or not people should or shouldn't be able to vote, many of those currently with the ability to do not.
No it doesn't. I live in a planned neighborhood in the suburbs. I can walk to a branch of my local library, a few restaurants, a bar, a bookstore, I even get my haircut in my neighborhood. And even if none of that existed, nothing has stopped me from being friends with my neighbors, or the parents of my kid's friends. The suburbs are a different model with tradeoffs, but they're also useful for periods and phases of life different from the ones served by urban settings.
A planned neighborhood is technically by definition not suburban sprawl, as sprawl requires a lack of planning. On the other hand, I'd argue if you can do all of that (and said walking distance is under a mile[0]) you're not even in a suburb, you're in a dense enough location to be a town or small city. Unfortunately thanks to American zoning and planning it can be very difficult to know what your home area is actually considered and it makes this type of anecdotal evidence not particularly useful[1].
[0] A mile is essentially the farthest the average person will comfortable walk versus driving a car for travel that does not require carrying anything back. Once you add in carrying things (e.g. groceries) it drops to half a mile. Anything less dense than that and people won't want to walk, anything more dense than that and you're into standard city planning.
[1] Assuming you're American of course and obviously I'm not about to ask you to dox yourself, considering this type of thing can vary right down to the neighbourhood level.
>I can walk to a branch of my local library, a few restaurants, a bar, a bookstore, I even get my haircut in my neighborhood.
If you can walk to these things, you don't live in the areas the parent comment is talking about. "Suburban sprawl" doesn't mean all suburbs, it's specifically the ones which don't have facilities and community.
Sounds like you like in a “streetcar suburb”, not urban sprawl. I’ve been in real urban sprawl and you can’t walk to anything. Not that you’d want to, since there are no sidewalks. Drop a Google Maps pin anywhere in Texas not in the direct center of a major city to see what it’s really like.
That's my neighborhood you're "citing". It's a walking neighborhood--cars are useless with no parking next to stores. I talked to more strangers there than in any other place I've lived. My doctor would stop me on the street to look in my grocery bags.
I mean, the very first paragraph of your own link says: "However, subsequent investigations revealed that the extent of public apathy was exaggerated." and the second paragraph says, "Researchers have since uncovered major inaccuracies in the Times article, and police interviews revealed that some witnesses had attempted to contact authorities."
I live in probably the most walkable city in the world, but there are millions of lonely people here as well. From any of my observations, I can’t pinpoint to one single problem.
It might be a composite effect of different things contributing to the easiness of being alone. Cultural skill that overtime gets eroded, and as less time people spend among others, it becomes even harder to go back.
This. I also like the idea of libraries having a cafe, internet access, a place to meet, all non profit and owned by the community. Community is a function of distance, broadly speaking.
Within KCLS, there are two public libraries that have maker spaces (AFAIK): Bellevue, Federal Way.
PS this is not meant to be confrontational, would love it if there were more maker spaces in libraries (when have asked in the past, the usual answer is that they do not have enough space for it).
I'm willing to bet that the libraries near the person you're talking to have all but maybe a cafe. I mean, I've never seen a library in the US that didn't have internet access and a place to meet and that weren't nonprofit.
Suburban sprawl is not going to be "fixed" in anyones lifetime. But it doesn't have to be limiting. I grew up in a very typical suburban style neighborhood in the 1970s. Tract homes, lots of cul-de-sac streets. But neighbors talked to one another, kids played together, there were summer gatherings in those cul-de-sacs on the 4th of July or Labor Day.
Don't think you have to live in some idealized fantasy land to go talk to your neighbors.
I live in a suburban neighborhood with a couple bag ends, our neighborhood is pretty social. couple of neighborhood bbqs a year, kids all playing together every day, dinners, etc. It is quiet and not a lot of traffic with long term residents. I am not 100% on what exactly the key is for a town is, I think style matters, but Ive been in walkable neighborhoods without a good community, and non-walkable neighborhoods with one.
I'll say that when I was a kid, the neighborhood was still as it was originally built, no sidewalks. Didn't stop anyone from socializing, didn't stop kids from biking around.
The city added sidewalks there in the '00s or so, but when I go back there I almost never see anyone using them.
I think the trend of isolation and loneliness is not really related to infrastructure or stuff like "walkability." Those things are pretty minor obstacles.
How big were the lots? How far of a walk was the closest bar, grocery store, cafe? Do you have to walk onto someone's property to talk to them if they are sitting on the porch?
I lived in a car dependent burb for 20+ years and would rarely, if ever, run into my neighbors out on the town. Living in a walkable neighborhood in a medium-low density city for under a year and I regularly run into my neighbors.
Standard 0.25 acre suburban lots. No markets, cafes, or anything like that it was a bog-standard subdivision. There was a small park sort of centrally located but that was really the only ammenity. Supermarket was a few miles away. Nobody walked there, cars to go anywhere. Neighbors still knew one another, at least on the same streets. Kids met at school, figured out where each other lived.
I knew cul de sac was french for bag end, or end of sack or whatever the translation was. One time reading lord of the rings after learning Tolkien explicitly avoided french loan words, I realized Bilbo living at Bag End is kind of a joke. Its just saying Bilbo lives in the cul de sac.
For what it's worth, many (most?) countries have most of their people living in places that are not sprawling suburbs. It's worst in the "Anglosphere" countries (US/Canada/Australia) within the last 50-70 years, but it's absolutely not a fantasy land. It's the way things were everywhere before 1940, and most places still are today.
I say that because it is fixable, if we let ourselves fix it...
Your point stands though, even in a fairly antisocial layout of a suburb, you can still usually make friends with a decent number of people nearby.
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