logoalt Hacker News

autoexeclast Wednesday at 11:50 PM2 repliesview on HN

I can understand why poor families might save enough money to make the trip across town to a nice restaurant or a high end shop in a wealthy neighborhood they could never afford to live in. I can't understand how making it prohibitively expensive for poor people to drive into those nice neighborhoods will result in them becoming rich enough to open fancy restaurants and shops in their own poor neighborhoods where no rich people will ever travel to. The people in the poor neighborhood can't afford to eat/shop in such places often enough to support them and rich people won't go into poor neighborhoods for them either.

Shutting poor people out of wealthy neighborhoods by making it too expensive to drive into them will just cause poor neighborhoods to become ghettos. People living there will have to effectively take a pay cut to commute to work in nice parts of the city and they'll be less likely to ever be able to move out.


Replies

JambalayaJimboyesterday at 10:38 PM

Poor families take public transit, they don’t drive. Reducing congestion makes public transit better. If you’re in a place where everyone drives, even the poor, then this thread is irrelevant.

jwagenetyesterday at 3:20 AM

I don’t understand. This family saved to afford a fancy meal, parking, and possibly tolls, but can’t afford the congestion pricing?

It’s not about bringing fine dining to every neighborhood, but if it costs (money or time) more for the poor and rich alike to leave their neighborhood business owners could be incentivized to step up their game.