Quote:
Originally Posted by kool maudit
So while I understand the pressures coming from housing, stretched public services and all the rest, I don't understand what happened over the past few years in North America that didn't happen elsewhere, where park usage policy remains essentially where it was in Canada pre-pandemic.
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North America (i.e. Canada/USA) has an odd take on individual liberty and the distribution of the spoils of economic growth. Doubly so when that economic 'growth' was so concentrated in an asset class that's propping up a fair chunk of the wealth of the middle of the country, in addition to providing shelter.
So, the ugly visual of the illiberal act of removing people from the park with force is combined with an economic system that made housing extremely expensive relative to historical standards. Here we are, living with the outcome.
People in North America became very sensitive to the concept of individual liberties violated by government authority, but yet perpetuated and benefited from an economic system that essentially ended up producing this outcome. 'Markets' are invisible concepts, not organized human entities like government, so one can't really assign blame to a nebulous concept. Reform is a non-starter when one is barely keeping up with demand to people
with money, much less those without.
Maybe more culturally homogeneous societies accept both a greater responsibility to protecting both their most vulnerable but with the caveat that those societies could impose their will on these people (e.g. public parks are not living spaces), not always very nicely.