ASPHALT JUNGLE
I support Citizens for Resident Permit Parking in its efforts to institute permit parking for all the neighborhoods in Providence. Mt. Hope in particular is a victim of the ban on overnight parking, first instituted in the city in the 1920s.
Large areas of Mt. Hope are already an asphalt jungle because of the overnight parking ban. Its effects on the environment are noticeable and likely irreversible. Thanks to global warming, we are experiencing longer, hotter summers. Asphalt makes it even hotter because, as Michael Arden points out, it increases surface temperatures.
The standard excuse for the overnight parking ban is that the streets need to be cleared for emergency vehicles. Such vehicles don't seem to have difficulty negotiating city streets during daytime hours, when parked vehicles line our streets.
The real reason for the overnight parking ban is to generate revenue by targeting those least able to pay--the city's poorest residents. The city should cut its costs instead.
Peter Cassels
Posted at 01:47 PM | Issues | Comments (0)
Providence Needs Resident Permit Parking!
Citizens for Resident Permit Parking
Aesthetics
Pave-over - The act of paving residential green space to create additional parking. In Providence an increasing number of property owners are paving-over portions of their yards and while there is a legitimate need for additional parking the greater good is not being served. In the last 10 to 15 years there has been a dramatic change in the landscape of city neighborhoods. This change has caused concern among residents from an aesthetic as well a practical point of view. The pressure to pave-over is highest in lower income/working class neighborhoods where several family members may need cars to reach disparate work locations. This is a do-it-yourself response to the excruciating parking shortage we face in Providence. Pave-over’s are on the rise because of an increase in car ownership coupled with a rise in large households with extended families where everyone is working and needs a car. Residents throughout the city complain that increased paving of residential green space detracts from the quality of life in their neighborhoods. Some neighborhoods are becoming an asphalt jungle.
The Environment
On the environmental front asphalt keeps soil from absorbing rainwater, sending it instead into a storm-water runoff system that removes it from the local water supply, picking up pollutants along the way and poisoning our rivers. Pavement is the greatest cause of excessive rainwater runoff and the loss of local aquatic life. Grass and soil absorb rainwater and act as a natural filter as it drains into the groundwater system. Pave-over’s also lead to an increase in surface temperature in lower income neighborhoods on hot days.
Regressive Taxation
Regressive tax: A tax that takes a larger percentage of income from lower income groups than from higher-income groups. Why is parking your car... on the street... in your neighborhood... at night... a crime? The overnight parking ban, and the parking tickets that go along with it, is a regressive tax on students and working families in Providence. In just a few weeks fine can triple in value, cars can be booted and a driver’s licenses can be suspended. Pretty harsh stuff for leaving your car in front of your house at night, don’t you think? In 2006 the city experienced a shortfall in fine revenue due to the introduction of overnight parking in Washington Park. According to John Simmons, Director of Administration the city will address that shortfall in 2007 by hiring more staff to write parking tickets. Obviously the overnight parking ban in Providence has little to do with public safety and everything to do with picking to pockets of the most economically vulnerable people in the city. This must stop!
Michael Arden
Posted at 10:43 PM | Issues | Comments (0)
"Protecting the Innocent by Removing Graffiti"?
First of all, dubmn fuk, learn to spel, and then unnerstan tha we don use phoul language like dumbn fuck on this wevsite.
I doubt if you know anything about the history of graffiti let alone the history of art so for you to make a connection between the two is probably quite a stretch.
Of course here in Amerika, the liberals teach us that we must celebrate your ignorance, your inability to spell and just celebrate your willingness to express yourself. Well, here's a case of the . . . clap. . . . just for you. Congrats, you expressed yourself, D_F_.
Graffiti: South Wall, Mt. Hope Public Garden (JMT: Enhanced Digital Photograph
How so do you think graffiti is an art?
Why do you say:
"graffiti is a art and a strong culture"?
and
". . . the only reason why you hate it is because we are yung and you cant make mony off of it."
Do you have the facts, even a weak argument to back up that statement?
You must be referring to the hip-hop culture. Tell me, who's not making money off of that. Every multi-national corporation in the entertainment industry is making money off of the hip-hop culture: that culture was commercially co-opted from day one.
Expensive sneakers sold to poor people: cheap, baggy pants worn down below the waist: styles designed to make yourself ridicules.
They can sell you fools anything!
The bible says, "There's nothing new under the sun" and so it goes with graffiti. People with no power will always deface public and private property with their pathetic scribblings because they feel powerless to oppose the forces that control them. Some liberal, understanding, freethinking people of a Marxist bent will always romanticize these scribblings as art in an anthropological sense. A great New York Artist, Keith Haring, even cashed in on the trend and made a lot of money off of the romanticizing of graffiti, then he died of aids.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
". . . you think you dumb fucks are protecting the innocent by removing graffiti?"
I have no idea what you mean by this. who do you think is thinking that they are protecting whom?
". . . the only reason why you hate it is because we are yung"
As the Chinese might say, that quote must cum from sum dum yung fuk because it just doesn't make any sense. Everybody knows that all the best graffiti is made by the old people who began the movement and who have the experience and the means to produce meaningful graffiti.
Shite! Young graffiti artists don't even know how to spell so how could they possibly make any quality graffiti?
But last of all, when you write:
.........WATCH YOUR BACK
I can tell you are too young to even have a drivers license, because you just don't make threats on the world wide web. Do you know how easy it is to trace an IP address back to your real name, and then what, your parents get indicted, is that what you want?
Just a rhetorical question.
You want to make art in the 21st century, kid? First of all learn to spell it, then learn what it is and why you want to make it, then check back in here. Otherwise, you'll be among the "stopidest".
In the meantime if you want to exhibit your great graffiti that you consider art, submit it here:
Make a Blog Entry
in the form of digital photos.
And BTW, why did you submit a comment about graffiti to a post about growing trees in Providence? Are you blog-illiterate?
Hey, we appreciate your contribution: you got more balls than most in this neighborhood that is rich with pathetic do-nothing back-biters who are willing to talk behind their neighbor's back but are too cowardly to put what they believe in out there in writing on this blog: but if you want to talk the talk here, then you got to back it up by walking the walk, meaning that you got to back up the words you write and be able to debate and defend them.
Posted at 11:03 PM | Issues | Comments (0)
Trype Legal-art
what the hell is going on? you think you dumb fucks are protecting the innocent by removing graffiti? wow thats the stopidest thing ive ever herd. whats so wrong with self expression? graffiti is a art and a strong culture, and the only reason why you hate it is because we are yung and you cant make mony off of it.........WATCH YOUR BACK
Comment submitted to the post, Trees Grow in Providence!
Posted at 10:56 PM | Issues | Comments (0)
Blog Contributions Welcome
Blog in need of entries.
Send in your news, commentary on current events, newspaper pieces, movie reviews, book reviews, dance, theater, opinion pieces, letters to the editor, announcements, commentary, essays, poetry, short-short stories or send in digital photos of your pets, your kids, your flowers, items of interest, etc. etc. etc, & whatever. Right now I'm unable to make blog posts. If you want to further this blog submit items that are of interest to you and may be of interest to somebody else.
Posted at 01:50 PM | Community | Comments (0)
