There's a housing crisis in many cities. But cars can park free. Why not claim public street-space for those who need it? If you disguise your shelter as a polluting, duly-licensed private vehicle, like artist Michael Rakowitz did...
...the authorities should be fine with it.

More on this thought-provoking art project here:

http://www.michaelrakowitz.com/plot-proposition-i

(p)LOT: Proposition I β€” MICHAEL RAKOWITZ

MICHAEL RAKOWITZ
"You'll never be unhoused in Americaβ€”if you're a car."
There are 2 billion parking spaces in the US.
The nation now builds more 3-car garages than 1-bedroom apartments.

In #Brussels, a couple turned street space in front of their apartment into garden, inviting neighbors to plant + harvest what they want.

When cops told them space was meant for cars, they put a license plate on it! They call it "Citizen Garden."

@straphanger it always struck me funny that in many places you can put a car for free but not anything else. As if they're a different ontological order of the being, much more precious than silly things like gardens and sofas.
@batat @straphanger I think about that all the time. People call it parking, but it is just a different name for storage.
@batat @straphanger they are different things? Can i put my car where your sofa is?
@atzanteol
If it fits you can your car where your sofa is. In fact, lots of people put sofas in their garage and vice-versa.
@batat @straphanger
@atzanteol @straphanger I see it's a difficult thing to grasp, but a car at a street occupies 𝑝𝑒𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐 space, that is, one that should be available to people, while my sofa occupies a π‘π‘Ÿπ‘–π‘£π‘Žπ‘‘π‘’ space, that is, one that should be available only to me. Formal logic and shit. Everybody, including me, should be able to put things in public spaces to put things, while only me should be able to put things where only I can put things.
@batat So society can't designate a particular use for a public space? I can put my trash on your curb? Or in the middle of the streets? Or in the public gardens?

@batat @straphanger I totally understand where you're coming from, but the reason for cars being treated differently is obvious, in my opinion.

Streets are/were primarily built to move cars and trucks. Anything with wheels, really. So "parking" other things on them conflicts with that original ideology.

I think it's great that people are pushing to change that ideology!

@sigue @straphanger and yet I can't just put down my bike on a car parking space. Also, roads were built to move (and host!) people, cars are a very recent (and absolutely cancerous) addition to it.
@batat @straphanger My guess is that even back in the day most roads were built to move carts and buggies and such. The Romans built roads primarily to move their armies quickly.
@sigue @straphanger up until the time of the great lobbying from GM and jaywalking, streets were built as shared spaces.
@batat @straphanger I don't buy it based on two pictures. I see and understand that there are people in the streets. Would they have been built if it weren't for the need to transport goods?
@batat @straphanger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street gives some credence to your argument, if we distinguish "street" from "road". I still maintain that the vast majority of streets were built explicitly for cars and virtually nothing else. I am not in any way saying that's a Good Thing.
Street - Wikipedia

@sigue @batat Take a look at the excellent history, "Roads Were Not Built For Cars" by my friend Carlton Reid. Roads, especially outside cities, were paved through the lobbying of cyclists. Cars came much later.

https://www.vox.com/2015/3/19/8253035/roads-cyclists-cars-history

"Roads were not built for cars": how cyclists, not drivers, first fought to pave US roads

Vox

@straphanger @batat That is very cool, but what I see here is that for 30 years rich bicyclists pushed for building roads and then for 110 years since then roads have been built for cars.

So I'm sticking with my original statement that streets are built primarily for cars and trucks.

To repeat, I am 100% in favor of changing that dynamic.