• Creddit@lemmy.world
    11611·
    1 year ago

    People’s Park was a major local landmark with a long history that is well known to students, faculty, residents, and alumni. It had become a home to otherwise homeless people whose existence was inconvenient for the university’s expansion plans and an eyesore to arrogant passersby.

    The park’s history includes both civil and violent disobedience, including against the university itself.

    It would not be surprising to hear that, whatever is built on this lot, it is subsequently destroyed by an act of arson or other vandalism.

    I am surprised they are taking the risk and making the investment at all. IMO it would have been safer to just buy some of the private properties surrounding the park instead, even at a premium.

      • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
        261·
        1 year ago

        Sugar will completely eliminate concrete’s ability to cure. A single pound of sugar can destroy an entire truck of wet cement.

        Not that I’m advocating for it. But it’s laughably easy to sneak onto a site with a hardhat, safety boots and a vest, and sabotage active construction.

        • BananaOnionJuice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          28·
          1 year ago

          No, a construction site contains plenty other stuff than concrete and steel: tools, equipment, building materials, temporary buildings for the workers, cables and piping.

          On top of that each time concrete gets fire damage, it gets weaker and may need to be replaced, at least core samples + weeks of analysis time + $$$ is needed to determine the damage.

          And let’s say they eventually finish building the apartments, they may never stop smelling like a BBQ.

          And then they need to hire 24/7 security, and maybe new workers because they don’t want to work in a DMZ.

          • ExLisper@linux.communityEnglish
            62·
            1 year ago

            How long would it take for the police to get involved and protect the site for free? Or do you think they would just ignore it? Does the law in USA say that if the victim of the crime is a company they have to hire private security and police is not involved?

            • baelem@lemmy.world
              4·
              1 year ago

              This building is being developed by the university on university-owned land, so the university police would be in charge of protecting university property.

            • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.worldEnglish
              4·
              1 year ago

              if there is a series of crimes in the area, police would increase patrols in the area.

              Anything more than that would require hiring a private security company.

              ground based security could easily be bypassed by a drone and with a remote igniter and a release latch.

              • ExLisper@linux.communityEnglish
                14·
                1 year ago

                Wow, I didn’t realize the police in US is so dysfunctional they don’t even investigate felonies anymore. It’s like the government already collapsed.

            • Th3D3k0y@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              For free, probably never. The company can pay to have the police dedicate a force to sit there, but otherwise they’d at best send a patrol through the area a couple times a night.

              • ExLisper@linux.communityEnglish
                27·
                1 year ago

                Really? Police in US doesn’t actively investigate crimes any more? I remember from The Wire that they used observe places where they knew crime is likely to happen. Crazy that they stopped.

                • Kühe sind toll@feddit.de
                  2·
                  1 year ago

                  They will investigate and increase the presence of police activity, but that doesn’t mean they will protect the whole construction side.

              • Maple Engineer@lemmy.world
                41·
                1 year ago

                No problem. These childish collective fantasies are fun, aren’t they? Yup, they’re fun right up until a bullet rips through your chest when you’re trying to climb through the smashed out window of the barricaded doors to the Speaker’s Lobby or the FBI is kicking down your door three years later. It’s fun in your head when your enemies are incompetent boobs and everything goes your way. In reality you get arrested and/or injured/killed and the buildings get built anyway.

                EDIT: 3 years later. Remeber right afterwards when they said that the FBI would lose interest and that there was no way they would arrest and try everyone. It seems to quaint, now.

                EDIT 2: I went looking for a name for the childish collective fantasies but couldn’t find one. The best I could come up with is a naïve collective fantasy that grew in an epistemic bubble inside an echo bunker. No one bothered to ask “What then?” or, “What will the consequences be if things go wrong and we are caught and held accountable for our actions?” Ashli Babbit and the neo-fascist red hats never considered the, “What ifs” right up until the moment the bullet ripped through her chest. At that point they realized, “Holy fuck, they’re shooting at us.” Everyone else watching on TV expected that to happen on a slaughterous scale much earlier yet they were surprised that it happened to one of them. Someone was not using their critical thinking skills.

        • CallumWells@lemmy.mlEnglish
          14·
          1 year ago

          Apparently just a kilogram of sugar mixed into a ton of concrete will destroy the ability of it to actually function correctly as concrete. But I learned this here on Lemmy and have not checked the veracity of it, so take it with a pinch (handful?) of salt.

      • deegeese
        142·
        1 year ago

        It’s a controversial local issue and in my lifetime I’ve seen local opinion shift from strongly anti-University to now mostly in favor of development.

        I credit this to the original activists dying of old age, combined with a younger generation that has never known the park as anything except a place where people overdose in tents.

  • that guy@lemmy.world
    702·
    1 year ago

    If you ever notice construction is stalled in your city, it’s because it’s a racket.

    They low bid the contract.

    They take contract.

    Work stops because they didn’t ask for enough money.

    They’re already there, it’d cost too much to fire them or move their supplies and equipment. They know this so they drag their feet until the client pays more.

    Construction begins again.

    • driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br
      110·
      1 year ago

      I work in construction insurance, protecting the government and investors against construction companies that do this. Our underwriters study the project, the construction company history and everything related and we qoute a price that the construction company should pay even before the government or the investors transfer anything. If the construction company or the project fail for any reason we take control over the project and find a new construction company to complete it. After that, our lawyers go after everything owned by the construction company and their executives to try to recoup anything we can.

      • fidodo@lemmy.world
        6·
        1 year ago

        I’m curious about your opinion on what the reason that construction takes longer and costs more in the US than in other countries is.

        • MrBusiness@lemmy.zipEnglish
          141·
          1 year ago

          I wish our construction was like in Japan. Instead we have the worst, slowest companies in the Chicago area. How does it take months or even years to fix a road AND they start a new project a mile away on the same road at the same speed. Then somehow the road end up bumpy anyway cause they didn’t fix around the manhole covers correctly.

          • nixcamic@lemmy.world
            6·
            1 year ago

            I visit friends in Chicago every year. There’s a place on the interstate that has been under construction for 5 years. It’s just like one lane they’ve been paving. What the heck?

          • AsheHole@lemmy.world
            3·
            1 year ago

            There are a few roads in the suburbs that will have something finish getting fixed only for the same exact road to be torn up again for something else cause they didn’t coordinate. One time I saw a road get repaved cause it needed it, then half of it was torn back up to do some sort of maintenance, once that was fixed and repaved more of that area got torn up to change out some water stuff and drains, then a year later the whole road is torn up again to be repaved because now it’s been 5-6 years and parts of it need it.

            • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
              2·
              1 year ago

              I have had my road replaced three times in 5 years because first they installed new gas lines, then they installed new water lines, and that damaged the gas lines so they needed to fix them in a bunch of places.

        • driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br
          1·
          1 year ago

          I don’t live or work at the US, so I don’t think my opinion is worth more than shit. But I would guess you are mixing private with public projects. Private projects usually go on schedule because they’re not a lot of parties involved and everyone wants to finish the project asap to start a new a one. With public ones you have a lot of people involved because everyone and their granma think their opinion is valid and they are being affected. But this is the same on basically everywhere on the world, except maybe China.

      • kshade@lemmy.world
        3·
        1 year ago

        The law really need to be changed when it comes to this stuff, I’d rather take the inefficiency or even corruption than this (also inefficient and corrupt) nonsense.

  • eric@lemmy.world
    692·
    1 year ago

    The shipping containers make it so much more dystopian, and calling it “The People’s Park” is just bad writing, even for schlocky YA fiction.

      • eric@lemmy.world
        10·
        1 year ago

        I do, but I was writing from the perspective that it was invented for the Hunger Games.

              • ChatGPT@lemmings.worldB
                74·
                1 year ago

                People’s Park in Berkeley, California, has been a notable site for community activity and protest since its inception in the late 1960s. Below are some significant historical events associated with People’s Park:

                1. Establishment and Initial Conflict (1969): Originating from an undeveloped piece of University of California-owned land, People’s Park was created by community members who sought to use the space for a public park. Tensions between university officials and park supporters led to a major confrontation on May 15, 1969, known as “Bloody Thursday,” when Governor Ronald Reagan ordered the California Highway Patrol and Berkeley police to reclaim the land. This resulted in violent clashes, and one bystander, James Rector, was killed by police gunfire.

                2. Continued Activism and Protests: Over the years, People’s Park has been a hub for political activism, protests, and countercultural events, reflecting the broader historical movements and changes taking place in American society. Anti-war protests during the Vietnam era, advocacy for homeless rights, and demonstrations against various social issues frequently took place in the park.

                3. Development Threats: The park’s existence has been threatened several times by development proposals from the University of California. These threats have often been met with protests and community action to preserve the park for public use.

                4. Anniversary and Recognition: The park celebrated significant anniversaries with events that brought together community members and activists to reflect on its historical significance. On its 50th anniversary in 2019, there were commemorations of the struggles and achievements associated with the park.

                5. Ongoing Role as a Community Space: Despite facing challenges, People’s Park has remained an important community space for Berkeley residents and a symbol of grassroots activism. It serves not only as a recreational area but also as a locus for community gardening, social services, and cultural expression.

                People’s Park’s story is deeply entwined with the broader narrative of social change in America, and it continues to be an emblematic site for collective action and memory in the community.

  • _number8_@lemmy.worldEnglish
    222·
    1 year ago

    fascinating hunger games is having such a cultural resurgence given how shitty everything in our world is. i love the series but christ every scene is dark and depressing

  • deegeese
    2713·
    1 year ago

    I cannot wait until they finally pave over that violent shithole.

    People’s Park supporters have their heads so far up their asses they can’t smell the meth’d up rapists that have kept anyone else from enjoying this “park”