On Dec 27, 2008, at 3:51 PM, Chris Crawford wrote:
> In Santa Fe, the city didn't bother to ever plow the
> streets. People paid groups of Mexican men with shovels to dig out
> their
> driveways and the part of the street that goes past the house. It
> cost $25
> and took the men about 15 minutes to do it...they were very hard
> workers but
> made good money from it. Usually 4-5 guys worked together and could
> do 3-4
> houses an hour. 20-25 dollars an hour for each man. Considering that
> it
> snows in Santa Fe every winter and has done so for the last 400
> years, you'd
> think the city would have a more technologically advanced snow removal
> method than "Immigrants with shovels". You know, like trucks with
> plows!
Actually, I think that is a *brilliant* solution that would work well
here in Seattle and probably many other cities. We have a big
snowstorm once every oh, seven or eight years, and when we do, there's
a segment of the population that can't find anything more productive
to do than to whine about how the city isn't prepared for snow, how we
should salt the roads, have snowplows running down every side street,
and so on. (Forgetting the cost of acquiring and maintaining all this
carbon-spewing and/or nasty for Puget Sound stuff for the periods in
between snow events.) I also like the idea that you're not only
responsible for the sidewalk, but the street in front of your house.
"Immigrants with shovels" is a low-tech, low-cost, distributed
solution that is profitable for the workers, and (ultimately) solar
powered. (Human energy is, after all, a form of solar energy.) We need
more of that in the US.
Rob in Seattle
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