1y ago

local hunger games construction almost complete

90 comments

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.
- A handful of Molotov's at night once a week during construction can make it very expensive to build something.
  
  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.
  
  They're going to molotov concrete and steel?
  Cool.
  Cool cool cool.
- I low-key wish I could put you and @deegeese@sopuli.xyz in a jar and shake it.
  In the nicest way.
  
  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.
  
  Haha, their take is pretty charged but it's valid imo.
- They're building student and homeless housing on it and leaving half the park.
  
  Oh, that's probably going to mitigate some of the risk. Hey, maybe it'll be enough!

…but why
- Berkeley wants to turn the park into housing and I guess they hope the wall will keep protesters out.
  
  Surround the park with shipping containers, and done! It is now 100% dystopia appropriate housing!
  
  Berkeley wants to turn the park where homeless people are staying into housing for homeless and undergraduates... While refreshing 60% of the park.
  Why are people upset about housing homeless and undergrads? Is this some NIMBY shit but people dont think it's NIMBY because it's their park this time?
  https://peoplesparkhousing.berkeley.edu/

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.
- 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.
  
  fucking based.
  
  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.
- Every public construction in germany ever
  
  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.

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.
- Even more dystopian if you know the park's history
  
  I do, but I was writing from the perspective that it was invented for the Hunger Games.

So this is why all the third places have dissappeared, greed? Man, fuck this dystopia.
- Exactly. Parents tell their kids to go play outside, without looking at the "outside" they've created.

https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/01/05/peoples-park-berkeley-wall-shipping-containers-history

New paintball arena just dropped.

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
- Didn't a new Hunger Games movie just hit theaters? I assumed most of this stuff was a result of their marketing campaign..
  
  It's probably not that. People just like to reference things that are culturally relevant.
- Feels prescient, at the moment
- it's all a direct ripoff from a japanese book and movie...
  
  Which one?
  
  Nah, they're different genres. Hunger games is a power fantasy. Battle Royale is horror.
  
  ואין כל חדש תחת השמש

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”