it's very clear from some communists' visions of future city-planning that they expect disabled people to just shut up and die, lmao
- some disabled people need door-to-door transportation. public transportation will never work for everyone, no matter how much you emphasise that it is "accessible" to some
- if any part of your plan involves disabled people needing to "request" exceptions or "prove" that they are an exception or be questioned or tested or navigate any level of bureaucracy to become a Certified Exception, some people are going to be denied things they need & some of them are going to die
If you don’t mind me adding:
3. Some folks dream of the perfect commune where everyone contributes - specifically with labor. If a disabled person not contributing labor isn’t welcome in your community, you are just repackaging the capitalist “labor = worth” mindset
I also get this from climate activists who are heavily focused on eliminating cars, including electric cars with no emissions. I have been wildly attacked for simply pointing out that for some of us, our cars are mobility devices that are critical to our ability to participate in the world.
They love to share concept drawings of imagined high density communities, high rise buildings ringed with walking paths, retail and businesses on the lower floors and apartments above. They also love sharing photos of existing places, usually in Europe, where streets have been closed to vehicle traffic, and turned into pedestrian walkways, or green spaces.
There is never anyone in those images who is noticeably disabled. There aren’t even elderly people with canes.
They declare these spaces to be future that we should all want.
The message is being sent loud and clear.
Not arguing with the point being made here, I completely agree, but I do want to set one thing straight: I live in Europe, and I've been to many streets that are closed to vehicle traffic, and I see visibly disabled people and people with walking aids in those places all the time. Always have. I've walked around those places with someone who uses a cane. Just because they aren't in whatever photo you saw doesn't mean they don't exist.
It's not a climate thing. Pedestrian-only streets are necessary in towns that were built before cars. They are usually the main shopping street(s), where having cars drive through is dangerous in more than one way - especially for disabled people and children. The streets and footpaths are too narrow for the level of traffic we have now. If you let cars through there, you'd make the main shopping street inaccessible or at least super dangerous for elderly ladies with walking aids, people in wheelchairs, people with babies in buggies, etc. Not ideal. Pedestrianised places are accessible for those people, the important thing is making sure they can get there. Which, in those photos, you probably also aren't seeing the car parks that are usually right next to those streets, often underground.
I think maybe this is a case of people trying to apply a European solution 1:1 to the US, and you can't. First of all, you don't even have the same problem. Pedestrian-only streets in a German town are imo more comparable to a US shopping mall. You don't drive around inside those, either, right? Even if you are disabled, you leave the car outside. Same thing here.
Also: the European problem is that medieval towns weren't built for cars. The streets are tiny. So you have to adapt them, using one-way systems and pedestrian zones. They don't just close a street, they plan this out to make sure everything's still accessible. You can still drive around it, park next to it, get there by bus, etc. It's a matter of adapting a medieval town to modern needs, including the needs of elderly and disabled people.
Anyone sharing this as some kind of climate-conscious car-banning thing doesn't know what they're talking about.
@iverna listen, I don’t have the answers for how to adapt 100% of areas for 100% of people and suspect that that’s not necessarily feasible (certainly in the short-term), but I will say that you are completely ignorant of the range of ways in which human beings can be disabled.
it’s an unfortunate aspect of the fact that “disabled” can mean such a huge range of things that a lot people will have frankly irrelevant responses, such as this one, to criticisms of inaccessibility—as though there is only one way to be disabled, such that if some physically disabled people can access something, then that means that all physically disabled people can access it.
the physically disabled people that you see out and about are the ones who have a relatively large amount of mobility. this is what allows them to be out and about on the kinds of streets you’re describing. the people who have less mobility, who are ‘more’ disabled, who need completely level ground to walk even with a mobility aid or to move their wheelchairs over, who are bedridden, these are the people you are not seeing, because they are not able to navigate these kinds of streets. they are largely isolated, at home and ignored.
I can’t emphasise enough how incredibly—ignorant, as I’ve said, but also disrespectful and just plain cruel—it is to say things like “what do you mean this is inaccessible? I’ve seen [SOME] disabled people use it.” this is to use some disabled people as bludgeons with which to discredit and dismiss other disabled people. I hope that you learn from this and don’t say something like this to anyone else.
Did you guys know the “Sickos” artist made a Sicko thats a WGA screenwriter on strike (said comic artist is a The Onion satirist comic artist and his name is Stan Kelly)
ALTAnd honestly? What a mood. Haha YES indeed.
My buddy lives in China so when the sun is setting for him, it’s rising for me. So, naturally, I sent him this
