New and Old #134
Friday roundup and commentary
Quebec’s Obsession With No Frills Cars, The Truth About Cars, Derek Kreindler, June 14, 2013
One of the quirks of the Canadian marketplace is the abundance of “Quebec specials”; stripped out models with no air-conditioning, a manual transmission and little else. It would be unfair to compare these cars to the Nissan Versa S because these are often variants of good cars, like the Honda Fit or the Kia Rio, but other crappier examples are out there as well. Nissan, for example, makes a Sentra with a 6-speed manual and no A/C for sale in Canada and not the United States, solely as a concession to the Quebec market.
I’ve never heard of this, but it’s very interesting. I’m a regular American, so it never even occurred to me that one way to save money on a car is to buy a manual (if I could even find one here). This is pretty cool, but I doubt they would be strong sellers here. Maybe I’m wrong. It would be nice to know, wouldn’t it?
I first came across the Flower Theater about four years ago. It’s a late art deco movie theater from 1950, in the Langley Park/suburban Silver Spring area of east Montgomery County. It’s a relatively poor area and the building, while still occupied (as a church) has fallen into disrepair. But it anchors a neat block that almost resembles a city block, despite being right off the main highway. Maybe an old streetcar route. It’s so cool to see things like this get some attention. It’s an architectural gem in the middle of a very sprawly landscape.
When New Urbanists and YIMBY's fight, Build the Next Right Thing, Seth Zeren, November 1, 2023
This is a pretty good walkthrough of the differences in emphasis as well as the overlap between some of the different groups within housing advocacy. I think a lot of the disagreement that Zeren talks about comes down to it taking place on the internet, more so, I think, than he does. Not that there aren’t some real disagreements, but that in real life these things get discussed less acrimoniously.
For example, should buildings be aesthetically pleasing or should we build as many units as possible? That feels like an internet framing to me. At least, I’ve never had or seen that particular discussion outside of Twitter.
But that said, Zeren understands the values of the different groups here well, and if this interests you but you don’t know it through and through, it’s a very good read.
Donations Unneeded, PERC Reports, Tate Watkins, October 17, 2023
This is a neat article from a free-market conservation think tank about synthetic replacements for horseshoe crab blood, a vital substance for modern medical care. What a weird thing that is, isn’t it? Sure, the innovation element makes you feel good about human ingenuity. But the fact that up until then, a field so advanced as modern medicine can’t exist without this particular substrate from the natural world? That awakens both the environmentalist and the conservative in me.
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Sadly, the cheap Quebec special has largely disappeared from the Canadian car market since this was written, for a couple of reasons. First, Quebec has had a decade of robust economic growth and a generational shift in which young people are less likely to drive at all, partly as the cost of driving has, as elsewhere, skyrocketed. Also, cars are better than they once were. Montreal was and is the world capital of road salt and cars used to age faster there than just about anywhere else, but this is no longer the case as cars simply last much longer. Seeing 10-15 year old cars on the streets of Montreal used to be rare (and they'd be held together by duct tape and faith), now seeing such cars in good shape is common. So if you are going to buy a car, might as well buy something a bit posher. Also, there are fewer cheaper cars on the market than there once were, although rising interest rates and affordability issues (not just in Quebec!) will, I hope, bring back the base-model-brilliant Accents, Micras, Yarises and Mirages.
Here's a very real-life example of "aesthetically pleasing vs. maximizing units" from NYC. I can't speak to every city, but this does in fact come up in NYC pretty regularly. https://thevillagesun.com/opinion-citys-plan-for-388-hudson-tower-is-too-tall-slippery-on-affordability