Carlsson and Zimmer

In Carlsson’s short blog post, “I’m In a Hurry to Slow Down” he discusses the “speed-up” era that is widespread throughout San Francisco. Because San Francisco is in the center of the tech boom, it’s common for many of its constituents to be on the go all the time. Because of the grab & go like culture that San Francisco has slowly transformed to, Carlsson points out how his bike has “become a sanctuary from all this madness”. The bicycle is a way to keep ourselves grounded and just be in our own minds. The bicycle is a symbol of a sense of liberation and freedom which is quite similar to what was pointed out in the Strickland’s “What Every Kid Wants”.

In John Zimmer’s “The Road Ahead” he discusses the impacts of cars and how much space is used up because of them. Zimmer also speaks about how cars are a sign of freedom, much similar to Carlsson’s stance on bikes being used in the city. The differences between Zimmer and Carlsson’s posts is that Zimmer talks about the expansion of cars and how we use up a lot of space with parking spots and large parking garages that are only being used “4% of the time”. He also points out how with Lyft it would allow for cars to be used more than the 4% and keep the flow of traffic going and allow for the expansion of sidewalks and lower congestion and pollution with less cars taking up space on the street.

In all honesty, Carlsson and Zimmer bring up really good points and I agree with them both heavily. But referring to Zimmer’s post, I really like driving and I find it somewhat liberating to drive my own car through the city so with less parking spots I feel somewhat iffy because its already so hard to find parking, but…It is for the better if we have less parking spots and such.