I used to live in city-subsidized housing. It was an apartment complex with a big garden. To enjoy the garden in the summer, residents started putting old chairs and a table outside. Once summer was over, they didn’t bother to take them inside again. The table became weathered and didn’t offer a pleasant sight anymore. The city noticed and put up a letter on the apartment board saying that having your own furniture in the garden was unorderly and threatened that any furniture that wasn’t removed from the garden by the end of the month would be disposed of.
(You might want to quickly think about the long-run effects this letter had.)
In the following weeks, the residents dumped their old sofas, broken beds, televisions and, what-not into the garden. Normally, disposing of large items like this required you to have a car, drive the items to a disposal yard and pay a fee. However, the city had just made it free.
Or so the residents thought.
Of course, the city didn’t think of following through with their threat anymore. Removing a couple of chairs and a table would have fit in a normal workday of a city janitor. Removing this pile of trash would have been costly.
The months went on, the sofas were wet, nobody used the garden anymore. I moved away soon after.
Trying to Keep the Garden Well
I used to live in city-subsidized housing. It was an apartment complex with a big garden.
To enjoy the garden in the summer, residents started putting old chairs and a table outside. Once summer was over, they didn’t bother to take them inside again. The table became weathered and didn’t offer a pleasant sight anymore.
The city noticed and put up a letter on the apartment board saying that having your own furniture in the garden was unorderly and threatened that any furniture that wasn’t removed from the garden by the end of the month would be disposed of.
(You might want to quickly think about the long-run effects this letter had.)
In the following weeks, the residents dumped their old sofas, broken beds, televisions and, what-not into the garden. Normally, disposing of large items like this required you to have a car, drive the items to a disposal yard and pay a fee. However, the city had just made it free.
Or so the residents thought.
Of course, the city didn’t think of following through with their threat anymore. Removing a couple of chairs and a table would have fit in a normal workday of a city janitor. Removing this pile of trash would have been costly.
The months went on, the sofas were wet, nobody used the garden anymore.
I moved away soon after.