[khm]

Baltimore has a police force out of their control (it's in state hands) but they still have to pay for it. This has resulted in massive retention and recruitment issues, and some of the cops who did stick around were on the take -- specifically the Gun Trace Task Force, home of the locally-famous Jump Out Boys.

Baltimore is an independent city, so it can't rely on county assistance for anything. Furthermore, state law prevents Baltimore (and only Baltimore) from annexing suburbs to increase the tax base, which is how literally every city in America grows. This results in obvious financial problems, as the city cannot expand its income to keep up with costs of services to the impoverished people who remain after the exit of the steel industry and the tremendously reduced longshoreman cadre.

Into all of this, some asshole carmakers decided to sell machines which are ready theft targets, able to be started by anyone who can get their hands on a USB stick. The spike in thefts of these products has a material effect on police availability. Where is Baltimore supposed to get the funding to meet this increase in demand for city services? They can't annex taxable land. They can't control policing policies.

What would you do?

[dionidium]

> Furthermore, state law prevents Baltimore (and only Baltimore) from annexing suburbs to increase the tax base

St. Louis is the other major independent city. The state doesn't restrict its ability to annex suburbs, but it hardly matters. It doesn't happen, anyway, and it almost certainly wouldn't in Baltimore, either. Who wants either city's problems?

[TuringNYC]

One case where I can see a suburb welcoming an annexation is when pension problems get out of hand. There are hundreds of small municipalities which have promised policemen, firemen, and others huge pensions. Many of these pensions are underfunded and only survive by "borrowing" from the budget and/or "borrowing" from future generations' pension assets.

It is unclear whether the PBGC (https://www.pbgc.gov/) will bail out the small municipalities. But i'd bet that Illinois, California, LA, NYC get bailouts. In such a situation, it would make sense for a municipality to join in with a "too-big-to-fail" entity.

I'm not a local government expert, but i'm seen enough bailouts to think these are decent guesses.

[Kamq]

Really depends on who is in power at the time.

Famously Ford refused to bail out New York when they went bust back in '75 (he did later sign legislation giving them loans, but my understanding is that those were paid back).

Probably also depends on the trifecta, since during the Obama administration (republicans controlled the house), the city of Detroit went bankrupt and nobody bailed them out either.

Source 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_New_York_City_(1946...

Source 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_bankruptcy

[dionidium]

Some of the smaller municipalities surrounding St. Louis have recently dissolved, for various reasons, but they're taken over by the surrounding County, not absorbed by the City.

[maeil]

> Where is Baltimore supposed to get the funding to meet this increase in demand for city services?

That is for American politics to figure out. This is an American political issue and blaming Korean car makers is absurd.

[KennyBlanken]

They have to include the anti-theft systems in the vast majority of other countries. They made the conscious choice to save a few dollars per car not including it in US models...with predictable impact on US society...because it wasn't required here. Because car companies have fought legislation to mandate it, via lobbyists.

How would you feel if in the rest of the world kids pajamas were made of fabric that didn't burn easily / melt onto skin, but in the US due to lax regulation, companies were making them out of cheaper fabric that is practically tinder and easily melts to the skin, but slightly cheaper?

Would you still bleat about how it's "American politics" and not reprehensible, immoral cost-cutting?

[maeil]

> How would you feel if in the rest of the world kids pajamas were made of fabric that didn't burn easily / melt onto skin, but in the US due to lax regulation, companies were making them out of cheaper fabric that is practically tinder and easily melts to the skin, but slightly cheaper?

This kind of thing is standard practice in almost every industry. Products are generally manufactured according to safety standards that are required in the country of sale. This is especially prevalent in cars. Things like airbags, crumple zones, even seatbelts. Plenty of countries where cars are sold without backseat seatbelts.

Id also be genuinely interested in a source for your claim of immobilizers being required in the "vast majority" of other countries as my Google skills are failing to find it. Furthermore, in the other countries where one is not required, has this ommission led to the same "predictable impacts on society" there?

[pb7]

Interestingly, isn't this exactly what happens when American tech companies get fined and/or are forced to implement certain regulations in Europe?

[jasonm23]

Are European regulations due to people stealing tech devices?

I thought it was due to anti-consumer practices.

[pb7]

Not including anti-theft devices that they include in other countries that mandate them is pretty anti-consumer. In this case, it's also extremely costly and dangerous unlike something like not saving website cookies.

[jasonm23]

It really depends on how the car is marketed, no?

[brokencode]

So making cars that lack basic anti-theft features common in other brands of cars doesn’t count as anti-consumer?

[jasonm23]

No, not if it's not hidden away from the customer and deceptive.

[matthewdgreen]

Once you’ve had a gun pointed at you from a car, taken down the license plate, then been told there’s nothing they can do because the car was stolen —- you’ll realize that car theft isn’t some individual problem. We’ve had the tech to solve this problem for decades, but car manufacturers decided to save a few bucks.

[zarzavat]

The easy accessibility of guns in America is not the fault of Korean car manufacturers either. What you describe is not something that people in most developed countries have to worry about.

[porkbeer]

The accessability of guns is not part of hotwiring kias, or even choosing to use them for crime. Gun ownership and crime are not strongly linked.

[soerxpso]

The tech to make it impossible to start a car without the owner's consent, even when the attacker has hardware access? Are you also selling magic beans and snake oil?

[jackvalentine]

“We’ve had tech to solve this problem” isn’t the same statement as “tech to make it impossible to start a car without the owner’s consent, even when the attacker has hardware access”.

Engine immobilisers cut out all the easy “jam a USB stick in there” attacks, The Kia Boys do not exist in Australia where they’ve been mandatory for 20 years.

Lesson here for Americans - if you want something like this it has to be legislated. Cheap manufacturers will absolutely save a few bucks and not include it if they can.

[thewebcount]

Case in point: My father was an EE at GM in the 70s. He told me one time that the company knew of a problem in some model from that era where when you made a hard left turn with the air conditioning on, the engine would stall. Fixing it would have increased the cost of each car by 15 cents, so they chose not to fix it. These models were later recalled. I don’t know whether the cost of the recall was more than the cost to have just done it right in the first place.

[porkbeer]

Im a pretty big car nut, and GM is known for some sketchy stuff, but this is BS.

[ehnto]

Which is why many countries mandate immobilisers in cars.

I have had my car stolen twice so this issue isn't distant from me, if it has become a state issue it needs a state solution.

Individual responsibility seems to be the American preference though, on an individual level you have the ability to install an immobiliser, and being familiar with the car's features when you make such a massive purchase shouldn't be unreasonable.

[lstodd]

Yeah, I had one with an immobiliser. By the third time it went nuts and blocked me from starting the car it took me about 3 minutes to reset it, and the tools were already kept in the trunk for just this.

Now I live in a country where it's normal to leave cars with open windows and even doors in the street so that they don't overheat in the sun. Sometimes even with keys dangling.

No immobilisers necessary -- only decent people are.

[ehnto]

Yeah I ultimately agree with your last sentence, I used to live in a little town where that was the case. But cities will atract all types so you must hedge your bets.

[maeil]

Clearly cities elsewhere don't. This isn't a "city" attribute.

[akudha]

Woah, where do you live, that you can leave the keys in the car with windows/doors open? Not being sarcastic, genuinely curious

[porkbeer]

I live in such a place. And have lived in others too. Most are away from cities. Rural south, midwest, even a small western costal city. If I feel compelled to lock my doors when I leave my home, I dont feel welcome in the place I live. Worse, are people who live where they would literally lock themselves inside their own home. I wouldnt wish that level of fear and insecurity on anyone. I fear for our future that this seems to have become not just common, but default behavior.

[lostlogin]

So it’s the buyers fault.

This is a darkly hilarious take.

[ehnto]

Well it's no one persons fault, except the criminal obviously. But there are a few contributors, and I feel in the US's responsibility model defending your property is usually your job.

[maeil]

The fact that this phenomenon is only really seen in the US is enough on its own to conclude that this is an American political or social problem.

[Ekaros]

Couldn't a car be stolen also by pointing gun at the owner? The problem is the people the citizens that do these crimes. Not the technical implementations of vehicles.

[matthewdgreen]

They can but this one was not. It was taken from in front of a nearby house while the owner slept.

[IceHegel]

I’m all for making cars harder to steal, but I don’t think constructing the problem as unsolvable and out of the cities hands is all that compelling either.

[SoftTalker]

Just realize that making cars harder to steal means a locksmith can't help you if you lose your key. You'll have to have the car towed to the dealer and pay $500 - $1,500 to get a new key coded to the vehicle.

[scoofy]

>Furthermore, state law prevents Baltimore (and only Baltimore) from annexing suburbs to increase the tax base, which is how literally every city in America grows.

Not doing that is a very good thing in the long run: https://www.strongtowns.org/

[leetcrew]

they could start by shutting down the free car wash at president and fayette...

in all seriousness, this is a problem I've thought about a lot, and I have no idea what the answer is. baltimore has a lot of the building blocks for a wonderful place to live, but it is a deeply sick city.

it has infrastructure built for a million plus, but less than 600k actually living in the city limits and fewer than that paying any meaningful amount of taxes. and like you say, what tax base exists is fleeing across the county line every year.

it's a cool and affordable (for the east coast) city to live in through your mid to late twenties. but between the crime, high taxes that kick in early, and abysmal public school system, there's a very strong incentive to leave once you have kids and can't afford private school. while boring af, the county is simply way more appealing for middle to upper-middle income families, which ought to be the core of the tax base.

with BPD having utterly failed to earn trust with the community and a political class more interested in grandstanding and stuffing their own pockets than doing anything that might be called "governance", I really don't see how the city pulls out of this nosedive anytime soon.

[onos]

High crime, bad public schools, and high taxes… sounds like a common set of problems being faced by many us cities.

[dgfitz]

I’ll cite sources if needed, but googling “Baltimore corruption” will explain the financial issues facing the city.

[nxm]

A Baltimore mom recently learned her high school senior had a 0.13 GPA yet ranked 62/120 in his class. The student had flunked all but three classes during his first three years of high school.

-4th highest per pupil spend in the country. Definition of money not well spent?

[KennyBlanken]

In almost every republican-controlled state legislature they are pushing bills to do the same thing to their major cities, trying to put large metropolitan city police forces under state control.

It's a weird move from a party that claims to be about "small" government and local control.

They're so busy trying to "own" the libs that they have forgotten, or simply don't care, that those cities are usually generating tax revenue that supports the outlying rural areas.

[georgeplusplus]

I wouldn't threaten cops with a choice to get a covid vaccine or keeping their jobs. Which you left out.

But yeah let's blame carmarkers for shitty behavior by one of the worst cities in the country.

[lostlogin]

An underperforming department with huge corruption and brutality problems and you pick this as the issue to focus on?

On the upside, cleaning shop is needed and this helped get that started.

[georgeplusplus]

Sounds like you're saying that only the corrupt cops didn't choose to get the shot. Which is consistent with blaming car manufacturers for crime.

I hope you live in this city to reap the reward of such crime that's an obvious fallout of your lovely ideas that has dominated it's city politics for decades.