Disruption

This is about as deeply as our mayor cares to appear to think about anything. 

Landrieu said during an editorial board meeting on Monday with NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune that he is believes that online short-term rental platforms like Airbnb fall under the category of "disruptive technologies" that are nearly impossible to put an end to altogether. As a result, Landrieu said he wants to see clear regulations imposed on short-term rentals that would allow them under "reasonable" conditions.

That would mean allowing short-term rentals that are clearly regulated and enforceable, and would generate enough money so that the city could pay for enforcing the regulations. Landrieu said he also wants to use money generated by short-term rental platform operators to help address the questions opponents often raise about affordability and the depletion of housing stock.

The kids and their disruption and their magic apps and stuff. No need to bother with the quaint old ways like enforcing laws or whatever if people don't want to follow them. The free market has spoken.  You'd think this means we don't need to cut every city department five percent in order hire more police, then.  But you'd be wrong about that. You'd also think that maybe we'd be less zealous about this.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu is proposing to nearly double the number of traffic cameras in New Orleans early next year, adding 55 new devices to watch for speeders and red-light runners.

The plan was announced as officials began rolling out the city's $614 million budget for 2017 early Monday. The proposal came during the city's Revenue Estimating Conference, which determines how much money the city has to spend.

Leave aside for a second the fact that traffic cameras are basically crooked tax farming operations that primarily benefit for-profit private contractors. Leave aside also the fact that cities across the country are growing so weary that they're no longer really considered "best practices" by any but the most regressive minded governments. Instead let's just ask what the heck is the point if we're no longer in the business of enforcing laws people are just going to "disrupt" anyway?

But there is that thing in there about "cost of enforcement." Apparently that's the threshold for determining where to focus the machinery of state now.  As long as there's revenue that can be gotten in a way that hurts poor people instead of our wealthier friends, we're all for it. But when poor people are being taken advantage of by those same wealthy friends and relatives, well there's nothing we can do.