This is an understatement. A New Yorker with a car that doesn't/can't pay the monthly indoor garage fees will fight tooth and nail for street parking.
Fortunately, it's a good thing to realize that each neighborhood is different. The busy neighborhoods with the most trash (e.g. much of Manhattan) have the smallest number of car-owning residents because it's a lot of tall buildings, while the neighborhoods with the most car-owning residents (e.g. much of Queens) generate the least trash, because it's a lot of houses.
[1] https://www.villiger.com/en/products#underground-systems
Burying trash receptacles rather than reusing parking spaces may be cheaper, but it isn't guaranteed. It may also vary by borough (Queens in particular has less underground infrastructure).
this is an oxymoron
we just borrow other peoples' cars / use taxis
The reason why NYC has such a rat epidemic is because they literally throw their trash bags on the street. Which leads to some getting ripped open and leaving food for pests.
Which is in large part because of the way NYC was laid out originally -- no back alleys where garbage could be stored and collected, in order to reduce areas for potential crime.
If it were as simple as you imply, it would have been done already. Guess what -- it's actually pretty complex, but containerization is a major focus of the current administration. Nobody's being "precious" about anything -- there's no need to be insulting.
(Once you go outside the canals it's wheelie bins, but they are not considered suitable for use in the very centre, for reasons I was never super-clear on)
Also trash cans aren't foolproof. I've encountered more than a few of the critters digging through our refuse, along with a trash panda once or twice. The bags aren't rat proof either; it's not that they rip, but rather the rats chew through.
Complicated problem with a lot of legacy infrastructure debt.
The city is now bringing back the trashcan requirement, but plastic this time. It remains to be seen how effective that will be (since rats will happily chew through heavy plastic to get to food).
Edit: I realized that I've also simplified: the new can requirement is for commercial pickups only. That's the majority of rat-inducing foot waste, but it's still just a partial solution.
https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/in...
But the car lobby, despite being a clear minority, is really strong. It sucks.
I get that many many people in NYC don't see this as an issue, or don't see this as a solvable problem. As an outsider it is absolutely disgusting, and forever lowered my opinion of the city.
NYC has huge underground tunnel networks for subway and other things. The only other city in the US with a comparably large rat problem is Chicago, which also has substantial tunneling. This gives rats a huge place to live. While trash is a contributing factor the huge amount of old tunnels is the main reason it's so hard to control.
The city can do all the control it wants in the parks but it isn't going to put much of a dent in the underground systems.
Almost ever major city has some level of rat problem, with underground transit and other man-made tunnels I believe the problem is essentially impossible to solve. It's all about management.
Unless you kill all of them at once and set up some sort of impossibly perfect rat detection system to kill the ones in every building and trash can, how is killing something like on the order of 10 female-year progeny even news? It's like putting a piece of masking tape over a water main break. You have to reduce their food, their ability to reproduce, etc.
https://www.rentokil.com/us/about/blog/all-industries/quickl...
[1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11493659/Seeking-le...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63837306
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/14/1170120247/nyc-rat-czar-kathl...
https://time.com/6264623/rat-birth-control-poison-contrapest...
I wonder will some of them eventually evolve some tolerance and/or ability to sense the carbon monoxide, so they can escape before there is too much of it?
> "overflowing garbage cans"
Hmm something doesn't add up here
