You're completely correct on the exposed demand issue. I would also add that in most cities (in the United States anyway) hotels can only exist in very specific corners of the city due to zoning, often in just three places: downtown (expensive!), the suburbs (so not even in city limits), and "motel alley" (which is usually an old highway in askeevy part of town lined with mid-20th century fleabag accommodations that are slowly being abandoned/bulldozed). For some cities this isn't an issue, but in others it's a problem for accessing the tourist attractions, especially if the tourists in question don't have a rental car. Then there are the non-tourist visitors to consider: if you're in a city to visit family, you're probably going to want to stay as close to them as possible. Same with a lot of business travelers. This is a bit of a conundrum when the nearest hotel (or affordable/decent hotel) is a 30 minute drive away.

I'll check it out, thanks!

I just want the communities that already exist to have more engagement. It's pretty demoralizing making a high-effort post and getting only a handful of upvotes and no comments. And it's like watching a hospice patient visiting a neat-sounding community and realizing all the posts are by the single moderator (and are getting less and less frequent).

I think one of the best ways for folks to contribute to the health of Lemmy would be for everyone to spend some time on "all - new" (or even "all - top hour") on occasion. "New" on Lemmy is not the cesspool of reposts and garbage that it was on Reddit (although there is a LOT of porn if you don't have NSFW toggled off), and the quality of the first few pages of "top hour" is usually pretty good (except again for the porn, which it turns out gets pretty decent engagement). I visit "top hour" pretty regularly, and nearly all posts that are stuck in zero-engagement/minimal-engagement pergatory are simply niche content rather than bad content.

Arcane, the animated Netflix show that was based on League of Legends.

That would be great IF you could convince the city that thoroughly-entrenched tools like leaf blowers and lawn mowers and motorized vehicles fell under nuisance laws. Chances are the mayor and most of city council use these things (or pay someone who uses them). The problem is that most people either love these things or don't find them obnoxious enough to warrant action. Even if you somehow could get them to fall under nuisance laws, enforcement would be complaint-based, and who's going to risk pissing off their neighbor for being a snitch Karen?

I know everyone hates HOAs because they're usually petty and dumb, but this is where I think they'd actually be helpful. Designate certain neighborhoods as "quiet zones" where similarly obnoxious activities (that have reasonable, quiet alternatives) are banned: no motorized leaf blowers, lawn mowers, souped-up motorcycles or muscle cars. If you want to own one of those things, don't move into that neighborhood.

I've come to realize many people feel "forced" to move to incredibly space- and resource-inefficient (and thereby ecologically-damaging) places like suburbs and exurbs for basically two reasons: better schools, and in an attempt to escape asshole neighbors. Sometimes it's so that they can themselves be the asshole neighbors, but generally people are trying to live in a "nice" neighborhood not over usual HOA things like house siding color and properly-concealed trash cans, but rather for a general desire for peace and quiet. I know I dream about living on 40 acres not so I can start a dairy farm, but to escape the various forms of pollution (primarily noise, air, and light) emitted by my current neighbors. But I wouldn't feel the need to do that if my neighbors had similar desires as I and limited things like car idling, porch lights, and landscape-related noise. Meanwhile the neighbors upset at me for keeping my yard wild to support wildlife could have a neighbor with similarly bland yard maintenance standards.

Basically all the media.

There is (or at least was) a special kind of joy in discovering a new piece of media (movie, TV, book, video game, comic, etc), getting to the end, and hopping over to the relevant subreddit to sort by "top of all time." Bonus points if you loved the series and would get to essentially relive it all over again through the sub, but even media that you hated or were neutral about could be fun subs to peruse; maybe you would get to revel in seeing something you hated turned into a meme highlighting how stupid it was, or get to feel justified in your negative assessment upon reading an epic rant from another user; maybe instead you'd find hidden details or explanations pointed out by other users that made you reassess the work ("huh, I though that was a stupid plothole but it actually was perfectly explained by that one scene that apparently went over my head"). The ATLA subs especially were treasure troves of tiny details and "holy shit I just noticed on my fifth rewatch" posts that really elevated my opinion (and thereby enjoyment) of a series I was initially kind of "meh" on.

When I think about what it would take to feel like Lemmy had sufficiently replaced Reddit for me, the number one practical answer is for comprehensive news (political, world, cultural, meme, etc... Reddit really did at one point feel like "the front page of the Internet" if there ever was one), and the second is to have the critical mass to be able to ask a question and get a good recommendation for any specific product or service, via regional subs, hobby subs, etc (although thanks to LLMs and corporate astroturfing that may simply be a bygone part of the Internet). But the "fun" answer is to have the critical mass for a wide range of specific fandoms.

Fukisima

I've heard two good explanations as to why she'd publicize such a story:

1. She botched a common Republican technique by choosing the wrong victim to villainize (full explanation here)

2. There are witnesses to the puppy murder (construction crew) so this is her way of getting ahead of the story before someone else tells it (AFAIK so far we've only heard her version; maybe reality is even worse)

Eh, I'm not sure how I feel about this one. Parking is a huge thorn in the side of transportation reform, and ensuring parking turnover is actually pretty crucial to a functional transportation system. On-street parking is public right-of-way that could be a bike lane, enhanced bus stop, street seating for restaurants/cafes, parklets, drainage swales, large medians for trees, wider sidewalks, the list goes on. However we don't get these nice things because "wE NeEd ThE pArKiNg SuPpLy." Except often you'll find that there would be sufficient supply to remove the parking on even just one side of the street if turnover were higher, and turnover is not higher because people are abusing the parking. Things like store employees parking all day in spots meant for customers, people using on-street parking to avoid more expensive lots at the destinations they're actually visiting (like entertainment venues), etc. Have you ever encountered a parking meter that would only let you put in 2 hours of money even though you need the spot for much longer, and you had to run out mid-way through whatever you were doing to feed the meter? That means you were probably not the intended user for that space and you should have found longer-term parking elsewhere. Maybe that store manager that runs outside every other hour to feed the meter rather than use an all-day parking lot (but that's a three-block walk away and this parking is right here!!1) or taking public transportation (because that's beneath them) would rethink this behavior after an expensive ticket. Point is, I'm not sure helping people skirt parking regulations is fighting the system or standing up for the little guy.

My understanding is sugar water is fine for hummingbirds, but the red dye often added to it is not.