On Taxes
Today I had a cyber-punk dream. It was in the future. I wanted to enter some city and there was an entrance tax. That surprised me, but now I think it is quite probable to happen. May be it have had been already in the past?
# posted by romka,
Sunday, July 27, 2008
12:10
There used to be strict face control, the outcomes of which could be influenced by some amounts of money.
I think it is possible with the emerge of virtual tourism, which in its turn will become popular when the cities will start caring about green-tourism.
It could take lots of time, because the focus of carbon credit industry will have to be shifted from big industries into individuals which currently exist only at voluntary level.
This means there will be no place for backpackers. In my dreams the city was luxury and with this tax they were filtering out poor people. Not very democratic behaviour :)
Yes, either they will die out one by one, or the system will leave a gap: if you reach the city on foot/bicycle, you are not paying the fee.
But it doesn't sound very logical. Probably the transport will just be more expensive so in general tourism will be only available for rich.
One more idea: the only possible model of a city, where a fee could be enforced is the city of endangered species. For example a "happy city". In future, when the strive for happiness will extinct and people will just live normally, they will have to put all the happy people there, and take the fee for the risk of making them unhappy and also expenses of keeping them happy. Or some other endangered species...