Every once in a while, I hear about a really good idea and it makes me think.
One of the recent ideas I heard about is: Kiva – its a site that allows you to make loans to poor people in other countries so they can use that money to start a business, get out of sticky situations, etc… This is similar to the idea of Dr. Yunus called “banking for the poor”. I think that these programs are great because it allows you to donate money in a way that is more efficient than dropping a couple of pennies in a donation basket. With the power of the internet, I hope that one day I can build something like this.
Another great Idea I recently heard about is Paris’s Bike Rental Program. Basically you pay a small fee to rent a bike to bike around Paris. It’s a great idea because it reduces people’s dependencies on cars for small trips. It think this idea would be great for downtown San Francisco. They could block car traffic from downtown SF only allow foot traffic or bike traffic. This would reduce all the congestion and possibly lighten the mood of downtown SF.
Along with doing bike rentals in downtown SF, they should also have a ban on baggy jeans in download SF like in Atlanta. I don’t like to go downtown SF because I hate the traffic and I hate the ghetto kids standing around harassing people who walk by. I used to live in downtown SF so I had to deal with them every day, but now that I moved away, I don’t ever want to come back until they clean up those kids. I mean, at the very least, remove the ones that offer you drugs as you walk by.