I’ve never lived in a city that claimed to restrict overnight parking as Providence does, but I’ve lived in a bunch of cities that actually give tickets for (non-meter) parking violations, which PVD rarely seems to do.

If you park on the street-cleaning side of the street in other cities when you’re not supposed to, parking enforcement officers drive a block ahead of the street sweepers and will happily ticket you.

By contrast, the parking enforcement here (like so much else) is mostly performative, such that when someone actually does get a citation it’s a genuine surprise.

The capricious enforcement leads to cynicism and contempt for rules in general, which seeps into civic culture and people’s attitudes toward any kind of personal responsibility.

Fair but consistent enforcement is better than absent or sporadic enforcement …