Placardization

Parking placards allow someone with the placard (handicapped, police, fire, education, et al.) to park in a particular space. In 2008, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg attempted to cut down on the number of parking placards that New York City issued, in an attempt to free up parking spaces and to reduce congestion.
 
The term “placardization” means someone with political connections receiving special government privileges (such as placards and many other special benefits as well). The term “placardization” appeared on a New York City blog in 2007 and was used by Larry Littlefield in 2008 in the New York City political blog Room Eight.
   
   
Wikipedia: Placard
A placard is a sign or sign-like device attached to or hung from a vehicle to indicate information about the operator (of a vehicle) or the contents of the vehicle or building.
   
Buildings
A placard is placed on a building to indicate special information about that building. The most common placard which had been used is the Fallout shelter black and yellow trefoil indicating that a building was specifically prepared for use for emergency shelter in the event of a nuclear explosion in the area of the particular building. Temporary placards may be placed on buildings such as warning signs over tenting to indicate the building is being fumigated and that no one should enter.
 
In some locations it is common practice, and in some areas (such as California) it is required by law that any primary entrance to a commercial building have a placard attached above the entrance door(s) reading “This door to remain unlocked during business hours.”
 
Vehicles
The two most common placards in general use on vehicles are handicapped privilege tags for personal automobiles, and hazardous materials warning signs for commercial vehicles. There are other types, such as the “wide load” signs used when mobile homes are transported by road.
 
The Neighborhood Retail Alliance
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Gridlock Mike?
The NY Post editorializes today about the proliferation of government parking passes, and the contribution that the passes make to the city’s traffic congestion problem. As the paper points out, “It’s bad enough having the extra cars on the road, but the illegal parking can cause major tie-ups-not only wasting motorists’ time, but also adding to the pollution that supposedly vexes Hizzoner so.”
 
The Post also points out that the placardization of Manhattan, unlike his congestion pricing tax, is something that the mayor can do something about without having to wait for any legislative approval.
 
Room Eight
Preparing for Institutional Collapse
posted by Larry Littlefield
Sat, 03/29/2008 - 10:39am
(...)
The future of public services and benefits is privatization and “placardization.” We already see privatization in the public sidewalks, public property individual people are “required” to maintain. So in affluent neighborhoods the sidewalks are good, in poor neighborhoods they are terrible. We see placardization in the free parking allocated to those with certain connections, many but not all of them in the public sector. Someday there will be education placards, health care placards, park placards, library placards—all off the books and all secret, of course. Isn’t it amazing, when you think about it, how little the political class relies on public services? They have their tax-free pensions, not just Social Security, their private retiree health insurance that pays for what Medicare will not, their private cars and private parking, their suburban or private or special schools. They drive around in their SUVs with tinted windows. The really well off, meanwhile, can fend for themselves without public services and benefits. They don’t have to care, either.
 
Room EIght
Education In An Era of Institutional Collapse
posted by Larry Littlefield
Sat, 08/02/2008 - 11:55am
(...)
I have described the future of public services and benefits as “privatization” and “placardization.” By placardization, I mean that to the extent that public sector has anything worthwhile to offer, it will not be able to afford to offer it universally, and it will be allocated instead to insiders and those with connections by a variety of means. The way scarce parking is allocated to those with the connections to get placards, legal and illegal. By “privatization” I do not mean that the government will provide universal, equal benefits by hiring private contractors rather than public employees, as it does in the Medicare program or under a school voucher program. I mean that those who have the resources to provide what were once public services for themselves will be permitted to do so (as long as they are grateful for that permission), while those who lack such resources will be left to do without. In other words, we’re heading for a pre-Progressive era level of public services and benefits, at a Swedish tax rate (because those who matter have received Swedish-plus benefits while paying Reaganite taxes or less).