7 ms·

This is a simplistic take. European and East Asian democracies build infrastructure far faster and cheaper than the U.S. Often with even more stringent safety r

This is a simplistic take. European and East Asian democracies build infrastructure far faster and cheaper than the U.S. Often with even more stringent safety regulations and higher standards of quality. The question we are tasked with answering is: why?

soperj 3y ago
corruption.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  On which side? The faster side, I'm guessing?
  - sixo 3y ago
    both. corruption favors the powerful. in established cities the powerful own land and don't want it changed, in new ones it's the developers and govt.
    - eru 3y ago
      Europe's cities are arguably more established than American ones, aren't they? Tokyo has also been around for ages.
birdyrooster 3y ago
Obviously (or I guess not so obvious since I am writing this) that is because of a different density of workers, architects, general contractors, engineers for vastly different biomes in the United States than in Europe. Europe has way more people (more than twice as dense) in a similar geographic area (far less diverse features) so the data and practices honed by one are more efficient and have greater economy of scale despite all of the red tape we share. Nothing really that interesting. Or you can just go with the simple stupid answer of corruption as if Europe isn't its own cesspool.
- AbrahamParangi 3y ago
  I don’t think this is obvious or even necessarily true. Europe has many things going against it as well, language barriers, split markets, generally being quite a bit poorer than the US. Moreover it doesn’t explain the performance of East Asian countries at all.
  - birdyrooster 3y ago
    It would greatly explain the performance of East Asian countries. They share the same environmental challenges whereas in the US the challenges are vastly different depending on which coast you are near. Of course China had less red tape (no pun intended) in some regards for development than the other East Asian countries so it executes even faster than its peers. I think its more of a slam dunk than comparing Europe with the US in these terms, which is commensurate with their ability to churn out infrastructure.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - kiba 3y ago
      Across the board we just sucks. Can't be explained by environment being different if US states all exhibit the same pathologies.
    - eru 3y ago
      > It would greatly explain the performance of East Asian countries. They share the same environmental challenges whereas in the US the challenges are vastly different depending on which coast you are near. Huh? East Asian countries differ greatly from each other. And the bigger countries, like China, differ vastly by region. Just like the US.
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  I don’t know that biome relevance is particularly relevant given that major US cities are not usually where major weather extremes happen. We are not talking about skyscrapers in Death Valley or Nome.
esperent 3y ago
> European and East Asian You just basically named two continents and said they build faster than the US and you're accusing someone else of simplistic takes? Which European country builds infrastructure faster than the US?
- etblg 3y ago
  Berlin made great progress on the Brandenburg Airport, a shining example of German efficiency and construction prowess /s
  - MengerSponge 3y ago
    People who'd like to understand the /s should check out "How to F#€k up an Airport" from Radio Spaetkauf: https://www.radiospaetkauf.com/ber/ https://www.radiospaetkauf.com/ber/
- klooney 3y ago
  Spain is the outlier for fast/cheap/good, but I hear that even Italy has gotten its act together, and the recent Rome subway was done quickly and cheaply. The Nordic countries also have a good reputation. England is pretty bad/comparable to the US in speed and cost. https://pedestrianobservations.com/ https://pedestrianobservations.com/ and the less feisty https://transitcosts.com/ https://transitcosts.com/ are the canonical sources on comparative infrastructure costs.
  - klipt 3y ago
    Probably helps that wages are lower in Spain. Americans want cheap infrastructure but also want high wages and that's probably an impossible combination.
    - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
      you cant blame slowness on wages
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
Japan (Tokyo, at least), is crazy fast. I remember staying at the Shinagawa Prince, three years in a row, and it overlooks that big-ass office park, on the other side of the station. One year, I look out, and there’s a huge empty lot. The next year, there’s a steel frame, for several buildings. The next year, the lights are on, and the buildings are obviously occupied. Also, their standards are very high. They weather massive earthquakes, quite well.
- drchickensalad 3y ago
  Tokyo standards for residential are legendarily low. People demolish and rebuild when they buy a home because nothing is built to last even a moderate amount of time.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
    I have heard that. I didn't spend much time in homes. I was in offices and factories, and they were robust as hell. My company's original factory was built after WWI, and may have just been knocked down, a few years ago (it may still be standing -they sold it).
bradDonniger 3y ago
What do we actually need to build? We have plenty of buildings to shelter people, but use them roleplay career professionals. More than enough roads and highways. Plenty of farmland. Maybe could use some hospitals. A real need to rebuild post-world wars seems to have become some mind virus we have to constantly crank out mega projects. Can we get over the ridiculous hallucination we need to “drill baby drill” and grind through all the resources to goto Mars? You and I will be dead before that’s tenable let alone implemented… can we let the future sort itself out a bit? Why do we still buy into the story of post-war shell shocked paranoids who spent decades huffing leased gas fumes, expropriating the world from everyone else dropping democracy bombs. Decades of television as a carefully curated propaganda pipeline has messed the last generation up.
- bluGill 3y ago
  Population is expanding in many US cities faster than they are building houses. With houses we need to build schools, stores, parks, offices, and a long list of other things that an expanding population will use more of. Old infrastructure wears out, and often it fails to meet modern standards and should be replaced (ex old houses often cannot be insulated to modern standards, old bridges we now realize were not built strong enough). Many have for various reasons concluded that some of what we have built in the past was a mistake and so we should tear some things down to replace with something else. (ex replace highways with mass transit) While we don't need to build or rebuild everything we did in the past, there is still a lot of things that if we would build our life would be better.
cpursley 3y ago
Hell, just look at the new metro ring line that was opened in Moscow. It’s 45 miles long and the stations are absolutely gorgeous and unique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-txmGH11sh0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-txmGH11sh0 https://www.rbth.com/travel/335939-moscow-metro-big-circle-line https://www.rbth.com/travel/335939-moscow-metro-big-circle-l... And this is all under massive sanctions and a less democratic and more corrupt system.
- hoseja 3y ago
  That's just a totalitarian vanity project. People live in squalor and die by the thousands on the warfront meanwhile.
  - cpursley 3y ago
    Vanity? Have you visited Russia within the past 10 years? If you didn't know, Moscow traffic is horrendous. And many Muscovites do in fact, depend on the metro to get to work, school, etc.
  - MagnumOpus 3y ago
    The Moscow metro is not just for vanity - the nomenklatura don't take the metro, the people in squalor do... Besides it is irrelevant for the topic - say you are right, then you are still admitting that even a corrupt country that constructs public transport only for vanity can do it at 10x the speed and 0.1x the costs as we can...
    - EntrePrescott 3y ago
      > The Moscow metro is not just for vanity - the nomenklatura don't take the metro, the people in squalor do... That's like saying the vanity construction projects of Roman emperors weren't for vanity because they were used more by the plebs than by the nomenklatura. Which group uses it most has absolutely nothing to do with what makes a vanity project. Quite to the contrary, the criterion for a vanity project is that a core motivation for its construction was to embellish the image/popularity/glory of the powerful person who ordered the construction. So yes, it is quite common for vanity projects to be precisely those used more by the plebs than the nomenklatura.

soperj 3y ago

corruption.

rootusrootus 3y ago
On which side? The faster side, I'm guessing?
- sixo 3y ago
  both. corruption favors the powerful. in established cities the powerful own land and don't want it changed, in new ones it's the developers and govt.
  - eru 3y ago
    Europe's cities are arguably more established than American ones, aren't they? Tokyo has also been around for ages.

birdyrooster 3y ago

Obviously (or I guess not so obvious since I am writing this) that is because of a different density of workers, architects, general contractors, engineers for vastly different biomes in the United States than in Europe. Europe has way more people (more than twice as dense) in a similar geographic area (far less diverse features) so the data and practices honed by one are more efficient and have greater economy of scale despite all of the red tape we share. Nothing really that interesting. Or you can just go with the simple stupid answer of corruption as if Europe isn't its own cesspool.

AbrahamParangi 3y ago
I don’t think this is obvious or even necessarily true. Europe has many things going against it as well, language barriers, split markets, generally being quite a bit poorer than the US. Moreover it doesn’t explain the performance of East Asian countries at all.
- birdyrooster 3y ago
  It would greatly explain the performance of East Asian countries. They share the same environmental challenges whereas in the US the challenges are vastly different depending on which coast you are near. Of course China had less red tape (no pun intended) in some regards for development than the other East Asian countries so it executes even faster than its peers. I think its more of a slam dunk than comparing Europe with the US in these terms, which is commensurate with their ability to churn out infrastructure.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - kiba 3y ago
    Across the board we just sucks. Can't be explained by environment being different if US states all exhibit the same pathologies.
  - eru 3y ago
    > It would greatly explain the performance of East Asian countries. They share the same environmental challenges whereas in the US the challenges are vastly different depending on which coast you are near. Huh? East Asian countries differ greatly from each other. And the bigger countries, like China, differ vastly by region. Just like the US.
bobthepanda 3y ago
I don’t know that biome relevance is particularly relevant given that major US cities are not usually where major weather extremes happen. We are not talking about skyscrapers in Death Valley or Nome.

esperent 3y ago

> European and East Asian You just basically named two continents and said they build faster than the US and you're accusing someone else of simplistic takes? Which European country builds infrastructure faster than the US?

etblg 3y ago
Berlin made great progress on the Brandenburg Airport, a shining example of German efficiency and construction prowess /s
- MengerSponge 3y ago
  People who'd like to understand the /s should check out "How to F#€k up an Airport" from Radio Spaetkauf: https://www.radiospaetkauf.com/ber/ https://www.radiospaetkauf.com/ber/
klooney 3y ago
Spain is the outlier for fast/cheap/good, but I hear that even Italy has gotten its act together, and the recent Rome subway was done quickly and cheaply. The Nordic countries also have a good reputation. England is pretty bad/comparable to the US in speed and cost. https://pedestrianobservations.com/ https://pedestrianobservations.com/ and the less feisty https://transitcosts.com/ https://transitcosts.com/ are the canonical sources on comparative infrastructure costs.
- klipt 3y ago
  Probably helps that wages are lower in Spain. Americans want cheap infrastructure but also want high wages and that's probably an impossible combination.
  - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    you cant blame slowness on wages

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

Japan (Tokyo, at least), is crazy fast. I remember staying at the Shinagawa Prince, three years in a row, and it overlooks that big-ass office park, on the other side of the station. One year, I look out, and there’s a huge empty lot. The next year, there’s a steel frame, for several buildings. The next year, the lights are on, and the buildings are obviously occupied. Also, their standards are very high. They weather massive earthquakes, quite well.

drchickensalad 3y ago
Tokyo standards for residential are legendarily low. People demolish and rebuild when they buy a home because nothing is built to last even a moderate amount of time.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  I have heard that. I didn't spend much time in homes. I was in offices and factories, and they were robust as hell. My company's original factory was built after WWI, and may have just been knocked down, a few years ago (it may still be standing -they sold it).

bradDonniger 3y ago

What do we actually need to build? We have plenty of buildings to shelter people, but use them roleplay career professionals. More than enough roads and highways. Plenty of farmland. Maybe could use some hospitals. A real need to rebuild post-world wars seems to have become some mind virus we have to constantly crank out mega projects. Can we get over the ridiculous hallucination we need to “drill baby drill” and grind through all the resources to goto Mars? You and I will be dead before that’s tenable let alone implemented… can we let the future sort itself out a bit? Why do we still buy into the story of post-war shell shocked paranoids who spent decades huffing leased gas fumes, expropriating the world from everyone else dropping democracy bombs. Decades of television as a carefully curated propaganda pipeline has messed the last generation up.

bluGill 3y ago
Population is expanding in many US cities faster than they are building houses. With houses we need to build schools, stores, parks, offices, and a long list of other things that an expanding population will use more of. Old infrastructure wears out, and often it fails to meet modern standards and should be replaced (ex old houses often cannot be insulated to modern standards, old bridges we now realize were not built strong enough). Many have for various reasons concluded that some of what we have built in the past was a mistake and so we should tear some things down to replace with something else. (ex replace highways with mass transit) While we don't need to build or rebuild everything we did in the past, there is still a lot of things that if we would build our life would be better.

cpursley 3y ago

Hell, just look at the new metro ring line that was opened in Moscow. It’s 45 miles long and the stations are absolutely gorgeous and unique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-txmGH11sh0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-txmGH11sh0 https://www.rbth.com/travel/335939-moscow-metro-big-circle-line https://www.rbth.com/travel/335939-moscow-metro-big-circle-l... And this is all under massive sanctions and a less democratic and more corrupt system.

hoseja 3y ago
That's just a totalitarian vanity project. People live in squalor and die by the thousands on the warfront meanwhile.
- cpursley 3y ago
  Vanity? Have you visited Russia within the past 10 years? If you didn't know, Moscow traffic is horrendous. And many Muscovites do in fact, depend on the metro to get to work, school, etc.
- MagnumOpus 3y ago
  The Moscow metro is not just for vanity - the nomenklatura don't take the metro, the people in squalor do... Besides it is irrelevant for the topic - say you are right, then you are still admitting that even a corrupt country that constructs public transport only for vanity can do it at 10x the speed and 0.1x the costs as we can...
  - EntrePrescott 3y ago
    > The Moscow metro is not just for vanity - the nomenklatura don't take the metro, the people in squalor do... That's like saying the vanity construction projects of Roman emperors weren't for vanity because they were used more by the plebs than by the nomenklatura. Which group uses it most has absolutely nothing to do with what makes a vanity project. Quite to the contrary, the criterion for a vanity project is that a core motivation for its construction was to embellish the image/popularity/glory of the powerful person who ordered the construction. So yes, it is quite common for vanity projects to be precisely those used more by the plebs than the nomenklatura.