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> I've seen the infrastructure thing come up for awhile now, and it's definitely true. Sort of. I'm not convinced their infrastructure pricing is accurate at a

> I've seen the infrastructure thing come up for awhile now, and it's definitely true. Sort of. I'm not convinced their infrastructure pricing is accurate at all. I fully believe infrastructure has a higher cost in the suburbs, and that we aren't fully saving for/planning for those costs. But the numbers this article uses are insanely too high, to the point that it feels like an outright lie. Strongtowns claims it costs more money to maintain the infrastructure for a single-family home (on average), than the average house would cost to build from scratch using retail pricing today (including land + construction of the house, and all of the related road/water/power/sewer infrastructure). The StrongTown estimate seems to claim it's replacing infrastructure "once a generation" (30 years?), but is charging enough money to rip-and-replace every piece of all infrastructure 6 times per generation. Which is really high -- no one does that, there wouldn't usually be any need to do so. Or to put it another way, StrongTowns is claiming that infrastructure maintenance alone costs the same as leveling the entire neighborhood and rebuilding it all from scratch at retail pricing every 30 years. Which is just outlandish -- if infrastructure actually was that expensive, 90% of these suburban houses never could have been built in the first place, even if financed using subsidy or debt.

dpark 10y ago
> StrongTowns is claiming that infrastructure maintenance alone costs the same as leveling the entire neighborhood and rebuilding it all from scratch at retail pricing every 30 years. This doesn't seem that surprising to me. Replacing existing utilities in place is far more expensive than laying them in the first place because you have to do it without cutting off everyone's access to water/electricity/whatever while you do it. Plus you have to work around other infrastructure and houses and dig up roads etc. And it's difficult to coordinate utility replacements so you do this stuff once for gas and later for water and again for the sewer. On top of all that, infrastructure is just terribly expensive. Price out laying a driveway. Now imagine scaling it up by maybe 10x just for the section of road in front of your house.
- maxsilver 10y ago
  > Replacing existing utilities in place is far more expensive than laying them in the first place. Sure, but it's not 6X more expensive in the suburbs. Water / Gas lines, for instance, are often under sidewalks or yards now so you don't have to dig up the road to replace them. > because you have to do it without cutting off everyone's access to water/electricity/whatever while you do it You don't have to. When utility work gets done in the suburbs, people often just lose water / electricity / gas / whatever for the 24-48 hours while they do it, and just have to deal with it. (We're talking about sprawl -- stuff done cheap, by definition. This is not the complex operation that replacing water lines in Manhattan would be). > On top of all that, infrastructure is just terribly expensive. Price out laying a driveway. Here are some actual average costs for street construction from the State of Michigan - https://www.michigan.gov/documents/Vol2-40UIP16SubDevCosts-YardCosts-Demolition_121083_7.pdf https://www.michigan.gov/documents/Vol2-40UIP16SubDevCosts-Y... Even after adjusting for inflation, it's only about 2X the cost of a driveway, not 10x. And that's my problem with the article. It seems they took the actual cost of infrastructure, "imagined scaling it up maybe 10x", and then claimed a crisis using their imaginary costs. Real infrastructure costs, while high, are simply not anywhere near as high as they are claiming.
  - danans 10y ago
    Whether the maintenance 2x or 6x or 10x the original cost, does it matter when the reality is that the tax revenue raised can't pay for it?
  - bobhall1981 10y ago
    Yeah, what the heck does Chuck Marohn know? He's only been a city planner/engineer for like 15 years. He probably has no idea what he's talking about. I bet some computer programmers could really educate him.
  - dpark 10y ago
    > Sure, but it's not 6X more expensive in the suburbs. Water / Gas lines, for instance, are often under sidewalks or yards now so you don't have to dig up the road to replace them. Sometimes. Digging up sidewalks and yards is also expensive, regardless. > You don't have to. When utility work gets done in the suburbs, people often just lose water / electricity / gas / whatever for the 24-48 hours while they do it, and just have to deal with it. I've never been anywhere that 48 hours without electricity or water was considered acceptable for maintenance. In my experience, most maintenance is done during business hours with the expectation that people have utilities when they get ready in the morning and when they get home. 24 hours without a major utility is generally considered an emergency and crews are driving in from other states to help. > Even after adjusting for inflation, it's only about 2X the cost of a driveway, not 10x. You're probably right that the 10x number isn't accurate, since I completely made it up. It's still a lot of money and the cost to replace is always higher than the cost to build in the first place (with perhaps the exception of cost for grading). > And that's my problem with the article. It seems they took the actual cost of infrastructure, "imagined scaling it up maybe 10x", and then claimed a crisis using their imaginary costs. Real infrastructure costs, while high, are simply not anywhere near as high as they are claiming. I feel like you're nitpicking their claims without providing any alternative data or a compelling reason why their numbers don't make sense. You're asserting that they arbitrarily scaled up costs but you've not shown that they did so. The author is a civil engineer and a PE and a city planner so there's some weight behind his claims. You're asserting that his numbers are lies because you don't like them. I'm not sure where your "6 times per generation" replacement claim is coming from, either.

dpark 10y ago

> StrongTowns is claiming that infrastructure maintenance alone costs the same as leveling the entire neighborhood and rebuilding it all from scratch at retail pricing every 30 years. This doesn't seem that surprising to me. Replacing existing utilities in place is far more expensive than laying them in the first place because you have to do it without cutting off everyone's access to water/electricity/whatever while you do it. Plus you have to work around other infrastructure and houses and dig up roads etc. And it's difficult to coordinate utility replacements so you do this stuff once for gas and later for water and again for the sewer. On top of all that, infrastructure is just terribly expensive. Price out laying a driveway. Now imagine scaling it up by maybe 10x just for the section of road in front of your house.

maxsilver 10y ago
> Replacing existing utilities in place is far more expensive than laying them in the first place. Sure, but it's not 6X more expensive in the suburbs. Water / Gas lines, for instance, are often under sidewalks or yards now so you don't have to dig up the road to replace them. > because you have to do it without cutting off everyone's access to water/electricity/whatever while you do it You don't have to. When utility work gets done in the suburbs, people often just lose water / electricity / gas / whatever for the 24-48 hours while they do it, and just have to deal with it. (We're talking about sprawl -- stuff done cheap, by definition. This is not the complex operation that replacing water lines in Manhattan would be). > On top of all that, infrastructure is just terribly expensive. Price out laying a driveway. Here are some actual average costs for street construction from the State of Michigan - https://www.michigan.gov/documents/Vol2-40UIP16SubDevCosts-YardCosts-Demolition_121083_7.pdf https://www.michigan.gov/documents/Vol2-40UIP16SubDevCosts-Y... Even after adjusting for inflation, it's only about 2X the cost of a driveway, not 10x. And that's my problem with the article. It seems they took the actual cost of infrastructure, "imagined scaling it up maybe 10x", and then claimed a crisis using their imaginary costs. Real infrastructure costs, while high, are simply not anywhere near as high as they are claiming.
- danans 10y ago
  Whether the maintenance 2x or 6x or 10x the original cost, does it matter when the reality is that the tax revenue raised can't pay for it?
- bobhall1981 10y ago
  Yeah, what the heck does Chuck Marohn know? He's only been a city planner/engineer for like 15 years. He probably has no idea what he's talking about. I bet some computer programmers could really educate him.
- dpark 10y ago
  > Sure, but it's not 6X more expensive in the suburbs. Water / Gas lines, for instance, are often under sidewalks or yards now so you don't have to dig up the road to replace them. Sometimes. Digging up sidewalks and yards is also expensive, regardless. > You don't have to. When utility work gets done in the suburbs, people often just lose water / electricity / gas / whatever for the 24-48 hours while they do it, and just have to deal with it. I've never been anywhere that 48 hours without electricity or water was considered acceptable for maintenance. In my experience, most maintenance is done during business hours with the expectation that people have utilities when they get ready in the morning and when they get home. 24 hours without a major utility is generally considered an emergency and crews are driving in from other states to help. > Even after adjusting for inflation, it's only about 2X the cost of a driveway, not 10x. You're probably right that the 10x number isn't accurate, since I completely made it up. It's still a lot of money and the cost to replace is always higher than the cost to build in the first place (with perhaps the exception of cost for grading). > And that's my problem with the article. It seems they took the actual cost of infrastructure, "imagined scaling it up maybe 10x", and then claimed a crisis using their imaginary costs. Real infrastructure costs, while high, are simply not anywhere near as high as they are claiming. I feel like you're nitpicking their claims without providing any alternative data or a compelling reason why their numbers don't make sense. You're asserting that they arbitrarily scaled up costs but you've not shown that they did so. The author is a civil engineer and a PE and a city planner so there's some weight behind his claims. You're asserting that his numbers are lies because you don't like them. I'm not sure where your "6 times per generation" replacement claim is coming from, either.