4 ms·

To get the same transit in the US, we'd need to spend 5-10x what Europeans/Asians/anyone else in the world spends. https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com

To get the same transit in the US, we'd need to spend 5-10x what Europeans/Asians/anyone else in the world spends. https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/comparative-subway-construction-costs-revised/ https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/comp... In the US, public spending is generally a way to funnel money to cronies of the inner party (e.g. transit worker unions, construction unions, politically connected consultants). Various other interest groups - mainly NIMBY homeowners - will also demand their pound of flesh. We need to fix our social technology ( http://thefutureprimaeval.net/social-technology-and-anarcho-tyranny/ http://thefutureprimaeval.net/social-technology-and-anarcho-... ) before we can build such things. Luckily we have people like Kalanick taking baby steps in that direction.

dannypgh 10y ago
Wealth is getting increasingly concentrated in this country, and not into the hands of union workers. I think your description of the role of public spending is misleading at best. I could say, equally (if not more) fairly, that all spending (public and private) is generally a way to funnel money to cronies of the capitalist system (e.g. CEOs, shareholders). Maybe a more useful thing to discuss is what the money does in the process. Transit workers do provide labor that makes today's transit systems possible, after all.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  True; wealth is primarily getting concentrated in the hands of middle class (who become upperclass) homeowners in NIMBY cities. See the work of Matthew Rognlie on this. (Growth in home values is the entire source of increased r in Piketty's r > g.) If you want to claim that the US government spending $2-4B somehow funnels money to the capitalists, it's tangential to my point. Wherever the money gets lost, the point is that the US is simply not capable of building transit the way the rest of the world does.

dannypgh 10y ago

Wealth is getting increasingly concentrated in this country, and not into the hands of union workers. I think your description of the role of public spending is misleading at best. I could say, equally (if not more) fairly, that all spending (public and private) is generally a way to funnel money to cronies of the capitalist system (e.g. CEOs, shareholders). Maybe a more useful thing to discuss is what the money does in the process. Transit workers do provide labor that makes today's transit systems possible, after all.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
True; wealth is primarily getting concentrated in the hands of middle class (who become upperclass) homeowners in NIMBY cities. See the work of Matthew Rognlie on this. (Growth in home values is the entire source of increased r in Piketty's r > g.) If you want to claim that the US government spending $2-4B somehow funnels money to the capitalists, it's tangential to my point. Wherever the money gets lost, the point is that the US is simply not capable of building transit the way the rest of the world does.