8 ms·

Not a touchy-feely democracy, it can build bridges, highways, skyscrapers a lot faster with less paperwork and fewer property rights considerations. I have bee

by d_r 16y ago

Not a touchy-feely democracy, it can build bridges, highways, skyscrapers a lot faster with less paperwork and fewer property rights considerations. I have been visiting China frequently in the past years. Economic aspects aside, I still find the functional high-speed trains and rise of stunning skyscrapers simply fascinating. Perhaps the engineer in me admires it. Here in Palo Alto, it took the bickering of multiple committees 6 years to decide what to build on a dilapidated, abandoned parking lot. And in the downtown, it has taken nearly 4 years to build a short structure that now also sits empty. And high-speed rail? Forget about it.

code_duck 16y ago
We'd be in a very different place regarding railways if GM and Ford hadn't done their absolute best to kill public transportation in the 50s. In the town where I live, the well-used streetcar system was purchased by GM and closed after two years.
- usaar333 16y ago
  I always figured no active process was needed to kill public transit. Suburbia's core design does the deal. Where I live in Sunnyvale, the light rail system is barely quicker than bicycling. This slowness, along with a well-designed road network and free parking everywhere, makes public transit useless for anyone who owns a car.
  - code_duck 16y ago
    Yes, they influenced the design of the cities to bring about exactly that effect. It was not something that just happened. Once everyone lived at last 5 miles from work and there was no reasonable public transportation, having a car, and consuming a disproportionate amount of fuel, became a necessity.
    - roel_v 16y ago
      It's quite a stretch and bordering tin-foil-hattiness to claim that the oil and car industry socially engineered society over several decades to a point where they could build-in a need for their products. The process is much more complex than that, and not much social engineering is possible on processes at that scale, especially not the sort of clandestine, subversive social engineering you're implying. (I've worked on systems that model land use in function of economics, demographics, transport and environmental factors for almost 10 years now, my wife has a PhD on it, and so do most of the people (in those fields) I work with daily. I in no way claim to understand these processes, nobody does, but claiming to know that public transport was deliberately destroyed by special interest groups is intellectually dishonest.)
      - code_duck 16y ago
        Claiming that GM purchased streetcar systems and closed them down in order to encourage people to use private automobiles is not a crazy conspiracy theory. As noted, that is what happened in the town in which I live. ----------------------- Apparently, we've reached the threading limit and I can't reply to your comment. I don't think it's far fetched at all to say that the most powerful industries in the US would do, could do and did their best to ensure that roads and cities were constructed in a way that favored them. So, whatever.
        roel_v 16y ago
        No, but that's not what you were claiming, you were claiming that GM (and/or other auto makers) were responsible for the lack of public transport all over the US. I hadn't heard about these streetcars; so I looked it up. Wikipedia had a fairly comprehensive (for an introduction) article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scanda... . There's a whole section in there debunking the effects of the 'conspiracy', most of which sounds like (as a whole) a much more convincing explanation. Note especially that, according to one author, "nationwide, the ultimate reach of the alleged conspirators extended to only about 10 percent of all transit systems - sixty-odd out of some six hundred - and yet virtually all the other 90 percent also got rid of trolleys (as happened with all the tramcar systems in the British Isles and France)."
gamble 16y ago
Of course, if a few peasants are in the way of development in China, the gov't can boot them off their land without a second thought. They don't have to worry about NIMBYism or environmental concerns either. I think a lot of the developmental sclerosis affecting America comes down to the relative affluence of the people impacted by development. Poor Chinese may be just as unhappy about development, but the government can simply ignore them in a way the US government can't ignore its citizens. California is one of the most affluent states; it makes sense that development in CA is particularly difficult.
garply 16y ago
There used to be a bar street I frequented here in Beijing. It was kind of a sketchy place, but popular among college students and young adults. Then the Olympics came around and the gov't decided they needed to gentrify the area. The police raided the bars, killed a bunch of drug dealers and made other undesirables disappear. Then the bar street was totally bulldozed and within a year or so a luxury outdoor mall was built on top of the bulldozed area. A thriving Apple store and Starbucks now sit smack in the middle of the place. Within a couple of years the old sleazy alleyways were transformed into something that could easily compete with the Stanford shopping mall.
- roel_v 16y ago
  That's basically how Pudong in Shanghai was build. Over 20 years they turned a backward nick in the river from slums into China's jewel for displaying to the world. One day the bulldozers showed up, leveled the area and started building. It's efficient, yes. There's more to a society than 'efficiency' though.
dcreemer 16y ago
I'm sorry you're put off by the inefficiencies of Palo Alto, but can I politely ask: How are you helping? Coincidentally, I just returned from 3 hours of participation in Palo Alto city business (working on the city airport plan at the council Finance Committee meeting). I don't find the process especially efficient, but I am often impressed by the intelligence, drive, and thoughtfulness of council members. What structure are you talking about (that sits empty)? I have watched the evolution of downtown Palo Alto for 15 years - it's certainly not perfect, but I'm glad for the two new parking garages and generally feel the growth there has been handled ok.
- d_r 16y ago
  I know that each decision is a result of hard work by many people. While I don't find time for community initiatives, I appreciate that others (like yourself) do. Seriously. My comment was more directed towards the process. Every plan is considered, reconsidered, viewed, and reviewed, many times by many people. And if a decision is actually reached, some group of concerned citizens will be formed to protest it. My first example was Alma Plaza. My second example was the structure on the corner of High and University. I actually don't know the history behind the latter, other than that it has been an eyesore for years. Perhaps a valid argument to my disheartened view would be that an area like Palo Alto is a finished painting -- every additional stroke requires careful consideration for the risk of making a wrong one. But I do wish that our city was able to innovate as quickly as the businesses that define this area. :)
  - garply 16y ago
    I appreciate your sentiment and I, as most people, have mixed feelings about how China's developing. As I referenced in my other comment, a great deal of China's ability to innovate in terms of real estate development comes at the cost of what we Westerner's would perceive as social rights. If Palo Alto decides that there are too many black or poor people hanging around a certain section of town, most of us would prefer (to put it, err, lightly) that the city not just kill them, boot them out of town, or snatch the property rights of the places they frequent and bulldoze them. But such behavior is precisely what permits the process to which you're referring.
pdelgallego 16y ago
Its not about democracy. In Spain, They are building a huge high speed rail network (10,000km at 2020). It requires a lot of commitment or tons of money. Two things that CA doesn't have at this moment.

by d_r 16y ago

code_duck 16y ago

We'd be in a very different place regarding railways if GM and Ford hadn't done their absolute best to kill public transportation in the 50s. In the town where I live, the well-used streetcar system was purchased by GM and closed after two years.

usaar333 16y ago
I always figured no active process was needed to kill public transit. Suburbia's core design does the deal. Where I live in Sunnyvale, the light rail system is barely quicker than bicycling. This slowness, along with a well-designed road network and free parking everywhere, makes public transit useless for anyone who owns a car.
- code_duck 16y ago
  Yes, they influenced the design of the cities to bring about exactly that effect. It was not something that just happened. Once everyone lived at last 5 miles from work and there was no reasonable public transportation, having a car, and consuming a disproportionate amount of fuel, became a necessity.
  - roel_v 16y ago
    It's quite a stretch and bordering tin-foil-hattiness to claim that the oil and car industry socially engineered society over several decades to a point where they could build-in a need for their products. The process is much more complex than that, and not much social engineering is possible on processes at that scale, especially not the sort of clandestine, subversive social engineering you're implying. (I've worked on systems that model land use in function of economics, demographics, transport and environmental factors for almost 10 years now, my wife has a PhD on it, and so do most of the people (in those fields) I work with daily. I in no way claim to understand these processes, nobody does, but claiming to know that public transport was deliberately destroyed by special interest groups is intellectually dishonest.)
    - code_duck 16y ago
      Claiming that GM purchased streetcar systems and closed them down in order to encourage people to use private automobiles is not a crazy conspiracy theory. As noted, that is what happened in the town in which I live. ----------------------- Apparently, we've reached the threading limit and I can't reply to your comment. I don't think it's far fetched at all to say that the most powerful industries in the US would do, could do and did their best to ensure that roads and cities were constructed in a way that favored them. So, whatever.
      - roel_v 16y ago
        No, but that's not what you were claiming, you were claiming that GM (and/or other auto makers) were responsible for the lack of public transport all over the US. I hadn't heard about these streetcars; so I looked it up. Wikipedia had a fairly comprehensive (for an introduction) article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_streetcar_scanda... . There's a whole section in there debunking the effects of the 'conspiracy', most of which sounds like (as a whole) a much more convincing explanation. Note especially that, according to one author, "nationwide, the ultimate reach of the alleged conspirators extended to only about 10 percent of all transit systems - sixty-odd out of some six hundred - and yet virtually all the other 90 percent also got rid of trolleys (as happened with all the tramcar systems in the British Isles and France)."

gamble 16y ago

Of course, if a few peasants are in the way of development in China, the gov't can boot them off their land without a second thought. They don't have to worry about NIMBYism or environmental concerns either. I think a lot of the developmental sclerosis affecting America comes down to the relative affluence of the people impacted by development. Poor Chinese may be just as unhappy about development, but the government can simply ignore them in a way the US government can't ignore its citizens. California is one of the most affluent states; it makes sense that development in CA is particularly difficult.

garply 16y ago

There used to be a bar street I frequented here in Beijing. It was kind of a sketchy place, but popular among college students and young adults. Then the Olympics came around and the gov't decided they needed to gentrify the area. The police raided the bars, killed a bunch of drug dealers and made other undesirables disappear. Then the bar street was totally bulldozed and within a year or so a luxury outdoor mall was built on top of the bulldozed area. A thriving Apple store and Starbucks now sit smack in the middle of the place. Within a couple of years the old sleazy alleyways were transformed into something that could easily compete with the Stanford shopping mall.

roel_v 16y ago
That's basically how Pudong in Shanghai was build. Over 20 years they turned a backward nick in the river from slums into China's jewel for displaying to the world. One day the bulldozers showed up, leveled the area and started building. It's efficient, yes. There's more to a society than 'efficiency' though.

dcreemer 16y ago

I'm sorry you're put off by the inefficiencies of Palo Alto, but can I politely ask: How are you helping? Coincidentally, I just returned from 3 hours of participation in Palo Alto city business (working on the city airport plan at the council Finance Committee meeting). I don't find the process especially efficient, but I am often impressed by the intelligence, drive, and thoughtfulness of council members. What structure are you talking about (that sits empty)? I have watched the evolution of downtown Palo Alto for 15 years - it's certainly not perfect, but I'm glad for the two new parking garages and generally feel the growth there has been handled ok.

d_r 16y ago
I know that each decision is a result of hard work by many people. While I don't find time for community initiatives, I appreciate that others (like yourself) do. Seriously. My comment was more directed towards the process. Every plan is considered, reconsidered, viewed, and reviewed, many times by many people. And if a decision is actually reached, some group of concerned citizens will be formed to protest it. My first example was Alma Plaza. My second example was the structure on the corner of High and University. I actually don't know the history behind the latter, other than that it has been an eyesore for years. Perhaps a valid argument to my disheartened view would be that an area like Palo Alto is a finished painting -- every additional stroke requires careful consideration for the risk of making a wrong one. But I do wish that our city was able to innovate as quickly as the businesses that define this area. :)
- garply 16y ago
  I appreciate your sentiment and I, as most people, have mixed feelings about how China's developing. As I referenced in my other comment, a great deal of China's ability to innovate in terms of real estate development comes at the cost of what we Westerner's would perceive as social rights. If Palo Alto decides that there are too many black or poor people hanging around a certain section of town, most of us would prefer (to put it, err, lightly) that the city not just kill them, boot them out of town, or snatch the property rights of the places they frequent and bulldoze them. But such behavior is precisely what permits the process to which you're referring.

pdelgallego 16y ago

Its not about democracy. In Spain, They are building a huge high speed rail network (10,000km at 2020). It requires a lot of commitment or tons of money. Two things that CA doesn't have at this moment.