4 ms·

>incompatible with our culture. Culture, or system of governance? Culture is too wishy-washy a term. It seems to easy to give up - ah sorry, Americans are just

>incompatible with our culture. Culture, or system of governance? Culture is too wishy-washy a term. It seems to easy to give up - ah sorry, Americans are just too stupid/lazy to figure it out. Nah. I want to figure out what specifically about the structure of our infrastructure development is, and fix it.

rayiner 8y ago
Our system of governance is an expression of our culture. In France, when the government wants to build a railroad, they do the studies, then they pass a law that preempts every other law, and the railroad gets built. In the US, the government does the studies, decides to build the railroad, and spends years tangled up in litigation. We created those legal structures to reflect what we think is important. Right now, folks in our county are trying to shut down three light rail stops that have already been built and are operating. (Transit is a “conduit for crime.”) If we do that, we have to pay the federal government back a bunch of money we got to build those stops in the first place. Americans hate infrastructure. And they don’t particularly like each other, so they have built a distributed society that doesn’t require as much centralized coordination. It’s not stupidity or laziness. Americans are too individualistic to build infrastructure. Nobody can put the needs of society over their own needs. That’s why every infrastructure project is a disaster of inefficient self-serving union workers[1] and endless litigation. (I have an acquaintance who is ethnically Japanese, and moved back to Japan after growing up in the US. She remarked to me: “Americans don’t really go around thinking about how what they’re doing affects other people.”) Once you really internalize all that, it’s pretty fine. I kinda like the suburbs. I like being able to roll right up to a chain restaurant and park, instead of having to shlep a stroller up and down stairs. In my old age, I’ve realized that if you’re living in New York or SF, you’re doing the whole America thing wrong. That just forces you to constantly confront all the things Americans do poorly (transit, zoning, social services). Kansas City! You can drive everywhere, traffic isn’t too bad, cost of living is super low, etc. [1] In the NYT piece on why the Second Avenue subway costs so much, there were French transit managers pointing out how ridiculously over staffed the project was. The French were pointing out how inefficient we were.
- komali2 8y ago
  I think you've illustrated this perfectly - a lot of frustration I've experienced with my peers is what you've said - we want something, and we turn up to the city council meeting asking for it, and we're beset by a lot of older people shouting that a navigation center at the wharf is bad because homeless are criminal and dirty. Maybe you're right that America as a whole can't. I think the younger liberals though, at least from my experience with them, willing to put forward the needs of society. I think many of them have no choice, because the individualist option just isn't available anymore like it was in the past. Thank you for your words on this.
  - Gibbon1 8y ago
    In California the state has been slowly passing laws here and there to preempt zoning and lawsuits to stop transit and densification. One of the things I've noted is often the opposition is basically insane. From voters in the Santa Cruz mountain blocking construction of a sewer up HWY 9. Needed because everyone's septic systems are polluting the ground water and streams. Blocked after all the planning had been done. The Feds, State, and Country would have paid for most of it. But blocking construct meant all the planning costs had to be paid for by the home owners. Total $1000 each. To suing to block the construction of the California high speed rail. Because they might run a tunnel 3000 feet under someones toy horse ranch in the San Gabriels.

rayiner 8y ago

Our system of governance is an expression of our culture. In France, when the government wants to build a railroad, they do the studies, then they pass a law that preempts every other law, and the railroad gets built. In the US, the government does the studies, decides to build the railroad, and spends years tangled up in litigation. We created those legal structures to reflect what we think is important. Right now, folks in our county are trying to shut down three light rail stops that have already been built and are operating. (Transit is a “conduit for crime.”) If we do that, we have to pay the federal government back a bunch of money we got to build those stops in the first place. Americans hate infrastructure. And they don’t particularly like each other, so they have built a distributed society that doesn’t require as much centralized coordination. It’s not stupidity or laziness. Americans are too individualistic to build infrastructure. Nobody can put the needs of society over their own needs. That’s why every infrastructure project is a disaster of inefficient self-serving union workers[1] and endless litigation. (I have an acquaintance who is ethnically Japanese, and moved back to Japan after growing up in the US. She remarked to me: “Americans don’t really go around thinking about how what they’re doing affects other people.”) Once you really internalize all that, it’s pretty fine. I kinda like the suburbs. I like being able to roll right up to a chain restaurant and park, instead of having to shlep a stroller up and down stairs. In my old age, I’ve realized that if you’re living in New York or SF, you’re doing the whole America thing wrong. That just forces you to constantly confront all the things Americans do poorly (transit, zoning, social services). Kansas City! You can drive everywhere, traffic isn’t too bad, cost of living is super low, etc. [1] In the NYT piece on why the Second Avenue subway costs so much, there were French transit managers pointing out how ridiculously over staffed the project was. The French were pointing out how inefficient we were.

komali2 8y ago
I think you've illustrated this perfectly - a lot of frustration I've experienced with my peers is what you've said - we want something, and we turn up to the city council meeting asking for it, and we're beset by a lot of older people shouting that a navigation center at the wharf is bad because homeless are criminal and dirty. Maybe you're right that America as a whole can't. I think the younger liberals though, at least from my experience with them, willing to put forward the needs of society. I think many of them have no choice, because the individualist option just isn't available anymore like it was in the past. Thank you for your words on this.
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  In California the state has been slowly passing laws here and there to preempt zoning and lawsuits to stop transit and densification. One of the things I've noted is often the opposition is basically insane. From voters in the Santa Cruz mountain blocking construction of a sewer up HWY 9. Needed because everyone's septic systems are polluting the ground water and streams. Blocked after all the planning had been done. The Feds, State, and Country would have paid for most of it. But blocking construct meant all the planning costs had to be paid for by the home owners. Total $1000 each. To suing to block the construction of the California high speed rail. Because they might run a tunnel 3000 feet under someones toy horse ranch in the San Gabriels.