5 ms·

I can’t help but recall a tiny little <5000 sqft, one story building close to my residence (in the U.S.) that took almost a year to construct a few years ago. S

by oefrha 7y ago

I can’t help but recall a tiny little <5000 sqft, one story building close to my residence (in the U.S.) that took almost a year to construct a few years ago. Somehow the construction workers managed to show up every weekday, wake me up with construction noise while accomplishing almost nothing...

mkl 7y ago
This hospital is temporary. It doesn't need to be high quality, because it doesn't need to last, and its purpose is to be better than nothing. Most buildings take longer, because they're intended to last, and because they don't have such enormous crews working on them (which costs a lot). Some of the processes in this live stream don't seem especially safe to my non-expert eye either (I'm thinking of the cranes and diggers quickly moving big heavy swinging things; in NZ I've only seen that done with extra people manning guide cables to keep the movement slow and controlled).
- animal531 7y ago
  True, but from looking at some videos of generic apartment buildings in China the overall building quality seems to be quite poor already.
- koheripbal 7y ago
  Never underestimate the efficiency gained by completely circumventing the need for permiting, civic reviews, public commentary, funding allocation, bidding, design review, labor negotiation, inspections, regulations, and a zillion other bureaucratic wastes of time.
abc-xyz 7y ago
Human rights tend to complicate these things. USA and every other developed country would surely be able to achieve the same under similar circumstances. It's worth reading http://chinamediaproject.org/2020/01/27/dramatic-actions/ http://chinamediaproject.org/2020/01/27/dramatic-actions/ and watching https://youtu.be/7OEqybiGdaA https://youtu.be/7OEqybiGdaA for first-hand experience of the incompetence and evilness of their government and how they've been handling the situation.
- oefrha 7y ago
  Politically motivated people throw the phrase “human rights” around to justify any incompetence but I don’t think my human rights were respected at all during that one year of on-and-off construction noise throughout the day.
  - abc-xyz 7y ago
    Sounds like you were mostly inconvenienced with noise, which I agree can be annoying, but I'm sure the safety standards, work hours, living standards of the construction workers, etc. were at a much higher level. If you've been to China or some other third-world country then I'm sure you've seen first hand the living conditions these workers endure, the safety standards of their work, etc. I've had friends whose families were kicked out of their homes to make room for shopping malls. Why are they even rushing to build these hospitals in the first place? There are plenty of empty buildings that they could turn into temporary hospitals instead. All of this seems to be just for show..
    - baot 7y ago
      Eminent domain exists in the West, too
    - oefrha 7y ago
      > If you've been to China... Yes, I have, and my conclusion is it’s nothing like what fear mongers tell us what it’s like (btw you got a nice single-purpose account there so the credibility is low in my books). Construction workers’ living conditions are on the lower end for sure, but often an improvement over rural life (which is why they’re drawn to cities in the first place), and even rural living conditions isn’t that bad from what I’ve seen. Of course there are huge gaps between “the third world” or even different regions in China so what I’ve seen is far from the worst possible. > whose families were kicked out of their homes to make room for shopping malls. I heard these people are usually compensated very well by local standards. In fact, I heard there’s a whole class of people in Beijing, Shanghai, etc. who became multi-millionaires because their old family homes were bought up for new development projects. > There are plenty of empty buildings that they could turn into temporary hospitals instead. Citation needed. And none of your arguments justified the snail pace of taking a year to build a tiny little building, when even by U.S. standards it could have gone a lot faster (otherwise an apartment building would easily take a decade), unless your human rights include dragging projects out in order to be paid more for the same amount of work.

by oefrha 7y ago

mkl 7y ago

This hospital is temporary. It doesn't need to be high quality, because it doesn't need to last, and its purpose is to be better than nothing. Most buildings take longer, because they're intended to last, and because they don't have such enormous crews working on them (which costs a lot). Some of the processes in this live stream don't seem especially safe to my non-expert eye either (I'm thinking of the cranes and diggers quickly moving big heavy swinging things; in NZ I've only seen that done with extra people manning guide cables to keep the movement slow and controlled).

animal531 7y ago
True, but from looking at some videos of generic apartment buildings in China the overall building quality seems to be quite poor already.
koheripbal 7y ago
Never underestimate the efficiency gained by completely circumventing the need for permiting, civic reviews, public commentary, funding allocation, bidding, design review, labor negotiation, inspections, regulations, and a zillion other bureaucratic wastes of time.

abc-xyz 7y ago

Human rights tend to complicate these things. USA and every other developed country would surely be able to achieve the same under similar circumstances. It's worth reading http://chinamediaproject.org/2020/01/27/dramatic-actions/ http://chinamediaproject.org/2020/01/27/dramatic-actions/ and watching https://youtu.be/7OEqybiGdaA https://youtu.be/7OEqybiGdaA for first-hand experience of the incompetence and evilness of their government and how they've been handling the situation.

oefrha 7y ago
Politically motivated people throw the phrase “human rights” around to justify any incompetence but I don’t think my human rights were respected at all during that one year of on-and-off construction noise throughout the day.
- abc-xyz 7y ago
  Sounds like you were mostly inconvenienced with noise, which I agree can be annoying, but I'm sure the safety standards, work hours, living standards of the construction workers, etc. were at a much higher level. If you've been to China or some other third-world country then I'm sure you've seen first hand the living conditions these workers endure, the safety standards of their work, etc. I've had friends whose families were kicked out of their homes to make room for shopping malls. Why are they even rushing to build these hospitals in the first place? There are plenty of empty buildings that they could turn into temporary hospitals instead. All of this seems to be just for show..
  - baot 7y ago
    Eminent domain exists in the West, too
  - oefrha 7y ago
    > If you've been to China... Yes, I have, and my conclusion is it’s nothing like what fear mongers tell us what it’s like (btw you got a nice single-purpose account there so the credibility is low in my books). Construction workers’ living conditions are on the lower end for sure, but often an improvement over rural life (which is why they’re drawn to cities in the first place), and even rural living conditions isn’t that bad from what I’ve seen. Of course there are huge gaps between “the third world” or even different regions in China so what I’ve seen is far from the worst possible. > whose families were kicked out of their homes to make room for shopping malls. I heard these people are usually compensated very well by local standards. In fact, I heard there’s a whole class of people in Beijing, Shanghai, etc. who became multi-millionaires because their old family homes were bought up for new development projects. > There are plenty of empty buildings that they could turn into temporary hospitals instead. Citation needed. And none of your arguments justified the snail pace of taking a year to build a tiny little building, when even by U.S. standards it could have gone a lot faster (otherwise an apartment building would easily take a decade), unless your human rights include dragging projects out in order to be paid more for the same amount of work.