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>We've had sprawling suburbs in this country since at least the 50s. In that time we haven't really seen any municipality go bankrupt from infrastructure or hav

>We've had sprawling suburbs in this country since at least the 50s. In that time we haven't really seen any municipality go bankrupt from infrastructure or have infrastructure costs come to dominate the budget. Most infrastructure is designed to last decades, and many cities have stretched infrastructure - from bridges to sewers to more - decades beyond its original expected lifespan. The bills are starting to come due now.

xyzzyz 6y ago
> The bills are starting to come due now. Who paid for building them in the first place then? Were people in the 50s so much wealthier than now, that paying for the roads and sewers was peanuts for them, but we cannot afford it anymore? The whole Strong Towns theory of infrastructure costs bankrupting cities does sound plausible, until you start doing the math. Then, it becomes totally absurd.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  We can't afford doing it anymore. The Highway Trust Fund is not self-funding anymore. No one wants to raise gas taxes or put tolls on roads because it's political suicide. ASCE says we have a $836B backlog.
  - barney54 6y ago
    It’s not that ASCE is a disinterested source since they their members make money when money on infrastructure.
    - mixmastamyk 6y ago
      Perhaps, but our crumbling roads say they have a point even though the absolute number may be off.
- jcrawfordor 6y ago
  Yes? The postwar economy of the 1950s was one of the most prosperous the US has ever seen. Large swaths of the population and the economy were moved pretty directly from the war machine to infrastructure and homebuilding. The scale of the nation, in terms of population, urban area, and commerce rapidly expanded in the late '40s through the '50s. Entire cities were basically born in that decade. This didn't entirely trail off until the '70s and especially in the West it is very common to see that nearly everything in terms of infrastructure was built between 1945 and 1975 or so. The US population shows a trend of "aging out" right now due to the population boom of the mid-century... infrastructure shows the same effect much more strongly.
  - xyzzyz 6y ago
    Yes? The postwar economy of the 1950s was one of the most prosperous the US has ever seen. This is simply false. US GDP per capita in the 50s was less than a third than what it is right now. Growth in the 50s was sluggish compared to the 60s, 80s or 90s. US is by any means more prosperous today than it was in the 50s, both on individual level and also as a whole.
    - mixmastamyk 6y ago
      And? The graphs show costs growing exponentially as area expands in two dimensions. A few times productivity improvements can't keep up forever, and they aren't. Federal deficit spending and cost-disease are also things. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to think forward a decade or two.
    - megameter 6y ago
      GDP doesn't explain whether infrastructure projects are sustainable or not. You have to at least look at debt to GDP ratio. The thing about the 50's prosperity is that it derives from the federal and international theaters: The US won the war, and it went into debt to do so, but in exchange got willing borrowers. This was the formation of the military-industrial complex Eisenhower spoke of: Infrastructure projects with military application got a lot of support from both government and business. Among these was the interstate highway system, one of the landmark projects of the 50's, and one with military application. As a result of the new highways, municipalities all of a sudden had this form of growth driven into them through infrastructure that wasn't on their balance sheets, and a lot of pent-up demand for housing from the Depression and war years. Automobiles were ready for widespread use. All they had to do was approve more housing starts and millions of people suddenly could afford homeownership. That is the unique new thing that happened, and it can't be reflected just in GDP. But...if the whole premise of the highway system is based on borrowing, it's a house of cards waiting to fall. People can get their homes in the 50's, become bigger consumers in the following decades...debt to GDP falls sharply as the gains of building are reaped, and then the infrastructure bill starts coming due in the late 70's. At that point debt to GDP starts climbing again, but now the emphasis is on kicking the can down the road, not on renewing national infrastructure. "No more pork barrel spending" is a mantra of the Reagan era and beyond, as is an emphasis on outsourcing and lower taxes over long-term investments in the domestic workforce. It remains easier to build new than to maintain old. And all the while the debt ratio - at the national level - is climbing and climbing. There is still a lot of federal money going to those highways. But just borrowing and kicking the can down the road ain't enough to keep them. So Strongtowns can still be correct, if you zoom out a little!
- dodobirdlord 6y ago
  For a lot of complex reasons large infrastructure projects are much more expensive than they used to be. Plus, replacing infrastructure is generally more expensive than building it new.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    Right. Cost of building a new road on empty land: somewhat high. Cost of re-building it: really high. Road building didn't get wildly more efficient in the intervening years, now you have to pay both to build the new road but also demolish the pre-existing road, you have to do something about the hugely increased traffic loads which probably means you have to rebuild it whilst the road is live, which makes it far slower which increases your manpower costs, and lots more pipes and cables were laid below the road in the intervening years which have to be rerouted or handled in some way.

xyzzyz 6y ago

> The bills are starting to come due now. Who paid for building them in the first place then? Were people in the 50s so much wealthier than now, that paying for the roads and sewers was peanuts for them, but we cannot afford it anymore? The whole Strong Towns theory of infrastructure costs bankrupting cities does sound plausible, until you start doing the math. Then, it becomes totally absurd.

bobthepanda 6y ago
We can't afford doing it anymore. The Highway Trust Fund is not self-funding anymore. No one wants to raise gas taxes or put tolls on roads because it's political suicide. ASCE says we have a $836B backlog.
- barney54 6y ago
  It’s not that ASCE is a disinterested source since they their members make money when money on infrastructure.
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    Perhaps, but our crumbling roads say they have a point even though the absolute number may be off.
jcrawfordor 6y ago
Yes? The postwar economy of the 1950s was one of the most prosperous the US has ever seen. Large swaths of the population and the economy were moved pretty directly from the war machine to infrastructure and homebuilding. The scale of the nation, in terms of population, urban area, and commerce rapidly expanded in the late '40s through the '50s. Entire cities were basically born in that decade. This didn't entirely trail off until the '70s and especially in the West it is very common to see that nearly everything in terms of infrastructure was built between 1945 and 1975 or so. The US population shows a trend of "aging out" right now due to the population boom of the mid-century... infrastructure shows the same effect much more strongly.
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  Yes? The postwar economy of the 1950s was one of the most prosperous the US has ever seen. This is simply false. US GDP per capita in the 50s was less than a third than what it is right now. Growth in the 50s was sluggish compared to the 60s, 80s or 90s. US is by any means more prosperous today than it was in the 50s, both on individual level and also as a whole.
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    And? The graphs show costs growing exponentially as area expands in two dimensions. A few times productivity improvements can't keep up forever, and they aren't. Federal deficit spending and cost-disease are also things. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to think forward a decade or two.
  - megameter 6y ago
    GDP doesn't explain whether infrastructure projects are sustainable or not. You have to at least look at debt to GDP ratio. The thing about the 50's prosperity is that it derives from the federal and international theaters: The US won the war, and it went into debt to do so, but in exchange got willing borrowers. This was the formation of the military-industrial complex Eisenhower spoke of: Infrastructure projects with military application got a lot of support from both government and business. Among these was the interstate highway system, one of the landmark projects of the 50's, and one with military application. As a result of the new highways, municipalities all of a sudden had this form of growth driven into them through infrastructure that wasn't on their balance sheets, and a lot of pent-up demand for housing from the Depression and war years. Automobiles were ready for widespread use. All they had to do was approve more housing starts and millions of people suddenly could afford homeownership. That is the unique new thing that happened, and it can't be reflected just in GDP. But...if the whole premise of the highway system is based on borrowing, it's a house of cards waiting to fall. People can get their homes in the 50's, become bigger consumers in the following decades...debt to GDP falls sharply as the gains of building are reaped, and then the infrastructure bill starts coming due in the late 70's. At that point debt to GDP starts climbing again, but now the emphasis is on kicking the can down the road, not on renewing national infrastructure. "No more pork barrel spending" is a mantra of the Reagan era and beyond, as is an emphasis on outsourcing and lower taxes over long-term investments in the domestic workforce. It remains easier to build new than to maintain old. And all the while the debt ratio - at the national level - is climbing and climbing. There is still a lot of federal money going to those highways. But just borrowing and kicking the can down the road ain't enough to keep them. So Strongtowns can still be correct, if you zoom out a little!
dodobirdlord 6y ago
For a lot of complex reasons large infrastructure projects are much more expensive than they used to be. Plus, replacing infrastructure is generally more expensive than building it new.
- thu2111 6y ago
  Right. Cost of building a new road on empty land: somewhat high. Cost of re-building it: really high. Road building didn't get wildly more efficient in the intervening years, now you have to pay both to build the new road but also demolish the pre-existing road, you have to do something about the hugely increased traffic loads which probably means you have to rebuild it whilst the road is live, which makes it far slower which increases your manpower costs, and lots more pipes and cables were laid below the road in the intervening years which have to be rerouted or handled in some way.