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Once upon a time, the American consensus was also generally comfortable with destroying neighborhoods wholesale to build freeways and other infrastructure in th

by Zafira 6y ago

Once upon a time, the American consensus was also generally comfortable with destroying neighborhoods wholesale to build freeways and other infrastructure in the name of progress. Now it takes forever or never for fear of triggering a voter uprising. But, these rules came from a place: there are vast swaths of major cities that have been destroyed. Some are not a meaningful loss and others came at the cost of people who lacked the funding and support to effectively pushback. Why Dodger Stadium is in Chavez Ravine is a sad story and is part of the reason why there's a literal school buried under the parking lot. China doesn't care. You do what you're told. If you complain too much, you disappear; if the project has an atrocious safety record, they are not reported and no such records exist (or blame a low-level official); if an entire neighborhood was destroyed without compensation, shut up and deal with it. You can get what you want, just how many bodies are you willing to bury to get it?

sudosysgen 6y ago
You really don't need to destroy neighborhoods to build trains. You need to destroy neighborhoods to built road infrastructure, though. This is because "I/O operations" on high-speed roads with massive bandwidth à-la-USA requires ungodly amounts of space. Here is the infrastructure needed for high-speed rail : https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/FXD1-J0010_at_Guangqumen_%2820190203093259%29.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/FXD1-J00..., plus one train station per city. The switches can be built outside. Here is the infrastructure needed for traditional highways: https://i0.wp.com/usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2014/06/b61ceee4f9950bc67fb3dd3892beeddc.jpg?w&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2Cpx&ssl=1 https://i0.wp.com/usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sit... If the infrastructure that was built was not horribly inefficient due to an almost ideological opposition to mass transit, there wouldn't have been neighbourhoods destroyed wholesale, and the precedent leading to the gargantuan opposition we see right now would simply not be present.

by Zafira 6y ago

sudosysgen 6y ago

You really don't need to destroy neighborhoods to build trains. You need to destroy neighborhoods to built road infrastructure, though. This is because "I/O operations" on high-speed roads with massive bandwidth à-la-USA requires ungodly amounts of space. Here is the infrastructure needed for high-speed rail : https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/FXD1-J0010_at_Guangqumen_%2820190203093259%29.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/FXD1-J00..., plus one train station per city. The switches can be built outside. Here is the infrastructure needed for traditional highways: https://i0.wp.com/usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2014/06/b61ceee4f9950bc67fb3dd3892beeddc.jpg?w&crop=0%2C0px%2C100%2Cpx&ssl=1 https://i0.wp.com/usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sit... If the infrastructure that was built was not horribly inefficient due to an almost ideological opposition to mass transit, there wouldn't have been neighbourhoods destroyed wholesale, and the precedent leading to the gargantuan opposition we see right now would simply not be present.