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> In many ways, fixing the infrastructure problem in the US means razing the whole continent and starting over. In some places, particularly cities designed ar
by titzer 5y ago
> In many ways, fixing the infrastructure problem in the US means razing the whole continent and starting over.
In some places, particularly cities designed around cars (i.e. the last 100 years). Other cities just need things to be upgraded. E.g. I recently moved to Pittsburgh. It's pretty dense in terms of housing and infrastructure--not suburban with big lawns. That's partly because it's hilly. Around here the investment needs to be in fixing bridges and roads, adding some trams (they used to have them!), and maybe tunnels. Also, burying the power lines wouldn't be a bad idea.
On most days I like the idea of razing things to the ground, but probably not around here. We need to actually look to the past in some areas and add the appropriate future, as opposed to nuking and paving.
- voakbasda 5y agoOne problem with implementing all of those upgrades is that they will be unaffordable for the City, unless they take tax revenues from other areas. But those other areas have their own crumbling infrastructure, so “upgrade” is not a solution that can be applied everywhere equally.
- titzer 5y agoOne thing I've learned over the years is that fixing or upgrading something is an order of magnitude more time but an order of magnitude cheaper in materials/energy. This applies at many scales. Time means jobs and expertise. Upgrading doesn't scale, which is awesome. This is because fixing or upgrading stuff is essentially always a custom job. You can't outsource the maintenance of the Golden Gate bridge to China. It's gotta be done locally. Fixing requires people to assess and evaluate the specific needs of a situation, engineer and design solutions, and then deploy them. That drives an engineering and problem-solving, educated populace full of professionals, rather than a machine that cranks out endless, throwaway garbage. America has strayed from engineering and fixing towards "scale"--but mostly scaling the last part, the deployment. It's short-term thinking. It's a pervasive baseline mindset shift that has happened because of bad accounting centered around dollar costs and not societal costs.
- throwaway946513 5y ago> Unaffordable for the City Isn't this the city that gave a few hundred million away from it's earmarked infrastructure and maintenance budge to the police department over the past half decade?
- ericmay 5y agoAnd they’re in this predicament precisely because they built unaffordable car-first infrastructure in the first place. Saying that they can’t afford the more cost-effective option (walk, bike, tram) is just icing on the cake.