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The US government used to be able to create top notch infrastructure but something seemed to just break in the 1970s/80s. Unless things get so catastrophically

The US government used to be able to create top notch infrastructure but something seemed to just break in the 1970s/80s. Unless things get so catastrophically bad (see Katrina) it is impossible to convince anyone to spend money.

throwawayboise 5y ago
> it is impossible to convince anyone to spend money. They don't need to be convinced to spend money. They are spending more than ever. But you're dead on about it all being crisis-driven now. Or maybe it always was? WWII was clearly that, then the cold war/space race, then Star Wars, then GWAT (or GWOT?) -- Global War Against/On Terrorism, and now Covid - Build Back Better. Crisis spending is perfect cover for pork and grift, because anyone who questions it can be painted as unpatriotic.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  The fact that crisis-driven projects are successful points to the problem: delays. In any sufficiently big project, I'm coming around to the opinion that there's some amount of timeline that results in an effective "never". I think it's just that at some point, people stop caring? Or at least feeling like they have any motivation to hustle? And once that happens, the end result in lethargy and a grinding halt to actual progress. Even if checklist items seem to be getting ticked off.
jrockway 5y ago
The government is spending money on infrastructure, it's just not very good infrastructure. You can open up any state's department of transportation website and find billions of dollars worth of ongoing projects for widening roads. These are not the projects people dream about, but they do satisfy the people that are invested in the suburbs. A lot of advocacy revolves around "live in a dense urban core, work in a dense urban core, and travel to other dense urban cores", and people just aren't doing that, so it does make some sense that politicians with 2 year terms aren't champing at the bit to do those projects instead of "widen congested freeway" (even though we know that never solves the problem).

throwawayboise 5y ago

> it is impossible to convince anyone to spend money. They don't need to be convinced to spend money. They are spending more than ever. But you're dead on about it all being crisis-driven now. Or maybe it always was? WWII was clearly that, then the cold war/space race, then Star Wars, then GWAT (or GWOT?) -- Global War Against/On Terrorism, and now Covid - Build Back Better. Crisis spending is perfect cover for pork and grift, because anyone who questions it can be painted as unpatriotic.

ethbr0 5y ago
The fact that crisis-driven projects are successful points to the problem: delays. In any sufficiently big project, I'm coming around to the opinion that there's some amount of timeline that results in an effective "never". I think it's just that at some point, people stop caring? Or at least feeling like they have any motivation to hustle? And once that happens, the end result in lethargy and a grinding halt to actual progress. Even if checklist items seem to be getting ticked off.

jrockway 5y ago

The government is spending money on infrastructure, it's just not very good infrastructure. You can open up any state's department of transportation website and find billions of dollars worth of ongoing projects for widening roads. These are not the projects people dream about, but they do satisfy the people that are invested in the suburbs. A lot of advocacy revolves around "live in a dense urban core, work in a dense urban core, and travel to other dense urban cores", and people just aren't doing that, so it does make some sense that politicians with 2 year terms aren't champing at the bit to do those projects instead of "widen congested freeway" (even though we know that never solves the problem).