20 ms·

Having lived in Shanghai during 2005-2012 and seeing the construction boom there, I noticed some differences immediately after arriving in the US. It's common t

Having lived in Shanghai during 2005-2012 and seeing the construction boom there, I noticed some differences immediately after arriving in the US. It's common to hear about transportation projects taking decades to expand a few stations here. Mean while, since the time I left the Shanghai subway station has opened 21 new lines composed of 516 stations. Certainly, the air/water was worse in China but workers also had to work much harder (later nights, weekends, etc). But perhaps most importantly, the government would waste no time in getting land that it needed, and it certainly wouldn't ask for your consideration if it needs to do construction on a Saturday morning. While I appreciate that there is an inherent trade off between environmental consideration and speed, I think the author makes it clear that it's reached comic proportions in the US. The article is short, but I think the main premise is overwhelmingly accurate: The system exists to protect the status quo. There's also the reliance of transportation agencies on consultants: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/10/21/mbta-o21.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/10/21/mbta-o21.html

joe_the_user 5y ago
The thing is, Europe, where the environment is a significant consideration, also builds subways (and other things) at significantly faster speeds and lower cost than the US. If you look in any detail, it's not a matter of some magic the Chinese or whoever have, it's matter of the corrupt nexus of interests that have come to soak up any transit spending in the US, in particular.
- thiscatis 5y ago
  No they don't. Typical bureaucratic examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oosterweel_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oosterweel_Link https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/berlin-brandenburg-airport-one-year-on/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/berlin-brandenburg-ai...
  - joe_the_user 5y ago
    Those are just anecdotes. You can google up ten articles verifying US transit construction costs are higher per mile - and the US is much more spread out too. Random article. https://www.constructiondive.com/news/us-rail-projects-take-longer-cost-more-than-those-in-other-countries/605599/ https://www.constructiondive.com/news/us-rail-projects-take-...
    - thiscatis 5y ago
      maybe because a mile is longer than a kilometer...
      - ryder9 5y ago
gernb 5y ago
I'm sure Japan is not at China's levels but in the time I lived there are I saw several lines get completely, several stations get rebuilt (A good example would be Shinagawa Station) and an 11km underground highway built. Meanwhile it's taken SF 10 plus years for SF to build a tiny 4 station line (the Central Line) and it's not done.
zeruch 5y ago
"While I appreciate that there is an inherent trade off between environmental consideration and speed, I think the author makes it clear that it's reached comic proportions in the US." The quote I think that encapsulated it best was: "And this is where I feel that lawmakers of the 1970s made a huge mistake. Rather than accept the need for general rules, or choices by accountable elected officials, the lawmakers built a dispersed power structure filled with veto points that lends itself to analysis paralysis" Given how trash the environment is becoming due to various forms of intransigence, there is an interesting trade off to be made in more ambitious projects that actually move the dial, which ironically might require tinkering with same said systems that currently are at the root of (a phrase change I would make) "decision paralysis".
secondaryacct 5y ago
I live in China, I think the best way to summarise everything we do at all level is: the end justifies the means. Need to seize power ? Murder all members of the former power. Need to make poor peasants rich middle class ? Build entire cities, put them there, and done. Need to build a metro station ? Take the land, build it. Need to make Hong Kong a more physically integrated part of the country ? Build a gigantic bridge to Zuhai even if nobody actually need to use it. The problem ofc is that sometimes the means is more costly than the benefit of the end result, and also that the goal of the end result is never debated, but I suppose that will change eventually, once we've incurred too high a cost for too little a benefit overall.
- downrightmike 5y ago
  - jsiaajdsdaa 5y ago
    - SgtBastard 5y ago
      Citation extremely needed
      - jsiaajdsdaa 5y ago
        How about the Chief Prosecutor for two UN Criminal Tribunals? There are many more sources on the wikipedia page for "War Crimes in Kosovo" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carla_Del_Ponte https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carla_Del_Ponte
        deedree 5y ago
        That says there’s no evidence. While it may still be true you can’t just state like it’s a well known and accepted fact. That is certainly not true. If you want to make controversial claims you’d better make sure you can back it up. Right now it does not add in a valuable way to the conversation.
dixie_land 5y ago
> government would waste no time in getting land that it needed by blackmailing, intimidation, and literally murder by bulldozing houses with people in them when they refuse to leave
- robinjhuang 5y ago
  I think this is a question worth asking. Should we let a small number of people hold hostage over public projects?
  - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
    Do you say that applies to pipeline projects too?
    - robinjhuang 5y ago
      Oil gas pipelines? Sure. The reason I say this is because it seems to me that democracy is a system designed to favor the majority over the minority. So why not for public projects?
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      That depends on how you're defining "small number of people". If a big fraction of the people in the way of a segment object, then that's probably not small. If a couple family farms object, then that's not very important.
  - nouveaux 5y ago
    This is a good question. Where do we draw the line at human rights? Should land ownership be a protected right? It would cost a lot less if the government just took the land instead of paying fair market value. It would also cost a lot less if we forced all criminals to work for free (though right now, they practically work for free). The problem is that we would quickly run out of criminals since there are so many projects that needs work. We could just randomly enslave people to do work for free. Enslaving citizens wouldn't be fair or popular with the citizens of our country. Another option is to use our military might to subjugate other countries and bring them over to work, say to work on our farms. That would allow for very high gdp growth. So where do we draw the line and who gets to draw that line?
nouveaux 5y ago
"an inherent trade off between environmental consideration and speed" It's not just environmental consideration. Speed also incentivizes corner cutting, nepotism, and all sorts of corrupt behavior. Evergrande is a great example of speed. Banks in China made the same mistakes that banks in US made in 2008. If banks in China had tight regulations for the last 20 years, real estate growth would be significantly hampered. China should be given credit in that their leaders learned from other countries and leveraged their population size to grow with incredible speed. However, I would argue that China's rise to power has less to do with their efficiency and more to do with laws of growth. If we exclude Covid, I am willing to bet that China will not be able to sustain double digit growth ever again. In fact, I am willing to bet my house that when China achieves US's per capita GDP levels, China will never achieve double digit growth ever again.
- analyst74 5y ago
  > Speed also incentivizes corner cutting, nepotism, and all sorts of corrupt behavior. Compare that with SF bay area politics, I don't think speed has any effect on corruption.
- taurath 5y ago
  In the US bribery is just legal, and harder to access
- xvector 5y ago
  I would counterargue that corners are often cut just as terribly in the US. The corners are simply cut slower, because everything here is done slower. For example, electronics built in the US are typically shittier than electronics built in China, despite taking significantly longer to build and employees being paid orders of magnitude more (as noted by companies like Apple, Purism, etc.) Within our culture in the US there is a clear and comically obvious problem of bureaucracy and red-tape. This doesn't really exist in software yet, but the day our government gets its claws into the software industry is the day that innovation in the US can be put to rest. (Well, it's already happening - if you try to create a software startup that processes user data, you are probably breaking tens of laws you don't even know exist.) There is also a cultural difference. One thing I have noticed when working with my Chinese coworkers is that they do not bullshit nearly as much as my other coworkers. They get straight to the point, deal in metrics and facts, and don't try to inflate their accomplishments. Maybe that's just my current work environment, maybe it's a cultural thing - I suspect the latter.
rubicon33 5y ago
The problem is the massive bureaucracy / government we have today. Massive swaths of government workers literally being payed to sit all day in zoom calls on "meetings" talking about approving projects and budgets, from local infrastructure to schools, to medical, etc. Source: Live with someone with said job. See them in meetings all day long, accomplishing nothing other than getting their paycheck.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  It's not the massive bureaucracy. It's that civil service-style systems (as in China) and pay-for-performance are both basically illegal in the federal government. Big government is not necessarily flawed, but big govt as we have structured it is just incompetent.
- tchock23 5y ago
  It’s funny. My partner has a government job and works much harder than anyone I know in private industry (as do her co-workers). Also, it is a better organized place to work than most enterprises I’ve consulted for. Goes to show YMMV and it’s not worth making sweeping generalizations about a sector of workers.
  - rubicon33 5y ago
    Of course "sweeping generalizations" aren't always right. That's obvious. It doesn't mean that generalizations themselves aren't worthwhile, and sometimes accurate enough to frame a problem. Exceptions to the rule shouldn't completely invalidate the rule. In this case I also never said anything about them working hard per se. No doubt they work very hard, but seem to accomplish nothing. Working hard, not smart.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    It is possible to work very hard without doing anything worth doing.
    - vkou 5y ago
ip26 5y ago
Yeah, this framing was taken in a piece a few years ago about the failure to revitalize a rail project [1] in New York, which ultimately pinned the blame on tipping the balance too far in favor of private property rights. A single person/holdout can grind a project valuable to millions to a halt. It's the most compelling explanation I've read. In short, if private property has absolute veto power, you can never get big public projects done. (This is why eminent domain exists) There's a balance between private property rights & public good; in the times of great public works, the public good was given more sway, while recently private property rights have been given more (and stifled public works). [1]: I think it was https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
- parineum 5y ago
  > In short, if private property has absolute veto power, you can never get big public projects done. (This is why eminent domain exists) I wish they'd modify the language of eminent domain to reward double, triple or even quadruple market rate. I want people being _happy_ to have their property seized.
  - scarface74 5y ago
    What happens historically that if a government has a choice between destroying wealth in a minority neighborhood or destroying wealth in a non minority neighborhood, it’s usually the minority neighborhood.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    Given how the sheer amount of money wasted when even one property owner holds out, it shouldn't be terribly difficult to justify a serious premium on the amount paid to those whose property is seized. In most cases I imagine it's just a small part of the overall cost of the project.
  - icelancer 5y ago
    Exactly. "Market rate" is ridiculous, and justifiably private property owners should be able to hold out sine market rate doesn't factor in switching costs, both financial and emotional. I think 3x market rate is a decent starting place.
dv_dt 5y ago
While acquiring the property takes more time in America, I can't help but notice once construction starts it also takes a ridiculously long time too. It really seems like the interests of the power brokers in various areas are far outstripping the interests of the utility to society in multiple areas in America.
patentatt 5y ago
Your comment about the Shanghai subway sparked my curiosity. Wikipedia says the Shanghai metro consists of 396 stations across 19 lines, and has been operating since 1993. How does that square with "since [2012] the Shanghai subway station has opened 21 new lines composed of 516 stations"? Especially when Wikipedia also says "During Expo 2010 the metro system consisted of 11 lines, 407 km, and 277 stations." Seems like they opened 119 stations and added 8 new lines since 2012. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Metro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Metro
- coolso 5y ago
- dwohnitmok 5y ago
  Parent misspoke. It's been 21 lines consisting of 516 stations in total since inception (really since 2000 since there was a long lull of little activity in the 90s). The discrepancy in lines comes from whether you count certain rail-based transportation lines as part of the subway system or not. The discrepancy in subway stations is mainly due to whether you count interchange stations as single stations or multiple stations. I think the former is the one that is usually quoted for other subway systems in the world so makes more sense (so ~400 is probably the more appropriate number of stations to state). I also wonder if the Wikipedia article may be out of date? IIRC there were some new stations added in the last few months. But even if that were the case it's just a couple of stations, so the numbers should still be close. More impressive to me is the pace of construction in smaller cities which have also been rapidly building out subway systems (e.g. Hangzhou comes to mind, getting around Hangzhou on public transportation has drastically improved in the last five years, likewise I've personally seen the same immense improvements for Harbin).
  - watersb 5y ago
    > The discrepancy in lines comes from whether you count certain rail-based transportation lines as part of the subway system or not. Ah, that makes some sense. Like in San Francisco, there is the regional BART light rail, but also there is the hybrid bus/rail Muni metro transit for local service. https://www.sfmta.com/muni-transit https://www.sfmta.com/muni-transit https://www.bart.gov https://www.bart.gov

joe_the_user 5y ago

The thing is, Europe, where the environment is a significant consideration, also builds subways (and other things) at significantly faster speeds and lower cost than the US. If you look in any detail, it's not a matter of some magic the Chinese or whoever have, it's matter of the corrupt nexus of interests that have come to soak up any transit spending in the US, in particular.

thiscatis 5y ago
No they don't. Typical bureaucratic examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oosterweel_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oosterweel_Link https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/berlin-brandenburg-airport-one-year-on/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/berlin-brandenburg-ai...
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  Those are just anecdotes. You can google up ten articles verifying US transit construction costs are higher per mile - and the US is much more spread out too. Random article. https://www.constructiondive.com/news/us-rail-projects-take-longer-cost-more-than-those-in-other-countries/605599/ https://www.constructiondive.com/news/us-rail-projects-take-...
  - thiscatis 5y ago
    maybe because a mile is longer than a kilometer...
    - ryder9 5y ago

gernb 5y ago

I'm sure Japan is not at China's levels but in the time I lived there are I saw several lines get completely, several stations get rebuilt (A good example would be Shinagawa Station) and an 11km underground highway built. Meanwhile it's taken SF 10 plus years for SF to build a tiny 4 station line (the Central Line) and it's not done.

zeruch 5y ago

"While I appreciate that there is an inherent trade off between environmental consideration and speed, I think the author makes it clear that it's reached comic proportions in the US." The quote I think that encapsulated it best was: "And this is where I feel that lawmakers of the 1970s made a huge mistake. Rather than accept the need for general rules, or choices by accountable elected officials, the lawmakers built a dispersed power structure filled with veto points that lends itself to analysis paralysis" Given how trash the environment is becoming due to various forms of intransigence, there is an interesting trade off to be made in more ambitious projects that actually move the dial, which ironically might require tinkering with same said systems that currently are at the root of (a phrase change I would make) "decision paralysis".

secondaryacct 5y ago

I live in China, I think the best way to summarise everything we do at all level is: the end justifies the means. Need to seize power ? Murder all members of the former power. Need to make poor peasants rich middle class ? Build entire cities, put them there, and done. Need to build a metro station ? Take the land, build it. Need to make Hong Kong a more physically integrated part of the country ? Build a gigantic bridge to Zuhai even if nobody actually need to use it. The problem ofc is that sometimes the means is more costly than the benefit of the end result, and also that the goal of the end result is never debated, but I suppose that will change eventually, once we've incurred too high a cost for too little a benefit overall.

downrightmike 5y ago
- jsiaajdsdaa 5y ago
  - SgtBastard 5y ago
    Citation extremely needed
    - jsiaajdsdaa 5y ago
      How about the Chief Prosecutor for two UN Criminal Tribunals? There are many more sources on the wikipedia page for "War Crimes in Kosovo" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carla_Del_Ponte https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carla_Del_Ponte
      - deedree 5y ago
        That says there’s no evidence. While it may still be true you can’t just state like it’s a well known and accepted fact. That is certainly not true. If you want to make controversial claims you’d better make sure you can back it up. Right now it does not add in a valuable way to the conversation.

dixie_land 5y ago

> government would waste no time in getting land that it needed by blackmailing, intimidation, and literally murder by bulldozing houses with people in them when they refuse to leave

robinjhuang 5y ago
I think this is a question worth asking. Should we let a small number of people hold hostage over public projects?
- cscurmudgeon 5y ago
  Do you say that applies to pipeline projects too?
  - robinjhuang 5y ago
    Oil gas pipelines? Sure. The reason I say this is because it seems to me that democracy is a system designed to favor the majority over the minority. So why not for public projects?
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    That depends on how you're defining "small number of people". If a big fraction of the people in the way of a segment object, then that's probably not small. If a couple family farms object, then that's not very important.
- nouveaux 5y ago
  This is a good question. Where do we draw the line at human rights? Should land ownership be a protected right? It would cost a lot less if the government just took the land instead of paying fair market value. It would also cost a lot less if we forced all criminals to work for free (though right now, they practically work for free). The problem is that we would quickly run out of criminals since there are so many projects that needs work. We could just randomly enslave people to do work for free. Enslaving citizens wouldn't be fair or popular with the citizens of our country. Another option is to use our military might to subjugate other countries and bring them over to work, say to work on our farms. That would allow for very high gdp growth. So where do we draw the line and who gets to draw that line?

nouveaux 5y ago

"an inherent trade off between environmental consideration and speed" It's not just environmental consideration. Speed also incentivizes corner cutting, nepotism, and all sorts of corrupt behavior. Evergrande is a great example of speed. Banks in China made the same mistakes that banks in US made in 2008. If banks in China had tight regulations for the last 20 years, real estate growth would be significantly hampered. China should be given credit in that their leaders learned from other countries and leveraged their population size to grow with incredible speed. However, I would argue that China's rise to power has less to do with their efficiency and more to do with laws of growth. If we exclude Covid, I am willing to bet that China will not be able to sustain double digit growth ever again. In fact, I am willing to bet my house that when China achieves US's per capita GDP levels, China will never achieve double digit growth ever again.

analyst74 5y ago
> Speed also incentivizes corner cutting, nepotism, and all sorts of corrupt behavior. Compare that with SF bay area politics, I don't think speed has any effect on corruption.
taurath 5y ago
In the US bribery is just legal, and harder to access
xvector 5y ago
I would counterargue that corners are often cut just as terribly in the US. The corners are simply cut slower, because everything here is done slower. For example, electronics built in the US are typically shittier than electronics built in China, despite taking significantly longer to build and employees being paid orders of magnitude more (as noted by companies like Apple, Purism, etc.) Within our culture in the US there is a clear and comically obvious problem of bureaucracy and red-tape. This doesn't really exist in software yet, but the day our government gets its claws into the software industry is the day that innovation in the US can be put to rest. (Well, it's already happening - if you try to create a software startup that processes user data, you are probably breaking tens of laws you don't even know exist.) There is also a cultural difference. One thing I have noticed when working with my Chinese coworkers is that they do not bullshit nearly as much as my other coworkers. They get straight to the point, deal in metrics and facts, and don't try to inflate their accomplishments. Maybe that's just my current work environment, maybe it's a cultural thing - I suspect the latter.

rubicon33 5y ago

The problem is the massive bureaucracy / government we have today. Massive swaths of government workers literally being payed to sit all day in zoom calls on "meetings" talking about approving projects and budgets, from local infrastructure to schools, to medical, etc. Source: Live with someone with said job. See them in meetings all day long, accomplishing nothing other than getting their paycheck.

whimsicalism 5y ago
It's not the massive bureaucracy. It's that civil service-style systems (as in China) and pay-for-performance are both basically illegal in the federal government. Big government is not necessarily flawed, but big govt as we have structured it is just incompetent.
tchock23 5y ago
It’s funny. My partner has a government job and works much harder than anyone I know in private industry (as do her co-workers). Also, it is a better organized place to work than most enterprises I’ve consulted for. Goes to show YMMV and it’s not worth making sweeping generalizations about a sector of workers.
- rubicon33 5y ago
  Of course "sweeping generalizations" aren't always right. That's obvious. It doesn't mean that generalizations themselves aren't worthwhile, and sometimes accurate enough to frame a problem. Exceptions to the rule shouldn't completely invalidate the rule. In this case I also never said anything about them working hard per se. No doubt they work very hard, but seem to accomplish nothing. Working hard, not smart.
- bluGill 5y ago
  It is possible to work very hard without doing anything worth doing.
  - vkou 5y ago

ip26 5y ago

Yeah, this framing was taken in a piece a few years ago about the failure to revitalize a rail project [1] in New York, which ultimately pinned the blame on tipping the balance too far in favor of private property rights. A single person/holdout can grind a project valuable to millions to a halt. It's the most compelling explanation I've read. In short, if private property has absolute veto power, you can never get big public projects done. (This is why eminent domain exists) There's a balance between private property rights & public good; in the times of great public works, the public good was given more sway, while recently private property rights have been given more (and stifled public works). [1]: I think it was https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

parineum 5y ago
> In short, if private property has absolute veto power, you can never get big public projects done. (This is why eminent domain exists) I wish they'd modify the language of eminent domain to reward double, triple or even quadruple market rate. I want people being _happy_ to have their property seized.
- scarface74 5y ago
  What happens historically that if a government has a choice between destroying wealth in a minority neighborhood or destroying wealth in a non minority neighborhood, it’s usually the minority neighborhood.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  Given how the sheer amount of money wasted when even one property owner holds out, it shouldn't be terribly difficult to justify a serious premium on the amount paid to those whose property is seized. In most cases I imagine it's just a small part of the overall cost of the project.
- icelancer 5y ago
  Exactly. "Market rate" is ridiculous, and justifiably private property owners should be able to hold out sine market rate doesn't factor in switching costs, both financial and emotional. I think 3x market rate is a decent starting place.

dv_dt 5y ago

While acquiring the property takes more time in America, I can't help but notice once construction starts it also takes a ridiculously long time too. It really seems like the interests of the power brokers in various areas are far outstripping the interests of the utility to society in multiple areas in America.

patentatt 5y ago

Your comment about the Shanghai subway sparked my curiosity. Wikipedia says the Shanghai metro consists of 396 stations across 19 lines, and has been operating since 1993. How does that square with "since [2012] the Shanghai subway station has opened 21 new lines composed of 516 stations"? Especially when Wikipedia also says "During Expo 2010 the metro system consisted of 11 lines, 407 km, and 277 stations." Seems like they opened 119 stations and added 8 new lines since 2012. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Metro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Metro

coolso 5y ago
dwohnitmok 5y ago
Parent misspoke. It's been 21 lines consisting of 516 stations in total since inception (really since 2000 since there was a long lull of little activity in the 90s). The discrepancy in lines comes from whether you count certain rail-based transportation lines as part of the subway system or not. The discrepancy in subway stations is mainly due to whether you count interchange stations as single stations or multiple stations. I think the former is the one that is usually quoted for other subway systems in the world so makes more sense (so ~400 is probably the more appropriate number of stations to state). I also wonder if the Wikipedia article may be out of date? IIRC there were some new stations added in the last few months. But even if that were the case it's just a couple of stations, so the numbers should still be close. More impressive to me is the pace of construction in smaller cities which have also been rapidly building out subway systems (e.g. Hangzhou comes to mind, getting around Hangzhou on public transportation has drastically improved in the last five years, likewise I've personally seen the same immense improvements for Harbin).
- watersb 5y ago
  > The discrepancy in lines comes from whether you count certain rail-based transportation lines as part of the subway system or not. Ah, that makes some sense. Like in San Francisco, there is the regional BART light rail, but also there is the hybrid bus/rail Muni metro transit for local service. https://www.sfmta.com/muni-transit https://www.sfmta.com/muni-transit https://www.bart.gov https://www.bart.gov