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This will probably not be a popular comment, but it comes from a pragmatist. When budgets contract or costs spiral, governments tend to water-down each of the 5
by nickdothutton 4y ago
This will probably not be a popular comment, but it comes from a pragmatist. When budgets contract or costs spiral, governments tend to water-down each of the 500 projects they have on their list. Rather than axing half of them, or 80% of them, and focussing on a tiny handful of “beachheads” or “lighthouses”. Feel free to insert your own analogue. Having seen several cycles of this over the last few decades, I am now of the opinion that the better strategy would be to 1 city at a time, demonstrate progress, and by that demonstration win more funding. This will not (at least initially) have the same impact at the ballot box.
- mamonster 4y agoVery true. The thing is that for each one of these 500 projects, the project leader, the people working on it and the guy who is pushing it in the senior levels of government will all endlessly tell you that it is THE THING that will improve the life of the citizens. I don't think that it is avoidable though, if out of the 500 projects you cut out 475 of them and then work on the remaining 25 and really make something cool out of them then, then the people running the 25 projects will get a lot of credit and promotions, which will anger the people whose projects got cut. Pretty sure they would all rather suffer from mediocrity together.
- pjc50 4y agoI would argue that completion needs to be factored in - the UK has a terrible record of funding things in a way that leads to almost all the money being spent and then cancelling them before receiving the benefits. The Black Arrow rocket programme is possibly the worst example. There's a risk that this may happen to HS2.