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Bridges, highways, sewers etc all still need maintenance even if there are less people using them. This is an increasingly large problem in Japan, which built
by rippercushions 4y ago
Bridges, highways, sewers etc all still need maintenance even if there are less people using them. This is an increasingly large problem in Japan, which built lots of hugely unprofitable infrastructure during the Bubble years (bullet trains to the prime minister's rural home town etc) and is still addicted to grandiose projects as a form of rural subsidy/kickback.
- luckylion 4y agoDon't infrastructure projects scale well with regards to costs? I assumed that e.g. building a three lane highway isn't 50% more expensive than building two lanes, but maybe it even complicates things more as you run into more issues the more space you take up (can't squeeze through gaps, more attack surface for Godzilla and whatnot). Isn't infrastructure profiting from automation as much? Health & elderly care has severe limits there until we get to very advanced robots in a few generations, but infrastructure feels easier.
- rippercushions 4y agoScaling only gets you so far. The maglev Chuo Shinkansen currently under construction between Tokyo and Nagoya involves around 250 km of tunnels punched through Japan's mountainous backbone and has a price tag of US$64 billion (and continually climbing). Still, the real problem is not building new things, but maintaining old ones.