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Yeah I think China is a more fit comparison and highlights what the issue is in the US - very little central planning authority. People discuss the American “go
by lamp_book 3y ago
Yeah I think China is a more fit comparison and highlights what the issue is in the US - very little central planning authority. People discuss the American “government” like it’s a monolith when it’s fiefdoms at all levels; it’s not surprising we can’t build anything anymore.
- kiba 3y agoThe problem is not the lack of centralized authority, it's the vetocracy, gridlock, and political resistance to anything that's not car-based pattern of development. Notice that we managed to build an interstate system and lot of other infrastructure.
- lamp_book 3y agoI was referring to the problems you describe by that. All that infrastructure got built with PWA era pork barrel politics and many of the projects were highly illogical. The books The Power Broker and Cadillac Desert dissect these issues, the latter focusing on our hydrology infra which is as at least as, if not way more stupid than our roads. You’re right though that it’s not exactly about it being centralized.
- CuriousCosmic 3y agoWe only managed to build an interstate system via a massive, centralised effort by the federal government to plan out and fund construction of the interstate highway system. The yellow book (designed by the federal govt) maps extremely closely to what became the final interstate system. The states did the actual building and own the actual land but the federal govt told them where to build, gave them the money, and otherwise forced their hand into the construction. I'm not necessarily saying federal control over all infrastructure is a good thing but it really was in large part due to the federal government that the interstate system actually happened.