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> most of what China does to successfully build infrastructure is literally illegal in the West The biggest thing China does to successfully build infrastructu

> most of what China does to successfully build infrastructure is literally illegal in the West The biggest thing China does to successfully build infrastructure is to repeat successful previous designs without modifying them - ie build 10 identical nuclear reactors, bridges, stations etc - and utilise the scale to do it much cheaper (it doesn't matter if your nuclear reactor is 30% less efficient than the latest, if you can build it for 30% cheaper in half the time) That's not illegal in the west it just appears hard to do.

SkeuomorphicBee 3y ago
Exactly, Chinas biggest secret is to lean on economies of scale. In case of transit they standardised early-on on only five types of train/rail-corridor and then whenever a city needed a metro, lightrail or any other type of rail transit they would just pick one of the five that fits best and build it using all the knowhow and economies of scale from previous builds. RMTransit has a good video about it [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehTy-qQVZhM&t=0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehTy-qQVZhM&t=0
- gumby 3y ago
  The article even lauds the benefits of this, using the LA schools as an example, but doesn’t follow that thread.
  - secabeen 3y ago
    As I understand it, the challenge in building is in adapting the plan to site specifics, or adapting the site to the plan. In China and other top-down planning regimes, they will adapt the site to the plan. If the station or school plan requires that a historic neighborhood be impacted to use the plan unchanged, farewell to historic buildings. Here we adapt the plan to fit within the space, or whatever, but that quickly eliminates the cost savings, as now each station or school is slightly unique. This also shows up in residential and other smaller projects. Look at the historic aerial photos of Levittown, NY and PA, which created the notion of the suburb: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=levitown&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=levitown&iax=images&ia=imag... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown The original landscape is completely eliminated, all original trees are gone, it's been scraped clean. Most developments near major cities are infill or replacement, and they adapt their plans to the site. There are still greenfield builds happening in exurban areas, but in existing metro areas, everything is bespoke.
roenxi 3y ago
> ... ie build 10 identical ... It seems unlikely that a cookie cutter design could just be emplaced in different areas without running into problems in the environmental reviews. Different local conditions would presumably require different local considerations. Projects can get shut down because Red Spotted Scuttlers are spotted in the local area. Or the local laws require different pollution controls. This is a facet of why I say "literally illegal" - I don't think your plan can be executed in a reliable sense while being legally on the straight and narrow path. Certainly not if activist groups start looking to take a project out by lawfare. It is a good idea, but to pull it off requires that nobody wants the project to fail. If someone goes looking it probably breaks rules.
- troupo 3y ago
  > Red Spotted Scuttlers are spotted in the local area. Has nothing to do with cookie cutter designs. > Or the local laws require different pollution controls. Has very little to do with cookie cutter designs. > I don't think your plan can be executed in a reliable sense while being legally on the straight and narrow path. Strange how literally everyone in the world can figure this out, but not the US.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    > Has nothing to do with cookie cutter designs. If you can't build the design, then someone will have to design something else that can be built. If people aren't already using cookie cutter designs, there is a reason for that. The reason may be one that most people don't like, but it is still going to be there. And I am putting that the reason is probably going to be that the law probably does require consideration of site-specific factors. > Strange how literally everyone in the world can figure this out, but not the US. As mentioned, most of the world doesn't apply US standards and laws. And you're speaking a bit strongly. Most of the world doesn't figure infrastructure out. The median for project management and country-wide governance is dysfunctional failure across most of the globe. You can tell because most people are impoverished despite us having all the tools to sort that out for something like a century.
cduzz 3y ago
One step out from "repeat successful designs" perhaps is "use the same project planning team / infrastructure from one project to the next" ? A critical flaw in US infrastructure is that the infrastructure owners typically have no "large project" management skills -- the transit system is run at a "starvation level" that keeps the staffing at just barely enough to keep the system running and there's no spare resource to have some "enormous engineering project" project manager just sitting around just in case you want to run a big project. Instead these organizations hire an external project management organization that (usually) doesn't share incentives with the client organization. It's unsurprising that large infrastructure projects without proper oversight end up being run poorly.
- mkesper 3y ago
  From the article: VA: This lack of effective leadership from the public sector comes up over and over again in your discussions of American transit, both internally and in their relationships with other actors. They struggle at cooperating with other agencies — with the Department of Transportation, with the Department of Environmental Protection, with parks, with buildings, with the fire department. And they’re also quite inefficient at managing consultants because they don’t have enough technical in-house knowledge to really understand how to. AL: Exactly. So then they’ll hire a consultant to manage the consultants — it’s the most ridiculous thing.
cogman10 3y ago
Another thing they do is not a public/private build out. China owns the companies building the roads. It gets to set the price, design, wages, etc. The reason things are expensive in the US is privatization. It should be super obvious why. The contractors we hire are super incentivized to drag things out and bloat costs. They make more money by doing less. And since the gov is footing the bill, no harm no foul. It gets even worse when you take corruption into account. Because now the mayor can get nice kickbacks for awarding contracts to their drinking buddies who also are mysteriously campaign donors. Not saying corruption doesn't happen in china, it does, but not generally for infrastructure things. Instead, it's the drinking buddies being put in charge of the projects. One of the dumbest parts of Reaganomics was removing the public ability to maintain public infrastructure.

SkeuomorphicBee 3y ago

Exactly, Chinas biggest secret is to lean on economies of scale. In case of transit they standardised early-on on only five types of train/rail-corridor and then whenever a city needed a metro, lightrail or any other type of rail transit they would just pick one of the five that fits best and build it using all the knowhow and economies of scale from previous builds. RMTransit has a good video about it [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehTy-qQVZhM&t=0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehTy-qQVZhM&t=0

gumby 3y ago
The article even lauds the benefits of this, using the LA schools as an example, but doesn’t follow that thread.
- secabeen 3y ago
  As I understand it, the challenge in building is in adapting the plan to site specifics, or adapting the site to the plan. In China and other top-down planning regimes, they will adapt the site to the plan. If the station or school plan requires that a historic neighborhood be impacted to use the plan unchanged, farewell to historic buildings. Here we adapt the plan to fit within the space, or whatever, but that quickly eliminates the cost savings, as now each station or school is slightly unique. This also shows up in residential and other smaller projects. Look at the historic aerial photos of Levittown, NY and PA, which created the notion of the suburb: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=levitown&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=levitown&iax=images&ia=imag... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown The original landscape is completely eliminated, all original trees are gone, it's been scraped clean. Most developments near major cities are infill or replacement, and they adapt their plans to the site. There are still greenfield builds happening in exurban areas, but in existing metro areas, everything is bespoke.

roenxi 3y ago

> ... ie build 10 identical ... It seems unlikely that a cookie cutter design could just be emplaced in different areas without running into problems in the environmental reviews. Different local conditions would presumably require different local considerations. Projects can get shut down because Red Spotted Scuttlers are spotted in the local area. Or the local laws require different pollution controls. This is a facet of why I say "literally illegal" - I don't think your plan can be executed in a reliable sense while being legally on the straight and narrow path. Certainly not if activist groups start looking to take a project out by lawfare. It is a good idea, but to pull it off requires that nobody wants the project to fail. If someone goes looking it probably breaks rules.

troupo 3y ago
> Red Spotted Scuttlers are spotted in the local area. Has nothing to do with cookie cutter designs. > Or the local laws require different pollution controls. Has very little to do with cookie cutter designs. > I don't think your plan can be executed in a reliable sense while being legally on the straight and narrow path. Strange how literally everyone in the world can figure this out, but not the US.
- roenxi 3y ago
  > Has nothing to do with cookie cutter designs. If you can't build the design, then someone will have to design something else that can be built. If people aren't already using cookie cutter designs, there is a reason for that. The reason may be one that most people don't like, but it is still going to be there. And I am putting that the reason is probably going to be that the law probably does require consideration of site-specific factors. > Strange how literally everyone in the world can figure this out, but not the US. As mentioned, most of the world doesn't apply US standards and laws. And you're speaking a bit strongly. Most of the world doesn't figure infrastructure out. The median for project management and country-wide governance is dysfunctional failure across most of the globe. You can tell because most people are impoverished despite us having all the tools to sort that out for something like a century.

cduzz 3y ago

One step out from "repeat successful designs" perhaps is "use the same project planning team / infrastructure from one project to the next" ? A critical flaw in US infrastructure is that the infrastructure owners typically have no "large project" management skills -- the transit system is run at a "starvation level" that keeps the staffing at just barely enough to keep the system running and there's no spare resource to have some "enormous engineering project" project manager just sitting around just in case you want to run a big project. Instead these organizations hire an external project management organization that (usually) doesn't share incentives with the client organization. It's unsurprising that large infrastructure projects without proper oversight end up being run poorly.

mkesper 3y ago
From the article: VA: This lack of effective leadership from the public sector comes up over and over again in your discussions of American transit, both internally and in their relationships with other actors. They struggle at cooperating with other agencies — with the Department of Transportation, with the Department of Environmental Protection, with parks, with buildings, with the fire department. And they’re also quite inefficient at managing consultants because they don’t have enough technical in-house knowledge to really understand how to. AL: Exactly. So then they’ll hire a consultant to manage the consultants — it’s the most ridiculous thing.

cogman10 3y ago

Another thing they do is not a public/private build out. China owns the companies building the roads. It gets to set the price, design, wages, etc. The reason things are expensive in the US is privatization. It should be super obvious why. The contractors we hire are super incentivized to drag things out and bloat costs. They make more money by doing less. And since the gov is footing the bill, no harm no foul. It gets even worse when you take corruption into account. Because now the mayor can get nice kickbacks for awarding contracts to their drinking buddies who also are mysteriously campaign donors. Not saying corruption doesn't happen in china, it does, but not generally for infrastructure things. Instead, it's the drinking buddies being put in charge of the projects. One of the dumbest parts of Reaganomics was removing the public ability to maintain public infrastructure.