4 ms·

Why would a new city preclude maintaining our existing ones? I don't necessarily disagree about building new cities, but I don't understand how that would solv

Why would a new city preclude maintaining our existing ones? I don't necessarily disagree about building new cities, but I don't understand how that would solve the problem here: NYC is still the financial and entertainment capital of the world, and it's not like we can just let it decay. People live and stay here for a reason.

maxwell 2y ago
What if the infrastructure is (economically) unmaintainable? Ancient Rome had a million people at the turn of the 1st century and was the financial and entertainment capital of the world too. People lived and stayed there too, until they didn't. How many steam systems are left in the U.S. (outside college campuses)?
- woodruffw 2y ago
  I don't think comparing Ancient Rome with NYC makes for a serious comparison, except in the broadest strokes. As for the steam system: it's an integral part of Manhattan's residential and commercial heating system. My understanding is that it pays for itself in charges to apartment buildings and businesses (including hospitals as mentioned), so there's no current question around its financial sustainability.
  - maxwell 2y ago
    Comparing cities doesn't makes for a serious comparison...? It sounds like the steam system is important because it's important? Do you have any numbers beyond idioms and anecdotes? At what point in the maintenance curve will the steam system become unprofitable? And to be clear, I love the NYC steam system, but for romantic reasons, not economic.
    - woodruffw 2y ago
      > Comparing cities doesn't makes for a serious comparison...? No; comparing antiquity Rome (a city whose collapse is a subject of ongoing historical debate) to NYC (a city that was built 2600 years later) does not make for a serious comparison. Better comparisons would be present-day Tokyo, London, Moscow, Paris, etc. These cities have similar infrastructural problems that they've been able to solve in ways that NYC hasn't, sometimes for political or historical reasons (e.g. being bombed so thoroughly that building new infrastructure is the only reasonable option). > And to be clear, I love the NYC steam system, but for romantic reasons, not economic. I don't love it, or hate it. I recognize that it's a piece of infrastructure, and that infrastructure comes with assumptions. You can either pay to maintain those assumptions, or pay to upend them. Either way, you pay. With NYC paying to maintain them is frequently optimal, since upending them requires revisiting other, even more costly assumptions. For NYC's steam system, concretely: there's been no real public noise from ConEd about the system's unmaintainability or unsustainability. They recently agreed to a new rate/fee schedule with the state PSC[1], on which I can find no significant controversial reporting. Edit: to make it more clear: ConEd's steam network provides heating and industrial steam to around 1500 buildings in Manhattan. That's 1500 buildings, most of which are near or over a century old, that would need to have steam boilers retrofitted into their basements (or have their entire steam plumbing ripped out and replaced with something else). That's a lot of time and money in already one of the world's most expensive labor markets. [1]: https://dps.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2023/11/pr23116.pdf https://dps.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2023/11/pr23116.pd...
      - maxwell 2y ago
        > a serious comparison. Sounds like what an ancient Greek might've said if you suggested comparing contemporary Athens with ancient Thebes. I don't see why not. You can certainly compare, say, square pyramids with equal sides, be it the Great Pyramid built around the 2600s BCE, or the smaller Luxor pyramid in Vegas and that scar on the face of Paris built 4500 years later. It's only been a few thousand years, what's really changed that much? The Romans didn't quite get to an urban steam system, it's true, but they were quite close with the hypocaust (central heating), Aeolipile (Hero's steam engine), and Cloaca Maxima (sewer system). > Better comparisons would be present-day Tokyo, London, Moscow, Paris, etc. Of those it looks like only Paris has a steam system. Do any other major cities (still) have steam systems? Have there been any new recent installs outside college campuses? I don't think so. It's a legacy technology, and legacy technologies are such mostly due to cost. Old infrastructure generally gets more expensive, until it becomes unsustainable. But people expect continuity and push back against changes that compromise the perceived identity of the place (like steam in Manhattan), hence most historical cities are no longer around at all.
        woodruffw 2y ago
        I can assure you, as a life long New Yorker, that most of us do not have an especially strong identity connection to the steam system. Most people don't even know about it, besides the steam cones. Again, the point is economical: the cost of a technology is not defined solely by its age, but by the cost of replacing it with the newer thing. For Manhattan, the cost of replacing the steam network would be immense, with marginal-to-net-negative consequences (larger demands on the city's electrical grid, higher emissions, waste of steam from local cogeneration plants, additional local emissions from per-building boilers). This doesn't mean that district steam is shiny, new, or particularly good technology (and it doesn't mean the opposite, either). It just means it isn't worth replacing, and probably won't be for a while. (By all means, if you want to run on the "kill the steam network" ticket, I'm sure someone will vote for you. But I think that money would be better spent finishing the SAS, IBX, and building some more crosstown lines in Brooklyn and Queens instead.) [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ
  - senkora 2y ago
    Just to add to this: NYC generates a lot of its electricity from natural gas power plants, which produce both electricity and waste heat. The steam system captures the waste heat and puts it to good use. As a result, the steam system is extremely efficient.
scrubs 2y ago
Can we please drop the sappy self promotion of "financial and entertainment capital of the world" and get real i.e. the old but good side of American empiricism? Thanks. Articles mentioning the plain incompetence of America's civil engineering projects always hit me hard. It's so bad. You'd think with the number of MBAs we graduate or time we'd get our act together. But no. The Gothamist article runs the same old story trajectory here: a bad example, then drilling a bit closer to root cause, then pointing people know the current situation sucks and why, ending with a time will tell or variation on same. It's underwhelming. Another example: 108th street in queens has been ripped up, some plumbing or electrical work done, then repaved about once every 1-3 months for the last 10 years. I also fairly familiar with nyc subways and how it's run day to day. It's embarrassing ... it's 10 parallel universes from European standards. Escalators are slow, and down a lot. More money is spent I feel sure telling you what isn't working, and what all the schedule changes are, than what the normal schedule is. This is a 6 train running on the 4 line ... this is a F train running on the E line ... is often heard. Then there's moms -- what I call them -- ladies usually on bullhorns telling you how to get off the subway and which escalator to use. That's their job: yack into a bull horn and tell you the stunning obvious. Another unsightly subway aspect: temporary closures of platforms. Some moron uses plastic tape in the most unsightly way to cordon off access ... it's straight out of a slum. A temporary gate, or better yet, using electronic signage to redirect people would be better and a damn sight look better.
- woodruffw 2y ago
  It wasn't intended as a promotion, more of a "we can't drop everything and start a new city; there's a lot of stuff here." I don't think we disagree materially about the city's general lack of coordination (or demonstrated incompetence) with respect to construction. But the example in the article is a pretty bad example, all things considered. (I'll note, however, that the comparison between NYC and European metro areas is typically faulty, for reasons that you probably already know: the Subway runs 24/7, is pathetically underfunded relative to its size, and hasn't benefited - perversely - from a reconstruction period following a global war. European metros tend to have all of these things going for them, in addition to better and less incompetent governance.)

maxwell 2y ago

What if the infrastructure is (economically) unmaintainable? Ancient Rome had a million people at the turn of the 1st century and was the financial and entertainment capital of the world too. People lived and stayed there too, until they didn't. How many steam systems are left in the U.S. (outside college campuses)?

woodruffw 2y ago
I don't think comparing Ancient Rome with NYC makes for a serious comparison, except in the broadest strokes. As for the steam system: it's an integral part of Manhattan's residential and commercial heating system. My understanding is that it pays for itself in charges to apartment buildings and businesses (including hospitals as mentioned), so there's no current question around its financial sustainability.
- maxwell 2y ago
  Comparing cities doesn't makes for a serious comparison...? It sounds like the steam system is important because it's important? Do you have any numbers beyond idioms and anecdotes? At what point in the maintenance curve will the steam system become unprofitable? And to be clear, I love the NYC steam system, but for romantic reasons, not economic.
  - woodruffw 2y ago
    > Comparing cities doesn't makes for a serious comparison...? No; comparing antiquity Rome (a city whose collapse is a subject of ongoing historical debate) to NYC (a city that was built 2600 years later) does not make for a serious comparison. Better comparisons would be present-day Tokyo, London, Moscow, Paris, etc. These cities have similar infrastructural problems that they've been able to solve in ways that NYC hasn't, sometimes for political or historical reasons (e.g. being bombed so thoroughly that building new infrastructure is the only reasonable option). > And to be clear, I love the NYC steam system, but for romantic reasons, not economic. I don't love it, or hate it. I recognize that it's a piece of infrastructure, and that infrastructure comes with assumptions. You can either pay to maintain those assumptions, or pay to upend them. Either way, you pay. With NYC paying to maintain them is frequently optimal, since upending them requires revisiting other, even more costly assumptions. For NYC's steam system, concretely: there's been no real public noise from ConEd about the system's unmaintainability or unsustainability. They recently agreed to a new rate/fee schedule with the state PSC[1], on which I can find no significant controversial reporting. Edit: to make it more clear: ConEd's steam network provides heating and industrial steam to around 1500 buildings in Manhattan. That's 1500 buildings, most of which are near or over a century old, that would need to have steam boilers retrofitted into their basements (or have their entire steam plumbing ripped out and replaced with something else). That's a lot of time and money in already one of the world's most expensive labor markets. [1]: https://dps.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2023/11/pr23116.pdf https://dps.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2023/11/pr23116.pd...
    - maxwell 2y ago
      > a serious comparison. Sounds like what an ancient Greek might've said if you suggested comparing contemporary Athens with ancient Thebes. I don't see why not. You can certainly compare, say, square pyramids with equal sides, be it the Great Pyramid built around the 2600s BCE, or the smaller Luxor pyramid in Vegas and that scar on the face of Paris built 4500 years later. It's only been a few thousand years, what's really changed that much? The Romans didn't quite get to an urban steam system, it's true, but they were quite close with the hypocaust (central heating), Aeolipile (Hero's steam engine), and Cloaca Maxima (sewer system). > Better comparisons would be present-day Tokyo, London, Moscow, Paris, etc. Of those it looks like only Paris has a steam system. Do any other major cities (still) have steam systems? Have there been any new recent installs outside college campuses? I don't think so. It's a legacy technology, and legacy technologies are such mostly due to cost. Old infrastructure generally gets more expensive, until it becomes unsustainable. But people expect continuity and push back against changes that compromise the perceived identity of the place (like steam in Manhattan), hence most historical cities are no longer around at all.
      - woodruffw 2y ago
        I can assure you, as a life long New Yorker, that most of us do not have an especially strong identity connection to the steam system. Most people don't even know about it, besides the steam cones. Again, the point is economical: the cost of a technology is not defined solely by its age, but by the cost of replacing it with the newer thing. For Manhattan, the cost of replacing the steam network would be immense, with marginal-to-net-negative consequences (larger demands on the city's electrical grid, higher emissions, waste of steam from local cogeneration plants, additional local emissions from per-building boilers). This doesn't mean that district steam is shiny, new, or particularly good technology (and it doesn't mean the opposite, either). It just means it isn't worth replacing, and probably won't be for a while. (By all means, if you want to run on the "kill the steam network" ticket, I'm sure someone will vote for you. But I think that money would be better spent finishing the SAS, IBX, and building some more crosstown lines in Brooklyn and Queens instead.) [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ
- senkora 2y ago
  Just to add to this: NYC generates a lot of its electricity from natural gas power plants, which produce both electricity and waste heat. The steam system captures the waste heat and puts it to good use. As a result, the steam system is extremely efficient.

scrubs 2y ago

Can we please drop the sappy self promotion of "financial and entertainment capital of the world" and get real i.e. the old but good side of American empiricism? Thanks. Articles mentioning the plain incompetence of America's civil engineering projects always hit me hard. It's so bad. You'd think with the number of MBAs we graduate or time we'd get our act together. But no. The Gothamist article runs the same old story trajectory here: a bad example, then drilling a bit closer to root cause, then pointing people know the current situation sucks and why, ending with a time will tell or variation on same. It's underwhelming. Another example: 108th street in queens has been ripped up, some plumbing or electrical work done, then repaved about once every 1-3 months for the last 10 years. I also fairly familiar with nyc subways and how it's run day to day. It's embarrassing ... it's 10 parallel universes from European standards. Escalators are slow, and down a lot. More money is spent I feel sure telling you what isn't working, and what all the schedule changes are, than what the normal schedule is. This is a 6 train running on the 4 line ... this is a F train running on the E line ... is often heard. Then there's moms -- what I call them -- ladies usually on bullhorns telling you how to get off the subway and which escalator to use. That's their job: yack into a bull horn and tell you the stunning obvious. Another unsightly subway aspect: temporary closures of platforms. Some moron uses plastic tape in the most unsightly way to cordon off access ... it's straight out of a slum. A temporary gate, or better yet, using electronic signage to redirect people would be better and a damn sight look better.

woodruffw 2y ago
It wasn't intended as a promotion, more of a "we can't drop everything and start a new city; there's a lot of stuff here." I don't think we disagree materially about the city's general lack of coordination (or demonstrated incompetence) with respect to construction. But the example in the article is a pretty bad example, all things considered. (I'll note, however, that the comparison between NYC and European metro areas is typically faulty, for reasons that you probably already know: the Subway runs 24/7, is pathetically underfunded relative to its size, and hasn't benefited - perversely - from a reconstruction period following a global war. European metros tend to have all of these things going for them, in addition to better and less incompetent governance.)