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Housing construction quality is generally poor in the USA and Canada. xUSSR countries (Russia, Estonia, etc ) have harsher climate and yet concrete building the

• woodruffw 1y ago
  New York’s climate is pretty harsh: you have annual freeze/thaw cycles, lots of rain and ice, plus high winds and an annual hurricane season. The problem here is not a general one with urban building quality in the US, but the fact that this specific piece is a part of a many-headed scam: the developers themselves built it quickly and cheaply because they knew that their clients are using it as a (foreign) asset, and not as a living space. The tenants in turn are doing exactly that, and they knew exactly what they were getting into; the reason they’re suing is to protect the value of their asset for the next sucker. Normal buildings in the US, including new builds, do not have this particular dynamic.
  • jcranmer 1y ago
    > New York’s climate is pretty harsh: you have annual freeze/thaw cycles, lots of rain and ice, plus high winds and an annual hurricane season. In terms of freeze/thaw cycles, it's not really about having annual cycles that makes a climate harsh, but rather having persistent daily cycles. A climate where the winter daily high sits comfortably above freezing and the winter daily low sits comfortably below freezing is going to be much harsher on buildings than one where the weather goes below freezing in fall and stays below freezing all winter--you're seeing like 10× the freeze/thaw cycles per year. Between climate change and urban heat island effect, Manhattan is probably moving into the winter-daily-freeze/thaw-cycle climate zone.