4 ms·

"After a tower project gets FCC approval, it takes about a year to complete. While the KVLY tower cost $50,000 to build in 1963, a typical 2,000-foot tower toda

"After a tower project gets FCC approval, it takes about a year to complete. While the KVLY tower cost $50,000 to build in 1963, a typical 2,000-foot tower today costs about $3 million." I'd love to see the full breakdown as to why exactly. That seems grossly unnecessary. Wolfram says $50,000 in 1963 dollars is $393,000 in 2015 dollars. So there's an almost 10x increase on top of inflation. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%2450000+in+1963+dollars http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%2450000+in+1963+dollar...

enraged_camel 12y ago
Might be due to improvements in architecture, engineering, materials science, and so on. Modern skyscrapers are a lot more sophisticated (not to mention durable) than their 1960s counterparts.
- saalweachter 12y ago
  The article mentioned a couple of towers falling down. it might no longer be acceptable - either to investor or regulators - and so the extra money on materials and design would explain it.
meric 12y ago
The price of technological goods such as TVs and computers have been going down constantly, and this means inflation of non-technological goods will be higher than the official inflation rate. The price of gold is around $1150 in 2015, and $35 in 1960, a 32 times increase. The price of a KVLY tower increased 60 fold from $50,000 to $3m. Compared this way, 60x vs 32x is much less extreme.
- forrestthewoods 12y ago
  I like your line of thinking, but gold seems like a really poor point of comparison. I tried to find inflation adjusted prices over time for things such as energy and steel and had difficulty. There's lots of easy data on oil but anything else is tricky. Hrm..
  - meric 12y ago
    You can compare other goods like college education, property, medical care besides precious metals. Things that take a lot of skill and labor, and where technology have little to no downwards pressure on the price.
spc476 12y ago
I use this site: http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/ http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/ when trying to calculate inflation adjusted prices, as it gives results using different methods. So, this page gives the adjusted price between $300,000 and $1.5 million.

enraged_camel 12y ago

Might be due to improvements in architecture, engineering, materials science, and so on. Modern skyscrapers are a lot more sophisticated (not to mention durable) than their 1960s counterparts.

saalweachter 12y ago
The article mentioned a couple of towers falling down. it might no longer be acceptable - either to investor or regulators - and so the extra money on materials and design would explain it.

meric 12y ago

The price of technological goods such as TVs and computers have been going down constantly, and this means inflation of non-technological goods will be higher than the official inflation rate. The price of gold is around $1150 in 2015, and $35 in 1960, a 32 times increase. The price of a KVLY tower increased 60 fold from $50,000 to $3m. Compared this way, 60x vs 32x is much less extreme.

forrestthewoods 12y ago
I like your line of thinking, but gold seems like a really poor point of comparison. I tried to find inflation adjusted prices over time for things such as energy and steel and had difficulty. There's lots of easy data on oil but anything else is tricky. Hrm..
- meric 12y ago
  You can compare other goods like college education, property, medical care besides precious metals. Things that take a lot of skill and labor, and where technology have little to no downwards pressure on the price.

spc476 12y ago

I use this site: http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/ http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/ when trying to calculate inflation adjusted prices, as it gives results using different methods. So, this page gives the adjusted price between $300,000 and $1.5 million.