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Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

nytimes.com

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Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#11

Post by maxerickson »

nlperguiy wrote: post #3

There are limits to growth. The infrastructure bubble is cracking. No one was there to think through the long term investment in infrastructure. The prices have skyrocketed due to regulation and now the government can't pay for all that regulated work. Similar thing will happen in EU. Pipes are failing all across the western world.

Our ability to produce material goods (even in the supposedly hollowed out US manufacturing sector) really is greater than at any time in history. We aren't crashing into any growth limit when it comes to infrastructure.

The problem is that taxes have been cut and costs like pensions have gone up (both in absolute terms from things like favorable contracts and life expectancy and in relative terms because of the tax cuts).

Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#12

Post by maxerickson »

nayuki wrote: post #4

The two NSF logos, National Sanitation Foundation ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSF_International ) and National Science Foundation, sure look similar.

It's just "NSF International", the name is a tip of the hat to the old name rather than an acronym.

Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#13

Post by rocqua »

bradgessler wrote: post #5
nlperguiy wrote: post #3

There are limits to growth. The infrastructure bubble is cracking. No one was there to think through the long term investment in infrastructure. The prices have skyrocketed due to regulation and now the government can't pay for all that regulated work. Similar thing will happen in EU. Pipes are failing all across the western world.

The prices have skyrocketed due to regulation and now the government can't pay for all that regulated work. This would be really interesting to understand in more detail. Does anybody know if attempts have been made at quantifying these costs specifically for infrastructure?

Strong towns has a whole section dedicated to this issue [0]. Sadly I couldn't find a decent summary. I think this article of the site [1] is the closest thing.

[0] https://www.strongtowns.org/infrastructure/

[1] https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/

Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#14

Post by pja »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #8
wmf wrote: post #2

More sobering is the fact that there probably will never be enough tax money to pay for new pipes anyway: https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/

I read some of the articles on that site, such as the case study linked below. There are some interesting points and ideas there, but I'm not sure the methodology by which they argue that wealth is being destroyed is sound. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2009/3/30/the-cost-of-de... In particular, the analysis considers whether the cost of a road along some properties will be repaid by tax on those properties. Ho…

Given that your counter-argument is a trivially obvious one, a little further thought would have led to the conclusion that the StrongTowns bloggers might have thought of it too.

Since you just read until you thought of an objection to their thesis & then stopped, you failed to find the articles where they do the lifetime cost analysis over a whole town (i.e., both "suburban" and "business" districts) and find that this pattern of development means that the profits from the high tax business districts fail to make up for the costs from exurban / US style suburban development.

Have a trawl through the Best-Of lists. In particular: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/12/8/the-real-reaso... stands out.

Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#15

Post by Spooky23 »

Many of these stories are ginned up a bit, as they are PR for civil engineer societies.

My wife worked for a water utility in an old city. Outside her bosses office was a lined wooden pipe that had been in place since 1680 or so, and was removed during a construction project.

Unless the pipes are riveted, they have a surprisingly long service life, and techniques exist to spot at risk pipes and even make some repairs without digging.

Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#16

Post by bob_theslob646 »

maxerickson wrote: post #11
nlperguiy wrote: post #3

There are limits to growth. The infrastructure bubble is cracking. No one was there to think through the long term investment in infrastructure. The prices have skyrocketed due to regulation and now the government can't pay for all that regulated work. Similar thing will happen in EU. Pipes are failing all across the western world.

Our ability to produce material goods (even in the supposedly hollowed out US manufacturing sector) really is greater than at any time in history. We aren't crashing into any growth limit when it comes to infrastructure. The problem is that taxes have been cut and costs like pensions have gone up (both in absolute terms from things like favorable contracts and life expectancy and in relative terms because of the tax…

>Our ability to produce material goods (even in the supposedly hollowed out US manufacturing sector) really is greater than at any time in history

Can you provide a source ?

The only thing I could find is this

>The Institute for Supply Management said Friday that its manufacturing index slipped to 58.2 last month from 58.7 in October. Anything above 50 signals that U.S. factories are expanding. American manufacturing is on a 15-month winning streak.

Nothing on it being the greatest time in history, I believe that was during and after the 2nd world war, but I could be wrong.

Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#17

Post by maxerickson »

bob_theslob646 wrote: post #16
maxerickson wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our ability to produce material goods (even in the supposedly hollowed out US manufacturing sector) really is greater than at any time in history. We aren't crashing into any growth limit when it comes to infrastructure. The problem is that taxes have been cut and costs like pensions have gone up (both in absolute terms from things like favorable contracts and life expectancy and in relative terms because of the tax…

>Our ability to produce material goods (even in the supposedly hollowed out US manufacturing sector) really is greater than at any time in history Can you provide a source ? The only thing I could find is this >The Institute for Supply Management said Friday that its manufacturing index slipped to 58.2 last month from 58.7 in October. Anything above 50 signals that U.S. factories are expanding. American manufacturing…

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-manufacturing-dead-outp...

Search "us manufacturing output history" if that isn't sufficient.

It makes plenty of sense, even if the postwar era was a boom, the US population is much larger and external markets are much larger and richer.

Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#18

Post by nlperguiy »

maxerickson wrote: post #11
nlperguiy wrote: post #3

There are limits to growth. The infrastructure bubble is cracking. No one was there to think through the long term investment in infrastructure. The prices have skyrocketed due to regulation and now the government can't pay for all that regulated work. Similar thing will happen in EU. Pipes are failing all across the western world.

Our ability to produce material goods (even in the supposedly hollowed out US manufacturing sector) really is greater than at any time in history. We aren't crashing into any growth limit when it comes to infrastructure. The problem is that taxes have been cut and costs like pensions have gone up (both in absolute terms from things like favorable contracts and life expectancy and in relative terms because of the tax…

Yet still, bridges, roads, piping cost more to build than ever before.

Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#19

Post by wernercd »

amelius wrote: post #9

While we're at it, can we put some extra fiber optic cables in the ground, and this time let the government own all of it?

Because the government should be trusted with that infrastructure/information and they won't become a bloated, red-tape laden mess?

I think the majority of people agrees there needs to be changes in things... but putting "government" in charge of the backbone of the internet? Would definitely not a change for the better.

Personally... I think there should be one of two rules: Companies can't own content AND infrastructure (IE: Comcast)... or a higher cost (taxes? fees?) for companies that do and/or don't have reasonable competition.

Re: Fighting to Replace America’s Water Pipes

#20

Post by chrisper »

wernercd wrote: post #19
amelius wrote: post #9

While we're at it, can we put some extra fiber optic cables in the ground, and this time let the government own all of it?

Because the government should be trusted with that infrastructure/information and they won't become a bloated, red-tape laden mess? I think the majority of people agrees there needs to be changes in things... but putting "government" in charge of the backbone of the internet? Would definitely not a change for the better. Personally... I think there should be one of two rules: Companies can't own content AND infrastru…

Here in Switzerland the fiber is owned by the regional utility company (power company for example). I think by law they have to allow every ISP to use it.

Now everyone (or almost everyone) in Switzerland can have fiber internet with gbit up and down.

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