The fact that taiwan is much poorer also means that the labor cost for construction is much lower
Taiwan imports construction workers from much poorer Southeast Asian countries. http://www.cedaw.org.tw/en/upload/media/Capacity%20Building/...
Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?
11–20 of 156 posts
Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?
#12As an outsider from Europe: what I see that americans hate any publicly funded projects. "If it doesn't benefit me why should I pay taxes for that?" See the whole healthcare system. "I'm healthy, never sick why should I pay the cancer treatment of those who are obese and smoke all the time?" That's totally different in Europe. Not just in the nordic countries but generally everywhere. So the same applies for public transport and such as well. Also add on the top of that the lowest gas prices in the western world https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/
Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?
#13California is terrible at managing infrastructure projects.
The question is why? Why are some government entities better at managing large infrastructure projects than other?
The people managing these projects are often hired based on political connections, not expertise. And cost overruns usually lead to higher profits, so there is little incentive to keep costs down.
Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?
#14California is terrible at managing infrastructure projects.
It's not just California, it's every state and every city in the US. People have an aversion to public works projects often crying about taxes or how the service is useless or not good enough. We have a political system where one major party (out of two) decries any public spending that might help people who aren't millionaires/billionaires/corporations. Is it any wonder when you have evil groups of people spending h…
> We have a political system where one major party (out of two) decries any public spending that might help people who aren't millionaires/billionaires/corporations.
Wasn’t it Newsom who canceled the project? Most high ranking Democrats are certainly rich from things like “energy” and “weapons” via k street and international analogues. We are bipartisan in our corruption and failure to build infrastructure.
Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?
#15As an outsider from Europe: what I see that americans hate any publicly funded projects. "If it doesn't benefit me why should I pay taxes for that?" See the whole healthcare system. "I'm healthy, never sick why should I pay the cancer treatment of those who are obese and smoke all the time?" That's totally different in Europe. Not just in the nordic countries but generally everywhere. So the same applies for public t…
Californians voted for the high speed rail project in a ballot initiative.
Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?
#16Is it just me, or is it a bit arrogant to assume that because X can do something, why can't Y do it?
Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?
#17[deleted]
Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
The question is why? Why are some government entities better at managing large infrastructure projects than other?
I'd say in the US at least it's hard for a politician to devote money toward a multi-year program that their constituents won't see the benefit of for quite some time (or in the case of upkeep and maintenance, at all). The politician isn't looking to do what's right, they're looking to get reelected.
Why are politicians in other countries able to accomplish this while those in the US can't? Are American politicians just lower quality than those in other countries? Or is that their constituents are more prone to short-term thinking than their counterparts elsewhere?
Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
The question is why? Why are some government entities better at managing large infrastructure projects than other?
The people managing these projects are often hired based on political connections, not expertise. And cost overruns usually lead to higher profits, so there is little incentive to keep costs down.
Is this a problem unique to the US? Or is it just worse in the US than in Taiwan?
Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?
#20For an article with quite a few numbers, it seems to be missing some basic ones:
* Taiwan, area 36,197 km^2, population density 651 / km^2 [1]
* California, area 403,932 km^2, population density 97 / km^2 [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Taiwan
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories...