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When did New York start building slowly?

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Re: When did New York start building slowly?

#151

Post by thejackgoode »

nicbou wrote: post #128
Arainach wrote: post #6

Speed is affected by process, and process evolves in reaction to abuse. In the beginning, it's quick to do everything, but as people take advantage - routing contracts to friends, taking safety shortcuts - rules get put into place and those rules affect the time to complete. For New York specifically there's another factor that it's strange the article omitted: Robert Moses. Prior to the mid-1960s, it was fairly simp…

This reminds me of what Dan Carlin called "rolling the monarchy dice" in his Hardcore History podcast. If you get a good dictator, things get done with little friction, because the power rests on a single person's shoulders. But if you get a bad one, you're stuck with it. Democracy might be slower and less inefficient, but it's reliably slower and less efficient.

If you ever played Europa Universalis, you know this. Trying to get the stupid prince killed in battle before his reign is a chore.

Re: When did New York start building slowly?

#152

Post by WeylandYutani »

eru wrote: post #147
Awelton wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the delivery part. There is no room to stage anything on the site, so the mad 24/7 logistics nightmare has to happen during the entire construction process. There are 2 million more people in NYC now than there was in the old highrise heyday and that doesn't count commuters. That's a lot more traffic to have to negotiate. Not being able to physically deliver enough materials during the construction phase is an…

How do Asian cities manage all those factors?

Asian cities are new.

An example from the Netherlands: you have Amsterdam which is 500 years old. It's an infrastructure nightmare. And there is Rotterdam which was conveniently carpet bombed by the Germans in WW2.

Guess which city got a subway first?

Re: When did New York start building slowly?

#153

Post by quickthrower2 »

cyberax wrote: post #53
dnissley wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you advocating for sprawl?

Absolutely. Sprawl (with some small adjustments) is the best way to structure cities. It's also the only workable way to provide affordable housing.

Sprawl with competing “centres” I think is fine. Sprawl where everyone is trying to get to the centre for work and play not so much. London has good sprawl IMO. I doubt it affects affordable housing. Although it may make houses more affordable vs. appartments.

Re: When did New York start building slowly?

#154

Post by rayiner »

bonzini wrote: post #122
pchristensen wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically all of them, and at 1/2 to 1/10 of the cost. Spain, Italy, the Nordic countries, and Turkey are all much more efficient at building infrastructure than the US. Alon Levy is the most accessible source for this kind of cross-national comparision. https://transitcosts.com/ and https://pedestrianobservations.com/2023/03/03/we-gave-a-talk... is a good place to start.

Wow it takes effort to be slower than Italy. :) There are some infamous cases here of highways taking decades to complete (and also some positive experiences such as an awesome high speed rail network). I think it depends heavily on which infrastructure you're talking about though and what parts of the project you're considering. Some countries may be faster at obtaining permits and/or finding the money, and others m…

Yeah, we are much worse than Italy. There is basically no example of a major transit project in the US being done fast and on budget in the last couple of decades. Here in Maryland we are almost 5 years behind schedule building a light rail line through some suburbs: https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2023/01/19/pur.... For the same money, and in far less time, Copenhagen built an entire fully automated subway under the city.

Re: When did New York start building slowly?

#155

Post by rajamaka »

wongarsu wrote: post #150
nicbou wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of what Dan Carlin called "rolling the monarchy dice" in his Hardcore History podcast. If you get a good dictator, things get done with little friction, because the power rests on a single person's shoulders. But if you get a bad one, you're stuck with it. Democracy might be slower and less inefficient, but it's reliably slower and less efficient.

Interestingly, in situations where a bad roll of the monarchy dice isn't a big deal because people can just leave, dictatorship tends to become the preferred form of government. See for example open source projects with their BDFL; if you have a bad BDFL the project gets forked with new leadership. Another example are small to medium sized businesses, where customers and employees can just go elsewhere if the CEO tur…

Could you explain what you mean by "people can just leave". Because this isn't really a realistic option for a majority of people.

Re: When did New York start building slowly?

#156

Post by notahacker »

winter_blue wrote: post #51
throwaway2037 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bite. He is probably talking about Hongkong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, China. They all build infra much faster than the US. If we move south, then Malaysia and Singapore also build very fast. For Europe, France builds much faster than the US, but it is more centralised.

What's their secret? How do they keep their standards up, but still build so fast, and so cheap (compared to the US)? It would be amazing if someone could research this, and publish a paper on exactly what reforms the United States needs to make†. † to get to the same speed/quality/cost-efficiency as these countries

Singapore has relatively efficient bureaucracy and few private landowners with few rights to challenge projects, but it also has low wage migrant workers from India working all night on them.

Re: When did New York start building slowly?

#157

Post by Retric »

rayiner wrote: post #154
bonzini wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow it takes effort to be slower than Italy. :) There are some infamous cases here of highways taking decades to complete (and also some positive experiences such as an awesome high speed rail network). I think it depends heavily on which infrastructure you're talking about though and what parts of the project you're considering. Some countries may be faster at obtaining permits and/or finding the money, and others m…

Yeah, we are much worse than Italy. There is basically no example of a major transit project in the US being done fast and on budget in the last couple of decades. Here in Maryland we are almost 5 years behind schedule building a light rail line through some suburbs: https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2023/01/19/pur... . For the same money, and in far less time, Copenhagen built an entire fully automated s…

Copenhagen is in Denmark how does that say anything about Italy?

Anyway, European countries have plenty of boondoggles. Germany’s Berlin Brandenburg Airport was a 30 year project requiring multiple legal battles etc. construction took 11 years where the initial €2.83 billion budget over ran to €6.5 billion due to massive design flaws, construction issues, poor management, multiple lawsuits etc.

Asia has similar issues, China for example does plenty of big infrastructure projects because its infrastructure is so behind, but it’s projects have massive issues. The Three Gorges Dam for example ballooned from $8.35 billion to $37 billion.

Re: When did New York start building slowly?

#158

Post by dolmen »

pchristensen wrote: post #77
esperent wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> European and East Asian You just basically named two continents and said they build faster than the US and you're accusing someone else of simplistic takes? Which European country builds infrastructure faster than the US?

Basically all of them, and at 1/2 to 1/10 of the cost. Spain, Italy, the Nordic countries, and Turkey are all much more efficient at building infrastructure than the US. Alon Levy is the most accessible source for this kind of cross-national comparision. https://transitcosts.com/ and https://pedestrianobservations.com/2023/03/03/we-gave-a-talk... is a good place to start.

Italy is also famous at destroying infrastructure quickly: Genoa bridge.

Re: When did New York start building slowly?

#159

Post by andreareina »

rajamaka wrote: post #155
wongarsu wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, in situations where a bad roll of the monarchy dice isn't a big deal because people can just leave, dictatorship tends to become the preferred form of government. See for example open source projects with their BDFL; if you have a bad BDFL the project gets forked with new leadership. Another example are small to medium sized businesses, where customers and employees can just go elsewhere if the CEO tur…

Could you explain what you mean by "people can just leave". Because this isn't really a realistic option for a majority of people.

When people can just leave (small businesses etc) dictatorship isn't a big deal. No-one's claiming that people can just leave their country.

Re: When did New York start building slowly?

#160

Post by acdha »

Retric wrote: post #157
rayiner wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, we are much worse than Italy. There is basically no example of a major transit project in the US being done fast and on budget in the last couple of decades. Here in Maryland we are almost 5 years behind schedule building a light rail line through some suburbs: https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2023/01/19/pur... . For the same money, and in far less time, Copenhagen built an entire fully automated s…

Copenhagen is in Denmark how does that say anything about Italy? Anyway, European countries have plenty of boondoggles. Germany’s Berlin Brandenburg Airport was a 30 year project requiring multiple legal battles etc. construction took 11 years where the initial €2.83 billion budget over ran to €6.5 billion due to massive design flaws, construction issues, poor management, multiple lawsuits etc. Asia has similar issue…

I’m pretty sure he’s aware of which country Copenhagen is in but was simply pointing out as an example a much harder large, complex project in a dense urban environment built in far less time.

The key thing to understand is that while other countries have some boondoggles, the United States does almost nothing else despite spending massive amounts of money. The Purple Line mentioned was ostensibly going to be cheaper due to a public-private partnership but that ended in delays and greater costs as those almost always do, and the same was true of a highway expansion Maryland was trying to do with an Australian partner, and just about every other major American road, rail, bridge, bus station, etc. project is similar. Even our bike lanes take ages to build for the relatively small amount of work.

I agree with the theory that much of this is due to hollowing out the civil service as a “cost savings” measure – these projects sound like what I’ve seen at large organizations where they want a software project without hiring developers so they bring in one consulting company to do the work, and after the first round of failures, a second to oversee the first. Even if everyone is actually acting in good faith it’s just inefficient when you have multiple parties and difficulties sharing or acting on institutional knowledge.

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