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Comment by product50 | Hacker News Reader

In other news, in San Francisco, the NIMBYs won an agitation to prevent a 4 school building from being constructed.

I am kidding..maybe.

In all honestly, I think the time for US to create large scale construction projects that serve humanity (at the expense of environment) are over. We are lucky that the interstates got build in 1950s, that the NYC Subway was formed in late 19th century etc. Today, the regulations and outrage is so strong that none of these would have been possible.

It is good to see other countries such as China being on the cutting edge to see what is possible.

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I see your point, but I think we have done enough at the expense of the environment. A little more forethought in that area is welcome at least.

Some wild ambitious construction in favour of the environment and humanity would be excellent. But we seem suddenly frugal when that comes up.

It's of course more nuanced than I am about to make it seem, but that world governments are not chomping at the bit to install as much solar as possible is telling. The price is right, but the incumbents are hard to motivate, and for some reason generation of one of our most important, most volatile and most polluting resources is a private market concern.

Not an engineer but, if your infrastructure is that old first of all I'd focus on maintenance, rather than having dick measuring contests with countries that have questionable attitudes towards pollution, safety and nature.

The condition of the roads and infrastructure in a large part of the US is very, very bad when compared to countries like the Netherlands. It’s like the US is a superpower with third world infrastructure.

Maintenance of old infrastructure in large projects is difficult and budget for this purpose is hard to justify, while building new things gets harder due to (self imposed) new regulations and higher costs (outsourcing might be cheaper, but always has some risks...).

I don't know, sounds very familiar :)

While I agree with you 101% I think that politics play a huge factor on this: no administration wants to do its homeworks, only for the next one to profit from the shiny new infrastructure.

I believe this is a stronger factor in countries that have a maximum amount of mandates per administration.

I’ll float an idea that will cost me karma: you could raise taxes.

As someone who has traveled to many third world countries in SE Asia and South America I can confidently say that the US does not have third world infrastructure. Most claims of this are frequently done by somebody pushing some kind of narrative

I agree it’s a bit hyperbolic, but as I said, the US definately has very bad infrastructure in a large part while the other parts have good or very good infrastructure. On average experts rate it with a “D”

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/state-us-infrastructure

Not only old but also not enough. In areas that population have grown a lot in the past few decades, it makes a lot of sense to build new infrastructure to keep up with the demand

They have not learned from sparrow killing episode I guess. This time though cost may be very high and entire world might end up paying.

I feel like there's a bit more nuance in who's lucky that the interstates were built. But I do see your point.

Absolutely, +1. And that bridge collapse in Miami. God bless those poor souls but that bridge cost 14 million dollars!!! Yes! 740 feet of concrete at the expense of $14MM, now moved to garbage yard. Then add the most expensive mile in history (New York suway - one, cool, billion, dollars, for, one mile) and no wonder our infrastructure is in such poor state ;(

I think that the $14 million for that bridge was a reasonable cost (assuming it was a functioning bridge).

Apparently $14MM is not enough to buy a bridge that works.

I though the problem in USA for getting things done with infrastructure was the deficit hysteria, not the regulations and the outrage. Was I wrong?

I think it's mainly that construction costs in the US are extremely high and it's not affordable in many locations.

Are those costs higher than in other developed countries? If so, why?

NIMBY is one of the worst and most elitarian movements that exist out there and the opposition to Nuclear Power by environmentalist is not only ironic but it's hurting both the environment and making people poorer than they needed to be.

Even Democrats are starting to see that now.

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