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Comment by mav3rick | Hacker News Reader

I like the stereotyping of the entire "East" as one incompetent shit hole. The last I checked infrastructure in the US is crumbling. Each new thing also costs an insane bloated amount leading to a refusal to build new infrastructure altogether. Being in the west doesn't guarantee many things and being in the east doesn't either.

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It's crumbling because it hasn't been maintained since the 50s-70s, not because it's shittily built. To be fair.

The new Metro extension out of DC to Dulles airport is literally crumbling... concrete is failing, the maintenance yard is sinking into the ground, plus it's over-budget and over-time. For the concrete, the apparent answer is "we'll inspect it more" instead of holding the contractor accountable and making them replace it. Because reasons.

Boston recently spent $21B on the Big Dig project. It was shittily built. It leaks, and the tunnel ceiling collapsed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig#Problems

An exception to this is the Florida International University pedestrian bridge collapse. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_International_Univer...

To add to your voice, sure, the "west" may have the reputation of good engineering, and the "east" have one of "shoddy slap-bang it all together", but one needs to keep up the vigilance to maintain a good reputation.

Just to make you think about western engineering and oversight, here's one word: 737MAX.

My point was to judge on a case by case basis. If we don't do that, how can we expect the common layman to.

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