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> Has the US successfully built anything big or hard in a generation or two? High speed rail? Subways? Tunnels? Mass transportation? Housing? Any infrastructure, really? We have a political problem and no amount of engineering or investment can fix it.

Stadiums, airports, and semiconductor fabs. But yeah, we are off our game.

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I feel like pointing out that stadiums and airports are single buildings that in the grand scheme of things aren't nearly as common or large as a country's (or even a single state's) worth of power plants, highways/rail networks, or housing for the masses.

Airports can be complex, and of course chip fabs are an overwhelming case of quality over quantity, so in conclusion you're definitely right on the "hard" count still being accomplished, but I notice a particular gap missing here on "big".

My melange of big projects:

Space shuttle, reusable rockets, cell phone networks, Fibre deployment

They’re incremental (and out of order of importance), but these radically changed our lives in some way.

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