Ugly infrastructure: Why can't we have nice things? | Hacker News Reader

Ugly infrastructure: Why can't we have nice things?

jordanwtaylor2.substack.com

47 pointsbilsbie70 comments

The more time goes on the more I appreciate Lady Bird Johnson's (first lady to Lyndon B Johnson) beautification of America project [0]. It's impressive how precise a response to modern urban hellscape woes it is: more greenery, native gardening, more pedestrian-friendly spaces, public transit, litter reduction, less billboards and advertising. The perspective that aesthetic beauty and things that just make a place nice to live tend to go hand-in-hand is an underrated one.

> “Though the word beautification makes the concept sound merely cosmetic, it involves much more: clean water, clean air, clean roadsides, safe waste disposal and preservation of valued old landmarks as well as great parks and wilderness areas. To me…beautification means our total concern for the physical and human quality we pass on to our children and the future.”

[0] https://www.nps.gov/articles/lady-bird-johnson-beautificatio...

It's like your opinion, man.

Aesthetic taste varies from culture-to-culture, even individual to individual. Sometimes, minimal and simple is beautiful.

I really thought that the pictures you were posting later were examples of ugly design (when I was glossing over it) and I found out that you were saying that that one looks good to you.

The one on top, the example of your ugly design, has natural beauty: a weathered concrete finish. I prefer that WAYYY more than any of the later examples.

the first one, the Mary McAleese bridge, is in the article as an example of a nice design

I find that curious, because I would not even really call that a design. The distinguishing characteristics are more what it lacks than what it has.

But for me it is in fact a symbolic character of the roughly 20th century that we still suffer from because it sucked all humanity and joy out of everything; including design, art, and beauty itself. That bridge represents the asphalt parking lot of bridges in my mind. Featureless, drab, barren, desolate, soulless, miserable, humanity crushing … the 20th century and its current ripple effects of shell shocked humans lacking any kind of identity, self-respect, or will for survival. It’s the “bare minimum nutrition to prevent by organs from failing” of bridges/design.

At least do the equivalent of showing yourself and brushing your teeth by painting the bridge in some way so you are not constantly reminded that your culture, identity, and self-respect is dead and you have no will for survival.

> I would not even really call that a design. The distinguishing characteristics are more what it lacks than what it has.

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

People's opinions aren't even internally consistent, there's a new condo building built in my city that everyone is shitting on for how it looks but it's honestly no different than other colorful/modern buildings from the 60s/70s that are cherished.

Aesthetics is objective as long as we’re talking from casual perspective, which is always the case for infrastructure and buildings unless we’re at architecture summit. 90% of people would agree that Amsterdam or Paris city center is more beautiful and pleasant to be in than modernist hellscape at outskirts of Soviet cities. And therefore 90% of the buildings should be built with this in mind, when feasible, because it directly affects wellbeing of humans. Weathered concrete finish is nice in art house movies and in hipster bars, in everyday life it’s ugly and depressing on large scale objects for most people. The rest 10% would be perfect for modernism/functionalism/brutalism, but unfortunately proportions are reversed today. This is of course more subtle for pure infrastructure like bridges or highway interchanges, but the general principle still applies.

Weathered concrete finish is ugly if the architect that designed it made it look ugly.

Coincidentally, the same applies to a painted mural or whatever finish you are pushing for.

On top of that is road safety. I want my roads to look like roads and bridges to look like bridges. His painted examples below just add visual distraction.

Don't forget that tastes change over time, too. I would hope that our infrastructure is built to last for a great many generations. What was considered beautiful when I was born might very well be garish to my grandkids. This deserves some consideration. A blank canvas that can be painted, buffed and painted again (by the people from its community) is a decent compromise.

On this note, I must recommend Roger Scruton's "Why Beauty Matters" once more:

https://vimeo.com/549715999

> Sometimes I play a game while driving, seeing how long I can go without seeing a sign or warning. If you had to hold your breath between each one you'd be in no danger; you could drive hours with no risk of passing out.

This struck me the last time I traveled in the UK: they seem to have about 3-4 times as many road signs as the US, to the point where it almost becomes a dangerous distraction. On the other hand, they don’t have the omnipresent billboards and other public advertising that the US has.

> UK

As a UK resident this drives me mad. Signs like “Tractors Turning” [1]. Like I’m going to see the sign and not notice the f**king tractor? And also, there’s never a tractor there!

Another classic is “Road liable to flooding” [2]. Reeeeally? Ok, am I drowning? No. Phew… looks like it’s not flooding right now, I’ll make a mental note if I ever come this way again and it’s raining, or I’m struggling to breathe and I can’t work out why.

Signs for occasional happenings that anyone with eyes can see.

Then there’s the speed-camera signs, but no speed cameras.

Or, the classic “mobile speed camera” sign [3]. Fixed. In place. Forever.

Or, the “New Road Layout” sign [4], where the layout will never grow old!

Our street furniture has gone so extreme, there’s no way one could read all of it and concentrate properly on driving and the vast majority of it is utterly useless.

/rant

[1] https://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/04/64/50/4645087_4636b9...

[2] https://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/resources/images/190...

[3] https://s0.rbk.ru/v6_top_pics/media/img/9/55/754788605175559...

[4] https://i0.wp.com/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0...

A favourite of mine is the London Underground having warnings about using the escalators, stating that last year there were 100 incidents from people not being sufficiently careful.

Given the number of people using the service, this is incredibly small and I hardly think a sign is going to help the few people at risk!

Not to mention the enjoyably ambiguous "Dogs must be carried" !

The thing that really peeves me about those signs is that pretty much all the accidents involve women with fashionably loose clothing. While I'm sure a few guys got scalped by their dreadlocks it's worth directing the warning at people most likely to need it and therefore most likely to benefit from it same as you would if it were screening for a particular disease.

Curious to hear your thoughts on the "Bridge Freezes Before Road Surface" signs.

To me, that seems like a sign where the "let nature sort it out" way of learning is too dangerous to just YOLO it sign-less (despite generally agreeing that we have too many warning signs).

If there’s an invisible danger, that could realistically cause a serious accident, then a sign makes sense.

Only ever seen that sign in the US (driving through the Sierras). Never seen a similar UK version. I guess we must have superior bridges ;)

;) I doubt it's a difference in chemistry or physics. Ambient temps play a large role, so the Gulf Stream's and elevation's influence does as well (dry adiabatic lapse rate is 5.5°F per 1000 ft or 9.8°C per km).

I always thought this Welsh art installation was a rather risky choice:

https://i2-prod.walesonline.co.uk/article10291631.ece/ALTERN...

I can't say I ever otherwise felt like the British frequency of road signs was a risk in and of itself, but I suppose it's a matter of what you're used to.

Sometimes the US can be similarly bad about oversignage. There's a street by me where there's a pedestrian crossing. There's a sign by it saying drivers should yield to it, then another sign ~100 feet back saying to watch for pedestrians, then another, and then a fourth sign, and I'm sure they're considering a fifth.

Fair enough. A favorite of mine is "sidewalk ends", which around where I live are so ridiculously over-the-top[0] I can only conclude someone sued once and now the state isn't taking any chances.

[0] https://imgur.com/a/NdoE22S

That's funny, I had the exact same thought in the US - so many road signs, so much to read. It was quite overwhelming. I think it may come down to familiarity: as you get familiar with the signage of a particular country they blend into the background (and you, presumably, just take in what they're saying subconsciously). By the end of the US trip I was much less overwhelmed by the amount of text on and around the roads.

It's not just infrastructure. Most modern buildings are utilitarian and race-to-the-bottom cheap to a fault.

And while a lot of this can be explained by the requirement to build a lot of things fast, and cheap, even one-off buildings that are supposed to be unique are... just slabs of concrete and/or glass.

I think nowhere is it more evident than in Europe: https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1912957880195575980

Ugh let infrastructure be infrastructure inconspicuous.

I don’t want to be attacked by flashy colored buildings all the time.

Once in a while it is cool to have some art or colorful painting.

I have my life to live, children, animals - I want to furnish my home to my taste.

I don’t want to live in self proclaimed “taste critiques” environment.

Every single of those posts “we live in boring landscape, cars are average and not standing out” - feels like those friends that come over for a party and want to show you all the funny YT videos they are amused by - I don’t care I have my own YT vids I am amused by and such people are just annoying not “cool”.

> I don’t want to be attacked by flashy colored buildings all the time.

There are other types of decorations than colors, and there are other colors than flashy.

The very first example in the OG article isn't colorful, and is rather beautiful. The link to tweet shows a gray beautiful building.

> I don’t want to live in self proclaimed “taste critiques” environment.

If you are surrounded by ugly things, there's very little space where you can learn and develop taste.

Already you can't imagine any other alternatives than "being surrounded by flashy colored buildings all the time"

Edit: you are not alone. I've seen this "counterpoint" in quite a few conversations. Many people cannot imagine anything beyond "buildings in flashy colors" because that's usually the only alternative the modern world provides. Something like this: https://www.dreamstime.com/new-technologies-construction-mul...

“attacked”? A lot of hyperbole here. I suppose if the color wheel is scary then sure, you’ve been attacked haha.

Just to play devils advocate…nobody forces you to participate in that culture when decorating your home. In fact, having the “boring” house on the block would be a statement of its own, and is low effort. :)

I thought this was going to be software development focused, so I read it a bit from that perspective.

> There are any number of ways to build an ugly bridge, but its builders were allowed to make it pretty, and they were right to do that.

There's obviously extremes to this with developers being perfectionists holding up release (I could probably be on the poster for this) but the pendulum can swing the other way too. Sometimes not taking that extra hour or day to do something can cost you many hours and days later on in the future and to my point, sometimes taking that extra hour or day can save you hours or days in the future.

Suspension bridges tend to be much prettier than other styles. I think this every time I get to cross the Tacoma Narrows.

I'm assuming that is just a preference of mine based on how much rarer they are to see? Could be that they tend to be more expensive and have the maintenance baked into the costs?

Good examples in the article of how to make others pretty. I'm assuming cost is almost always the limiting factor. Many "ugly" bridges have a hard time keeping up with required maintenance. Keeping any art clean and maintained is almost certainly not in the budget.

Here's another hypothesis: making it look utilitarian is a way to preempt accusations of cost bloat. The first question anyone's going to ask about a nice looking design is "how much did we spend on that?". Ugly, utilitarian design says "I do exactly what you need and nothing else", which we interpret as cost efficient.

This is exactly it: I know people who, whenever they see something funded through taxes that is anything beyond the absolute bare minimum, start grousing about money regardless of any actual underlying costs.

People wildly overestimate the costs of making things nice; penny-wise pound-foolish stuff.

Right, I think that plays into my assertion? Budgets are so tight that places tend to go out of their way not just to adhere to them, but to make sure it is clear that they are adhering.

In my experience, the number of people that will say "it was expensive, but it's really beautiful" on the reverse situation is overwhelmingly larger than the people that will say "how much did we spend on that?".

In fact (and it annoys me to no end), people tend to think of expensive infrastructure as a positive trait, not a negative one.

The problem here is that people will like the expensive things. They will not like the bill that goes with it, though. And we seem to reward people for drumming up complaints on the bills.

> Why can't we have nice things?

cars.

All of the good examples on the article are car-centric. The only one about a train is a bad example.

> We won't bean-count our way to a better future.

I beg to differ. Cheaper stuff is accessible to more people.

The problem is we haven’t figured out how to agree on how much ornamentation is the right amount.

Can you imagine how quickly moisture and winter would destroy the facade on that desert overpass in Minneapolis or how quickly vegetation would climb it in Savannah? When it comes to concrete those "ugly" flat surfaces do a great deal to make concrete weather more gracefully anywhere that gets a winter worth speaking of and prevent vegetation from finding a home in more tropical clients. The painted overpass would not wear as poorly but it still needs to be maintained. A simple pressure washing contract (that we all pay for) turns into something more costly. Multiply by everything you could get in the habit of prettying up with paint and it's a big bill.

When it comes to indoor capital investments those flat surfaces are easy to clean and they're places that label and storage of ancillary items can be affixed and they reduce wasted space when things are placed adjacent with other things. When it comes to buildings themselves those flat lines lend themselves to ease of laying out the indoor and space. The idea that you have to make things pretty for decision makers reflects how divorced those decision makers are from the daily realities of thing the things they decide (same goes for the peanut gallery).

I'm so sick of listening to people saying they ought to be prettier when doing so has serious tradeoffs. Are they willing to pay for it? Even a couple percent effort adds up when you make it part of your typical decision making. I would rather have 11 ugly widgets than ten pretty widgets.

sort of a reductionist argument, in my opinion. obviously it's going to cost more to build and maintain nice things but we should want to do that because it makes our lives richer.

Gosh, I wish there had been other ideas for beautification other than a single desert overpass that obviously wouldn't work in colder, wetter climates.

Although I see grooves or other embellishment on struts in the UK, however they could be so much better.

I think you're on the right lines, that people just have no clue how much infrastructure there is in the modern world and even building it as cheaply and as easily to maintain is a burden in the trillions of dollars.

"in san francisco it costs a million dollars to build a public toilet. ergo, we should not build public toilets, because the cost is too high"

or, we should try to figure out why building costs so much money. 90% of the current NYC subway system was complete by 1960. in 2017, just 3km of track took 10 years and costed 5 billion dollars.

>or, we should try to figure out why building costs so much money

There's been a billion studies on this, I suggest you go read them.

One of the bigger ones is property costs over/under the stuff we're building. One of the other ones is community interests in preventing it from happening. This second one is one of the bigger issues. NIMBY can stop you in your tracks, and unless you go full authoritarianism on them, it's not easy to stop. Then add in cost disease and you start seeing there is no simple solution.

You don't need to reinvent the justification, just quote straight from the "Resolution on eliminating excesses in design and construction" from the USSR, 1955 [0]:

    The Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR resolutely condemn the mistakes made in architecture, design and construction, as contradicting the line of the Party and the Government in this matter, causing significant damage to the national economy and hindering the improvement of the housing and cultural and living conditions of workers.

   When designing and constructing buildings and structures, architects and engineers must pay primary attention to issues of economics, construction, creating the greatest conveniences for the population, landscaping, apartments, schools, hospitals and other buildings and structures, as well as landscaping of residential areas and neighborhoods.

    In order to avoid excesses and amateurishness, our architects and engineers must become conductors of everything new and progressive in design and construction. Construction must be carried out according to the most economical standard projects, developed taking into account the best achievements of domestic and foreign construction, based on industrial production methods.

    Soviet architecture should be characterized by simplicity, strictness of forms and economy of solutions. The attractive appearance of a building and structure should be created not by using far-fetched, expensive decorative ornaments, but by organic connection of architectural forms with the purpose of buildings and structures, their good proportions, as well as the correct use of materials, structures and details and high quality of work.

    The Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR believe that decisively overcoming shortcomings in design and construction, and the rapid and complete elimination of excesses in architecture will make it possible to save significant funds and direct them to the further expansion of housing, cultural and domestic, industrial and agricultural construction, as well as to the expansion of work on the improvement and landscaping of cities and towns.

That, incidentally, was the point of time when the Soviets borrowed the brutalism from the UK; it'd be only fair for the UK to re-embrace it. All in the name of the people's prosperity and happiness, and it worked so well in the past too! Oh, and also retroactively fine the most prominent architects for good measure as well, to set proper example.

NGL that resonates with me a lot more than the parent post.

Kind of funny how your own "well I don't like what he's saying so I'll compare him to the communists" comment belies the real reason people have a knee jerk distaste for such architecture. Basically the USSR sucked and was miserable so when people see a parking garage that looks kinda like a block apartment they have a negative disposition toward it.

Well, such comments sometimes force people to engage with the topic on its own merit though, of course, sometimes it devolves into political squabbles instead.

"Anything I don't like is a commie" --Some guy on <strike>reddit</strike>HN.

Post WWII USA did it first. The massive expansion of roads and single family housing post war in the US, coupled with the baby boom demanded some of the largest growth in infrastructure seen in the world. We did it fast and cheap and ugly.

You don't need some vast conspiracy of communists saying build it ugly to control the people. You just need lowest contract bidding.

> Post WWII USA did it first.

Pre-WWII USSR did it first, actually: they had a huge apartment building effort since the late 20s all throughout the 30s in the cities due to forced urbanization and industrialization. Most of it was obliterated during the WWII. Then, of course, there was post-war reconstruction of 1945-1953; and only then they got this post-1955 Khrushchevka style of buildings, with no design, no paint, no decorations etc.

If this is true, then why do European cities with medieval infrastructure still look better than US cities with modern infrastructure?

built in a time where cost was not really an issue. Human labor was cheap, scale and complexity lower (from an engineering point of view, just add more stones until it looks good), and inflation wasn't really a thing so bulk was possible

Because they were built over centuries, like natural selection, only the best/most practical survived the test of time. Lot's of rubbish was built as-well, it's just not standing anymore.

Also car centric urban design is IMO inherently ugly (limited options for greenery etc).

> only the best/most practical survived the test of time

But we can learn from that and imitate.

Selection bias and natural rock vs concrete.

I'm not sure it's so simple as "making it pretty costs more". I'd bet there are hidden utilitarian cost benefits as well. E.g., murals prevent graffiti. (No judgment concerning graffiti, but municipalities tend to pay to remove it.)

Or: maybe there is no large cost trade-off. Do beautiful manhole covers seen all over the world significantly affect the total cost of ownership?

> Can you imagine how quickly moisture and winter would destroy the facade

I'm 100% down with a new paint job every six months. Get a different artist to do it every time. I'll be like driving through a new place every time!

I'm stoked that my local council is paying artists to doll up the ugly concrete faces on sides of buildings. It looks incredible and every one has a story. Sure, in a couple of years the rain and weather will destroy it, but then they get a new one to come for a do-over!

I agree. They have painted large concrete structures like this in cold weather places in the United States and they start chipping and deteriorating almost immediately. A deteriorating "public arts" project where untalented "artists" graffiti the side of an overpass is far worse than plain concrete.

Murals seem to last just fine here in Seattle and in the Nordic countries. Maybe your city needs to buy better paint?

Minnesota native here. There's plenty of outdoor infrastructure decoration that does just fine in Minneapolis.

Kindly don't incorrectly use my home as justification for your beef with beauty.

I think their point is a good one: that there is a reason that things got this way and it’s easy to underestimate the costs associated with beauty.

I wouldn’t read it as a “beef with beauty”.

I moved from a place that puts at least some effort into beautification to a place that slaps everything as cheaply and minimally together as possible. Both with significant freeze-thaw cycles.

I'm pretty pragmatic in general. I get the argument in the abstract. But having been on both sides, I know which is better.

But more to the point, the parent used a very bad example to make their point.

There's a middle ground between cheap and beautiful: "functional". I think you're being a bit hyperbolic in this discussion.

Sure, but I don't think I've called for aesthetics at all costs anywhere here.

You need to look at some cities in the south for comparison. The things they can get away with are on a completely different level since they only need to reject water. Stamped designs in sidewalks and other horizontal slabs are a good example, common in lots of "nicer" applications down there (say a pedestrian entrance to a courthouse or something). You'd be a lunatic to do it anywhere with a real winter. It'll spall in short order.

But, the south gets the short end of the stick for non-masonry materials and plant growth. Anywhere shaded harbors mold. Wood rots. So the kind of complex trims and accents you see in for example the northeast are fairly absent in the south.

Unless you're trying to keep colored plastic looking bright the desert is easy mode.

surely this boils down to cost. if you prioritize low cost you will probably sacrifice aesthetics. maybe it doesn’t have to be that way, but it seems like it often is for better or worse.

would i rather pay more in taxes for a nicer looking freeway or have it be utilitarian? ehhhhhhh, im unsure.

Maybe, but also lack of taste. The classic comparison being PCs and Macs, most PC manufacturers lack taste to design beautiful machines, a lot of them gave up at this point and just copy whatever Apple is doing.

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