
Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive - swivelmaster
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/6/4/this-is-why-infrastructure-is-so-expensive
======
BjoernKW
Lack of accountability is an important, perhaps even the most important, part
of the problem:

With private projects if a project is overdue or if it is exceeding the
originally projected costs either of the parties will be held accountable,
either through civil liability enforced by a contract or in simple economic
terms.

With public projects there generally is no such accountability. If a public
project is delayed and it costs more than planned the public purchaser (the
state, city, you name it) - and by extension taxpayers will simply cough up
the money, put up with the inconvenience of yet another unfinished and out-of-
repair piece of infrastructure and move on.

If we want to change that creating the right incentives is only one side of
the coin. The other side is holding both civil servants and politicians
accountable for the public projects they're responsible for.

Given the amount of money typically involved in these projects personal
financial liability wouldn't be practical. Disciplinary consequences for gross
negligence or the outright nepotism rampant with that sort of projects
shouldn't be out of the question though. I find it unacceptable that civil
servants and politicians who demonstrably and deliberately waste tax money
continue to climb the ladder with apparently no care for the damage they
cause.

~~~
matt4077
I've seen quite a few articles and studies that say that government projects
aren't actually more expensive than private projects.

The impression is created because (a) the media will report on a government-
run project over budget because they actually get that data (unlike private
cost overruns), and the public cares more about these projects. And, (b),
government projects are more likely to start with an initial estimate that is
too low, because that's beneficial to getting a project approved.

Speaking to your argument about accountability: Do you think the CEO of GE is
really more afraid of the shareholders than the mayor of some city in Kansas?
Politicians are plenty accountable. And for something like the federal
government, projects are managed by employees, who are managed by agency
heads. The latter get a budget and have to work within it.

Say you're the head of the National Park Service: If your new visitor centre
at Yellowstone gets swallowed in a geyser, will you not face exactly the same
consequences as someone at Disneyland tasked with building a new ride?

~~~
BjoernKW
I don't think government projects being more expensive than private projects
simply is an impression created by the media. Sure, private project failures
aren't bandied about as much (though sometimes they still are, especially if a
failure simply is too spectacular not to be talked about), simply because they
often aren't interesting to the general public. However, save for downright
cover-ups project failures are usually known to the stakeholders.

Government projects starting with too low an estimate is a well-known but
deeply unethical practice. Everyone involved knows that the finished project
will be above budget yet there's a silent agreement to not say anything
because once the public realises there's a problem it's already too late to
cancel the project and the project has to continue whatever the final costs
may be. That's the common argument anyway. It's a bit like the 'too big to
fail' fallacy. So, we keep throwing good money after bad because we're afraid
of the consequences of admitting failure. It's exactly that kind of unethical
behaviour that should be punishable by disciplinary action in order to
disincentivise civil servants from going down that road in the first place.

Finally, I suppose the larger the organisation the more lack of accountability
becomes a problem. You see that with larger companies where projects often
regularly are over time and budget as well. However, I still think that those
in leadership positions in larger private organisations are more accountable.
While there are misaligned incentives in these organisations, too (like CEOs
getting a bonus or a generous severance package even though they performed
badly) there are two crucial differences here: A company goes out of business
if it runs out of money. It's also much easier to hold you both civilly and
criminally liable if you overstepped your boundaries.

When was the last time a state or city went out of business due to lack of
funds? When was the last time a politician actually did time for embezzling
and deliberately wasting tax money?

~~~
bluGill
The problem is time an materials - when the contractor is ethical - is the
cheapest option. Anything else means that someone needs to overbid and make
"excessive profits", or risk they underbid and have to make up millions of
dollars to finish the contract. However ethical is a key part of this, and we
know from experience that not everyone is ethical and we have no way of
knowing who will be until it is too late.

They get around this by carefully fixing the work to be done - which seems
like a great idea, but in construction there are always something you don't
know about until you get there. What happens is they bid for standard dirt
work and when they start moving the dirt they go back and say "We bid to dig
down 3 feet as standard, but there is a sink hole here: do you want us to
complete the job as bid knowing the road will collapse there within a week of
of finishing or pay extra to fix the sinkhole" (there are millions of
variations of this). Of course the only sane thing to do is pay for the design
change so it is done right.

~~~
losteric
I don't understand why we don't negotiate a fixed rate and spec for each
project, with financial incentives for early completion. The contractor takes
some risk, but the risk can be mitigated with better research and uncertainty
factored into the bid.

------
solatic
TL:DR - the way to combat rising costs is to constrain the supply of capital.

This isn't going to work. Infrastructure contractors will just turtle up and
say that it can't be done at the lower price. Lowest-bid mechanisms are
intended to harness Adam Smith's invisible hand, but aren't working as
intended.

The essay touches upon two distinct points: a) the private developer cared
deeply about how his money was spent, but the public developer did not b)
general incompetence of public management, by misunderstanding how contractors
manipulated costs to reach their estimates and establishing perverse
incentives

The way you typically solve this kind of problem, at least in the private
sector, is to set up a way for the manager to personally earn a fraction of
what he saves the organization - the organization still saves a lot of money
overall, even after paying the bonus. But if you bring up the concept of
performance-based pay for public employees, you find massive opposition - both
from a public worried about corruption and graft, and from public employees
themselves, many of whom were drawn to public work in the first place
specifically because of the stability and security of a public paycheck.

That's when you understand that what really needs to be talked about is a
culture change in public work culture, and when you understand that, you
understand just how high the mountain is that needs to be surmounted.

~~~
mahyarm
But why do public organizations in developed europe & co have infrastructure
projects for cheaper then? Don't they have similar or even stronger public
work cultures?

~~~
lmm
European view: the US in general seems to have a really procedurally-oriented
way of doing things. There are good sides to this but it does sometimes break
down: in particular the legal system seems to focus a lot more on whether the
process was followed rather than taking a step back and asking whether this is
the just outcome.

I understand the rationale for low-bid rules. But actually the US has pretty
low corruption and a good public work culture; IMO those rules do more harm
than good. If you were willing to trust the people evaluating the bids a
little more and empower them to use their judgement and pick the overall best
bid (and maybe pay them a little more), you'd get better outcomes.

~~~
jacques_chester
> _in particular the legal system seems to focus a lot more on whether the
> process was followed rather than taking a step back and asking whether this
> is the just outcome._

The legal system in caselaw countries has a concept called "Equity". Its
potency varies from place to place, but it original introduced notions of
fairness and good conduct that the Common Law, in and of itself, did not
always provide.

You don't hear about it because "Judge makes sensible decision" is not a
headline that sells. What sells is "Judge makes decision that we will wildly
distort beyond all recognition for the clicks".

Ever notice how badly the mass media represents technology issues? They do it
for law too, except worse, because they have an _incentive_ to distort the
reporting.

------
devwastaken
The first part of the article talks about Healthcare with this: "Which is why,
on the healthcare island, the conversation is about costs. Your preferences
don't matter, except where they are aligned with the objectives of those on
the island. Substitution doesn't matter; there are no competing services.
Obscene profit margins don't invite competitors; they invite consolidation.
Justifying costs to third party payers, instead of prices to patrons, is the
name of the game. It's a bizarre world that doesn't make any sense to people
like Goldhill when they take a critical look at it."

I haven't read the book, but it looks to me they're making the age-old
argument that 'third parties' shouldn't pay for healthcare because thats why
its screwed up now. But, this is far too simplistic to be true. Healthcare is
not a product, its a service. That service changes depending upon the person.
Its not mass-producable or competable down because of demand in many cases.
And, even if it were a product, you still have the eternal problem that people
cannot negotiate for their own healthcare. You can't. You physically need it,
and may die without it, and there is no process by which to negotiate or even
many times know what price you will be paying. That is what universal
healthcare strives to solve in other countries, and does so decently.

~~~
canes123456
The vast majority of health care decisions are not life and death. Many times
it is still hard to know how much something will cost and it is hard to price
shop. But the same thing applies to auto repair. You need a car to get around
and it is extremely expensive to toll your car to other body shops. You need
to take the price the person offers you a lot of the time. But in medicine
some times it is not time critical and you can shop around. We don't do it
know because we don't pay.

~~~
CPLX
All healthcare decisions are life and death. Just not necessarily directly.
That fact complicates matters significantly.

~~~
hnal943
That's not true. I have mild allergies. It's not a life and death decision to
get care or not. If the costs outweigh the benefits, I will opt out.

------
analog31
With health care, I have a hunch that it's so expensive because the system is
such a tangled web of business entities, that we have no idea where the money
is actually going, or what anything costs. As a result, everybody can accuse
everybody else of gouging us.

I wonder if infrastructure is the same way. However, one difference is that
infrastructure, while expensive, costs all of us more or less progressively,
even if it costs too much. In a sense, I like that better than the health care
system, which is designed to place individuals at risk of ruinous costs.

~~~
ryanmarsh
> we have no idea where the money is actually going

This is what auditors do. If anyone in government really gave a shit some
auditors could get to the bottom of it in a matter of months.

~~~
jonknee
> If anyone in government really gave a shit

FWIW the government gets a better deal for healthcare than private insurers do
(e.g. Medicaid is cheaper per person than if they were covered in a private
plan). So I would say they do give a shit and have gotten to the bottom of it.
It would be cheaper still if Medicaid covered everybody.

~~~
sidlls
Cheaper, and more terrible. Medicaid is not something anybody wants and in
many ways is worse than the ER as a measure of last resort for acquiring care.

Medi _care_ on the other hand is much better, though still not all that great
(it's better than private insurance in many if not most cases). It is
universal coverage for folks over a certain age in this country. There aren't
any good reasons I've seen to not lower that age to 0 (i.e. covered from
birth).

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
> Cheaper, and more terrible. Medicaid is not something anybody wants and in
> many ways is worse than the ER as a measure of last resort for acquiring
> care.

So here is what I do not understand. Why does the US not do what many European
nations do and split healthcare into two problems? You have a few large
insurance pools (single payer for lack of a better term) that is government
run, mandatory participation and that covers emergency care and basic health
services. And then separately to that you run a free market private healthcare
system that sits on top of that governmental system and covers the better
care?

It's absurd that insurance companies in the US pay for _everything_. The cost
do not add up for me as a customer. I do want choice in the non life
threatening cases but I sure as hell do not want to ever have money concerns
when it's really critical.

~~~
friendzis
Public healthcare is sadly no silver bullet. In _ideal_ private insurance
scenario you pay some amount and get increasing credit for healthcare
expenses, so the user is incentivised to chose best cost performing treatment
(cheapest option providing adequate treatment) and providers are incentivised
to obey free market rules and keep fees under control (sans cartels/antitrust,
market segmentation). In publicly funded scenario without coupling between
payments and usage, user is incentivised to seek the most "premium" treatment
and providers are not incentivised to reduce operational costs.

If the public system covers anything more than emergency care (patch a patient
up and let them go) it automatically creeps into all service levels (have a
basic cough? maybe that's bacterial pneumonia, better issue referrals for
microbiological analysis and a CT scan. /s) if an answer to the question "if
family doctor/general practitioner cannot appoint diagnosis and/or treatment
and refers patient to a specialist and/or analyses, scans, etc. are those
covered too?" is yes.

The payer (government, taxpayers) probably has 3 mechanisms to keep [total]
costs from skyrocketing all with their disadvantages:

    
    
      1. Reduce usage count (doctor visits) - free visit quotas (possibly dependant on service level), fixed or percentage mandatory user fee, etc;
      2. Fix service costs - e.g. 100$ for a GP visit from public pool;
      3. Auction paid service quotas.
    

While option 3 provides most incentives to optimise costs, it greatly punishes
small players.

~~~
pjc50
> user is incentivised to seek the most "premium" treatment

They can "seek" it, but in the public system you don't really have a route for
doing that. You might want a CT scan, but if your doctor doesn't think you
need it you're not going to get it.

Your list left off (4) queueing. In the UK public system, if your condition is
not urgent you'll have to wait, possibly for months. Unless you have private
top-up insurance which will cover the specialist you're waiting for.

(It's difficult to estimate how much money the NHS saves by people on queues
for non-urgent operations dying from something unrelated in the meantime -
e.g. dying of a heart attack while waiting a year for a hip replacement)

~~~
friendzis
Queues are a _result_ of mentioned instruments. Say a hospital has a CT
scanner capable of 10 scans per day, 3,5k scans per year. NHS pays for 500. A
hospital can fully utilise the scanner and blow their yearly budget of
publicly funded scans in two monts, do 10 free scans a week or do 8 scans and
save 2 for emergencies. Placing more scanners does not reduce queues.

~~~
pjc50
The CT scanner is usually owned by the NHS trust, which makes the marginal
cost of using it rather small. It's almost the other way round: having bought
a big capital asset, the incentive is to make sure it's kept busy being used
effectively. The NHS "internal market" obfuscates this hugely, but there is
still no incentive to over-provision because the system can't drive up
external insurance costs.

See e.g.
[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RyJfEbwGwgkC&pg=PA4&lpg=...](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RyJfEbwGwgkC&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=nhs+owned+ct+scanners&source=bl&ots=QK5hgf30r-&sig=bgQA8-ePsnAAwQ-
tUJfYFfL3Qak&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7q9bq4LDUAhVPKFAKHWLtDto4ChDoAQhOMAg#v=onepage&q=nhs%20owned%20ct%20scanners&f=false)

(random googling found confirmation of this in someone's FOI request:
www.heartofengland.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/FOI4797.docx )

------
scythe
>The more lane miles a state has, the more federal transportation dollars that
state qualifies for. What is the incentive? It is, of course, to build more
lane miles. Add to this the fact that federal transportation programs
generally pay 90%+ for new construction, but only ~50% for maintenance, and we
have a system that encourages states to build more than they can ever
maintain.

This is a microcosm of a larger systemic problem with state budgets that
started with the Sixteenth Amendment. Not because income taxes are bad
(they're fine) but because that was the first step in a process where nearly
all revenue in the United States is collected by the federal government. This
was a shift from the original situation where the government was funded by
excise taxes and most taxes were collected by the states. This didn't become a
problem however until the federal government's fiscal advantage became so
large that federal outlays began to dominate state budgets.

The result is a growing clusterfuck of incentives that would make Roman
Polanski blush. State governments used to get more money by growing their
states' economies. Now they pursue the twin goals of getting more money from
Uncle Sam and generating more of the kinds of economic activity that they can
most easily derive revenue from, because federal income taxes are too high for
states to collect very much money from income tax, and because states compete
against each other to lower taxes to attract businesses so are better off
seeking federal funds than raising taxes. If a state raised its own taxes to
build roads they'd never overbuild the network like this. It's completely
insane.

It's possible that the election of Senators by state legislatures also served
to prevent this slow transfer of fiscal power from happening during the first
century of our country's existence.

~~~
maxerickson
States and local governments collect lots of revenue.

[http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/](http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/)

And for the point you are making, it would be sensible to pull out some
spending as "other" (Social Security, maybe Medicare, some portion of defense
spending).

~~~
scythe
I can't agree. I did not find state revenue numbers at your link, but I did
find them:

Total state revenue is $930M (across all states):
[https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/...](https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk)

Federal revenue is $3180M: [https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-
basics/federal-bud...](https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-
basics/federal-budget-101/revenues/)

From your link, states spend approximately $1860M per year. According to the
revenue numbers I've found that means that _half_ of all money spent by states
must be supplied by the federal government or by debt. That is certainly
sufficient to account for the perverse incentives I've noted, since states
unlike USG cannot print money to cover debts.

There is a slight discrepancy since my revenue numbers are from last year, but
generally, I would not agree that your source contradicts my claim.

~~~
maxerickson
Your factfinder deep link breaks for me.

If you go to
[https://www.census.gov/govs/local/](https://www.census.gov/govs/local/) and
click "2014 State and Local Summary Table by Level of Government and by
State", "General revenue from own sources" is $2.16 trillion.

It also has a number for federal transfers, $600 billion.

~~~
scythe
The fact that you have chosen to quote the _combined_ state and local taxes
rather than the states themselves in a conversation where I have focused
exclusively on state budgets makes me doubt your sincerity. And to the
original point, high levels of deficit spending by states are by themselves an
indicator of reliance on spending by the federal government, which is the
guarantor of state debts. I'm not going to re-find the state tax receipt
number; you can do that yourself, and you should have already considering the
amount of numbers you've bothered to find.

~~~
maxerickson
Look at the first words of my first comment, I'm not being inconsistent, I'm
arguing against _where nearly all revenue in the United States is collected by
the federal government_. It's obviously not the case, state and local taxes
account for a great deal of government revenue.

------
chrismealy
We know it's cheaper outside of America. Instead of playing Not Invented Here
why not just ask what other countries are doing better?

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
Same reason that does not happen with healthcare: the mindset is different. In
many ways changing the system means giving up some things Americans value more
than citizens of other countries.

~~~
m_mueller
I'd argue that some foreign examples would actually match well culturally.
Take Switzerland. Highly decentralised (imagine county-sized administrations
having about as much sovereignty as US states). Very high salaries. Similarly
wealthy (about 20-30% higher than US median per capita PPP). Similarly
libertarian (privatization is has been a favourite topic of polititians as
well). Similarly conservative. Yet building a tunnel through arguably more
difficult terrain (read: risk of death, costly insurance policies) cost 10-20x
less per KM in Switzerland compared to the US. It did so again tunneling right
through the city of Zurich, extending one of the busiest train stations in
Europe with an underground station and a new large new above ground ramp. Both
projects stayed on budget.

I really think that looking abroad has a point. As an example, for Swiss
railway managers it has been a regular occurance to go abroad and learn from
other countries what they do better and what to avoid.

The US is just a nation and Americans are just humans, like everyone else -
trying to stop with the "we are special" thinking would give the US quite a
boost in certain areas IMO.

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
Sometimes I feel the US would indeed be better off if the individual states
were in competition with each other more. In particular I feel the mobile
market in the US would work better for instance if it was carries that only
run infrastructure for a handful of states rather than all.

This is what makes infrastructure cheap in Europe. The Swiss rail companies
build infrastructure for Switzerland primarily (unless they are contracted
out) and not for all of Europe.

~~~
m_mueller
Not sure whether there is any one reason, but yes, I think that more
competition and more local administration is a good thing. Switzerland even
has communes in competition with each other with their tax system, which IMO
works well (albeit I'd like some more stringent rules).

My utopia would be an virtualized, decoupled administration system based on
the blockchain and decentralized contracts. I can simply choose what org I
want to be citizen of and subscribe to them. An org would itself subscribe to
a set of infrastructure and get volume rebates. Each piece of infrastructure
has a blockchain address - if I want to use it and I'm not subscribed, I just
pay as I go. Essentially, free market meets governance. Some exceptions where
IMO socialism works best: Schooling, National defense, emergency services and
Healthcare. Same high standards and opportunities for everyone.

------
mschuster91
In ye olde days in Germany, the municipalities had their own construction
teams, employed by the municipality. That meant that e.g. road constructions
were done by the government - which also means that the "feedback loops" were
way shorter, and there was no incentive for the construction teams to delay
the construction or similar.

Now, with the privatization trend and "cheapest-bidder-wins", it's a
catastrophe. Especially when construction companies from foreign countries are
involved (thanks to EU-wide tender crap)... the language barrier is a huge
issue.

One thing the article totally leaves out: in ye olde days, there were next to
no changes to a project when it was approved. Now replannings in all stages of
a project are common - be it due to politicians trying to gain something,
NIMBY morons, environmental protection or, the worst case as can be seen at
BER, changing technological requirements. Every replanning causes delays and
cost overruns.

~~~
detaro
BER and "changing technological requirements"? BER (primarily) got doomed
because they rearranged the layout to be able to sell more shopping space
halfway through and didn't properly plan out the consequences of that change.

~~~
mschuster91
I didn't mean to allude to this, rather to an article I read half a year ago
that when the construction permit expires before the thing is built that
they'd have to rip it half apart AGAIN because regulatory frameworks changed
:'D

Your point more fits into "politicians and personal gain", imho.

------
woodandsteel
Interesting and disturbing article.

The author ends with some ideas about how to solve the problem. I would like
to make a suggestion.

To start, I think it is a good principle that whenever there is a problem in
this country, we should look at other countries to see if they handle it
better, and if any do, look in detail at how they do it, and then think about
adopting their methods to the US. My suggestion is simply we do this with the
infrastructure construction problem.

------
andrewaprice
I feel like the blame too often goes to insurance companies, but insurance
companies are a natural player in a free market system. When you are sick,
last thing you will do is shop around 10 different doctors and compare prices,
instead insurance companies do this for you. They negotiate a price with the
provider, and if the insurance company isn't happy the provider risks not
being in-network and loosing a large pool of patients. In an ideal world, this
system should work.

What I'm worried about is hospital consolidation.
[https://image.slidesharecdn.com/annenberg-
frakt-150324142714...](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/annenberg-
frakt-150324142714-conversion-gate01/95/austin-frakt-changing-how-we-pay-for-
care-webinar-31915-7-638.jpg?cb=1427207315)

We have created a regulatory environment with high fixed overheads, so: a)
consolidation lowers the fixed costs, encouraging entities to centralize these
fixed costs to minimize them b) makes it difficult for new independent players
to enter the market

Rather than a metro area having 8 independent hospitals all competing against
each other (giving insurance companies a lot of leverage in negotating prices
with providers), that metro area might have 2 companies with 4 hospitals each,
so you have 2 companies that know what the other's hospital charges for
services, and in their own interest of profit aren't interested in getting
into a price war with the other.

------
throwaway-1209
Because of the law of budgets: use it or you'll get less next year. We have a
few streets here which have been undergoing "repairs" pretty much constantly
for the past decade. They aren't getting wider or better, perfectly
serviceable pavement gets torn up again and again, several times a year. Why?
Hell if I know. The most plausible explanation is someone needs to "use up the
budget".

~~~
tgjsrkghruksd
You must live in a funny-mirror version of my world. I'm in the pothole belt
and there is never enough in the budget to fix all our roads. Yes, for various
reasons, sometimes a stretch gets replaced that's in much better condition
than other deplorable streets (usually because it coincides with some other
development), but the funding is never there to fix all the outstanding urgent
problems much less ripping up and redoing good pavement.

~~~
throwaway-1209
Actually same here: there are plenty of potholes elsewhere, but only these few
good roads get continually torn up and repaved.

------
vlehto
>Tolls, maintenance districts and direct user fees are less popular but
actually more empowering for people in that it allows them to speak their
preferences more forcefully and clearly.

How about land tax? This way you can still provide free movement to poor
people, but you can collect funds very locally. ( I can admit I'm die hard
Gergist.)

------
zkms
> He goes through and dismisses all of the usual suspects. Union wages drive
> up infrastructure costs (yet not true in countries paying equivalent wages).
> It's expensive to acquire land in the property-rights-obsessed United States
> (yet countries with weaker eminent domain laws have cheaper land acquisition
> costs). America's too spread out or our cities are too dense (arguments that
> cancel each other out). Our environmental review processes are too extensive
> (yet other advanced countries do extensive environmental reviews with far
> less delay). I concur with all these points, by the way.

> Smith concludes with this:

> That suggests that U.S. costs are high due to general inefficiency --
> inefficient project management, an inefficient government contracting
> process, and inefficient regulation. It suggests that construction, like
> health care or asset management or education, is an area where Americans
> have simply ponied up more and more cash over the years while ignoring the
> fact that they were getting less and less for their money. To fix the
> problems choking U.S. construction, reformers are going to have to go
> through the system and rip out the inefficiencies root and branch.

A thing that isn't mentioned (but might be mentioned in the book) is the
obstructionist effect of NIMBYism. To them, the above-mentioned
"inefficiencies" are a critical feature and not a bug. Why does shit (the kind
that can't be built overseas and transported here in a shipping container)
cost so much in US? Obstructionist NIMBYs (and the laws that enable them, like
zoning / land use regulations) play a nontrivial role. There's nothing wrong
with regulations that, say, preventing wanton dumping of toxic chemicals in
the air/ground/water, but NIMBYs are scum that pervert well-intentioned
environmental-protection laws to prevent harmless and critical infrastructure
from being built.

NIMBYs will oppose _everything_ \-- regardless if it's an airport
([https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-
gridlock/wp/2016/03/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-
gridlock/wp/2016/03/07/are-you-the-person-who-filed-6500-noise-complaints-
against-national-airport/?utm_term=.bd044f080999)), rail rights of way, high-
density housing (whether public _or_ private), medical clinics, cell sites,
and literal _clothes lines_
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothes_line#Controversy_in_No...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothes_line#Controversy_in_North_America)).
You got that right, _clothes lines_.

Cell sites don't pollute, aren't used by equipment that pollutes, don't create
noise (OK maybe if you're sitting next to it you can hear fans), don't litter,
don't have any sort of odour, and really...don't hurt anyone. It's difficult
to find _more_ innocuous infrastructure! Of course, increasing the cost of
building out infrastructure (the kind that needs to be local to the area
served) decreases supply and decreases quality (and increases cost) -- but the
NIMBYs are happy because their precious feelings are preserved because they
don't have to see a cell tower or whatever. They don't care if your cell phone
bill is higher than it'd otherwise be, or if you get shitty cell service. They
don't care if a rail line doesn't get built, they don't care if land use
regulation means that real-estate costs for your doctor are huge and thus so
is your healthcare costs. They do, however, care if your rent is super high --
in fact, it's what they _love_ to be the case, because it means that their
damn single-family home has more worth. NIMBYism -- this desire to prevent
one's fellow citizen from benefiting from slightly better and cheaper public
goods and infrastructure -- on this scale is incompatible with any sort of
high-trust society.

A society cannot have this many citizens with this much power and desire to
obstruct the construction/maintenance of critical infrastructure that most
citizens benefit from. It's antisocial backstabbery, pure and simple, and to
indulge in it (as the US has done) is a horrific corrosive mistake and poisons
society from the bottom up. Infrastructure -- health care, transportation (of
people, material goods, of data), housing -- should be a nation's pride!

Until NIMBYs are forced to relinquish the obstructionist powers that they so
preciously hold, infrastructure construction/maintenance will keep being
expensive and inefficient. Any reform that doesn't explicitly address NIMBYs
(either via the carrot or the stick) will fall prey to NIMBYs who will somehow
reintroduce inefficiencies so their goals of preventing construction will be
met.

~~~
meddlepal
NIMBYism exists because home ownership is basically the most accessible
mechanism to grow personal wealth in the US. People are not willing to risk
their financial stability and future by allowing basically anything they view
as a threat to their primary wealth generation asset in life. More housing,
bad views, whatever all challenge people's bottom line.

~~~
jogjayr
> NIMBYism exists because home ownership is basically the most accessible
> mechanism to grow personal wealth in the US.

That _has_ to be due a lack of financial education and knowledge of what
options exist to grow personal wealth. You need at least $50k to put 20% down
on a median US home. You need only $2.5k to start an index fund account with
Vanguard. Guess which one will give you a better return on average _and_ is
more liquid?

~~~
meddlepal
Sure, but you can't live in your Index Fund. Housing is already a sunk cost
for everybody. You're either paying rent and getting nothing out of it or
getting a mortgage and at the end of it you have an actual owned asset.

~~~
jogjayr
I was referring to the relative accessibility. You need $50k (or $25k if we're
going for 10% down) to even start living in the median house. Even a $100k
house would require you to save up $10-20k. $2.5k is a far lower bar to start
building wealth.

~~~
rosser
As true as all that is, you still have to have somewhere to live. You can put
some of that money back in your own pocket, or you can put all of it in
someone else's.

~~~
jpetso
Alternatively, you can calculate how much you'd pay and save/invest in
particular scenarios after taking into account ROI, rent, maintenance,
mortgage interest, property taxes, closing costs incl. risk of wanting to move
earlier than expected, and personal discipline to save when not compelled by a
mortgage.

Phrases such as "put it into your own pocket or someone else's" are a vast
oversimplification that has more to do with faith and indoctrination than
actual fiscal outcomes. It's true some of the time, but you should never make
a decision based on a blanket statement like this one. It's not that hard to
make an individual analysis for your very own situation, so make yourself some
data points rather than listen to biased generalizations.

------
Robotbeat
The article is very high level, looking at root causes and (correctly)
pointing out the flawed incentives in how America builds infrastructure. Here
are some lower level observations:

I've been watching construction and similar projects at a government site
lately. It seems that there are always more people watching than working. But
that's not too bad, as often construction projects will languish with no one
working on them for months (meanwhile, the site gets dirty due to rain water
filling the site, etc) due to red tape requiring certain people to do certain
parts of the job (such as cost exceeding a certain amount and thus the work
needs to be put out to bid instead of using the on site contractor).

The exception is if it's something simple, like erecting a temporary meeting
tent rented by some company. In that case, it seems like EVERYONE is busy and
is doing something. Stuff gets done rather quickly. Maybe they have a lot more
practice? I bet they also do multiple types of job, i.e. a guy doesn't just
tie the tent down, but also helps unroll the fabric from the truck or moves
chairs to the seating area, etc.

Regular road projects seem to be not so bad, more people working than during a
building construction. But I noticed another thing: huge machines which must
cost almost a million dollars sitting idle with no one using them.

I think the secret might be just to ensure that work starts and finishes on a
project as soon as possible, that both people and expensive equipment have
work ready for them so they can keep busy constantly until the job is
finished. This probably would require a responsive, competitive, well-managed,
and very well practiced company to do this. And maybe it'd help if people were
cross-trained to do multiple trades, so that after one task is completed, they
could immediately go work on another. But if people & machines were simply
kept busy constantly on the project, I've gotta think the project could be
done for far, FAR less money (and time).

And the author is correct that the way to establish those is via the proper
incentives. Constructing a building by contract with a government agency is
not a very dynamic environment. Renting a meeting tent, on the other hand, is
something very amenable to competition even if the customer happens to be the
government.

I'd really like to see some sort of study that simply observed construction
projects and crews, on-site, in multiple locations in the world and multiple
types of projects. We could get some decent answers.

~~~
watwut
> I think the secret might be just to ensure that work starts and finishes on
> a project as soon as possible, that both people and expensive equipment have
> work ready for them so they can keep busy constantly until the job is
> finished.

You gotta have buffers for bad weather, malfunctions, changing stuff when it
turns out some worker did bad job, yadda yadda yadda. Otherwise your
construction ends the same way as any software project with tight schedule -
buggy, low quality and over budget due to subsequent three years of fixing.

Transporting large machines from place to place is expensive and time
consuming, so if you need to lift something heavy once a day, you have to keep
them where they are. The company that provides those machines also needs
buffers between jobs - otherwise two days of heavy rain on one site would
delay start of work on another site (which usually means contractual fines).

I don't mean to say that the construction you look at is the most effective
possible, certainly not. But sometimes there are reasons.

> And maybe it'd help if people were cross-trained to do multiple trades, so
> that after one task is completed, they could immediately go work on another.

I would agree, but finding reliable high quality worker is hard enough.
Finding one who is reliable high quality and knows two trades might be even
harder.

~~~
alacombe
> You gotta have buffers for bad weather, malfunctions, changing stuff when it
> turns out some worker did bad job, yadda yadda yadda

Private projects face the same issues, but do not necessarily stop for these
reason. After all, time is money, and a dead construction site not running
cost the owner money.

~~~
watwut
Heavy expensive machinery on private projects tends to be iddle too and
planning of machinery is what I was responding to.

The construction site stops idle entirely for months issue is often that fund
used to pay for construction dried out or got redirected. Or that there are
legal issues to be sorted - that one happen with private companies too.

Additional work "needs to be put out to bid instead of using the on site
contractor" because otherwise contractors would underestimate prices and then
charge a lot more or predictable "excess". There does not even need to be bad
intention originally, such system would simply favor contractor who makes bad
estimates "naturally".

------
dadvocate
because in good old days they got-by by exploiting cheap labor (in other words
slavery). Things went down south since they couldn't do it anymore legally.

------
fivestar
I think a major point was missed: The reason for infrastructure projects is
the meta effect called "jobs." There are no projects that don't take into
consideration how many blue collar jobs get created/maintained. You look at
all the road and bridge projects and everything else and those projects are
rarely centered around need but rather "how many jobs are preserved or
created." That's what Obama's "shovel ready projects" were about. A lot of
jobs are a form of welfare doled out by government. Unlike the true welfare
recipients, there are people who prefer to work because it gives them a sense
of satisfaction but similar to out and out welfare queens, they are recipients
of a further form of welfare which they do trade labor for. But, unlike the
true private sector, those who oversee these workers make sure that some new
project springs up each year to keep them employed. It's a weird system...

------
adekok
Because in badly managed projects, the managers have no idea what the project
is about. They don't know how anything works. They can't distinguish good work
from bad work.

Instead, they rely on rote rules and checklists to "prove" they've done their
job. This happens in both public and private sectors.

For example, a friend's employer got bought by a large multinational. The
multinational imposed all kinds of processes, checkpoints, checklists, etc. to
"ensure product quality". They then got upset that the bids were triple the
cost they were previously, and took twice as long.

And that's of course coupled with the fact that no one from the parent company
paid any attention to the day to day activities of the (now) division.
Instead, they relied on paperwork.

Well, paperwork is no substitute for feet on the ground.

One of my favorite books is "On the psychology of military incompetence". It
uses military examples to show how organizations are run (bad vs good), and
what quantitative differences there are between bad leaders and good leaders.

Paying attention to details, and ignoring superficial forms is a major
differentiator between good leaders and bad leaders.

This is echoed in the story. The city didn't pay attention to the project,
while the developer did.

------
known
"If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving,
subsidize it." \--Reagan

~~~
matt4077
People use this quote as some sort of insightful attack on the failures of
government, but, in a certain light, it's exactly what government is supposed
to do.

~~~
fivestar
Any thinking person should question the insipid nature of government because
it never seems to get perfected but is always and everywhere just a blunt
object which bludgeons us into cooperating with it one way or another.

