Opinion No, America Is Not ‘Ugly and Decayed’

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No, America Is Not ‘Ugly and Decayed’​

On the menu today: A stray question on America’s alleged decline into decay spurs a useful examination of why U.S. infrastructure projects are slow, expensive, and often delayed; what America is building, what we’re innovating, what we’re doing faster than anyone else on Earth, and why our cultural, political, and social-media environment so often wants us to believe the worst about each other; and today is the day to pay tribute to America’s less-remembered presidents.

America Is Terrible, as Long as You Overlook Every Last Bit of Good News

A Twitter question:
If we’re so rich and brilliant, it should be easy as pie for us to make things like the Moscow subway or the Burj Khalifa. So where are they? Why is our whole country ugly and decayed? Are people seriously saying that’s the price of freedom, of riches and democracy!?
You’ve no doubt heard the data and anecdotes comparing the average salary in Russia ($787 per month) to the average salary in the U.S. ($4,713 per month). Or you may have heard that 22 percent of Russians do not have indoor plumbing, while thankfully just three-tenths of 1 percent of American households lack indoor plumbing. Or that Russia ranks 141st out of 180 countries in perceptions of public-sector corruption last year, while we rank 24th. (Ukraine ranked 104th, for those wondering.)

Or that the life expectancy for Russian males is 64 years old, and for Russian females it’s 75 years old. For American men, life expectancy is 73.5 years, and for women it’s 79.3 years. (This number has dropped a bit in recent years, an issue for genuine concern, likely reflecting a combination of Covid-19, pandemic-related deaths such as delayed medical treatment, an increasing rate of drug overdoses, etc.)

But let’s turn the camera back upon ourselves. No one would dispute that America has problems — big, serious, severe problems, worsening in some areas. But when I hear someone declaring, “Our whole country is ugly and decayed,” I would urge them to get out more.

“It should be easy for us to make things like the Moscow subway.” First, remember it was the British who designed the Moscow subway, and then Stalin had the architects arrested, detained, and deported:
It was 1931 when the plans to build the first stations were approved. Lazar Kaganovich was the man responsible for the design of the first line. The first order of business was to consult with his British counterparts, architect Charles Holden and administrator Frank Pick who had been working on the Piccadilly Line. Both men became advisors for the Soviet project. British engineers were charged with sorting out the functional importance, while the Soviets provided the labor and the artistic designs. . . .
British business in Russia would not last long, however. The NKVD [secret police] arrested several engineers on charges of espionage. After a show trial, the accused were sent back to Britain along with their colleagues.
And our Andrew Stuttaford reminds us that if the Moscow subway system enjoys little crime, it is probably partially because of the installation of an extensive facial-recognition system, which has also been used to identify and arrest dozens of journalists and activists.

“If we’re so rich and brilliant it should be easy as pie for us to make things like the Moscow subway. . . .”

For this, I can turn to a bunch of centrist and left-of-center publications and think tanks, who, sotto voce, recognize that red tape, environmental-impact statements and regulations of every kind, lawsuits, increased costs for union labor and materials, and a lack of consequences for going over budget or falling behind schedule have left most mass-transit projects a bloated, slow-moving mess.

Let’s begin with getting all the permits in line. From the Niskanen Center:
Today the average [Environmental Impact Statement] runs more than 600 pages, plus appendices that typically exceed 1,000 pages. The average EIS now takes 4.5 years to complete; between 2010 and 2017, four such statements were completed after delays of 17 years or more. And remember, no ground can be broken on a project until the EIS has made it through the legal gauntlet — and this includes both federal projects and private projects that require a federal permit. Meanwhile, the far more numerous environmental assessments (the federal government performs more than 12,000 of them a year, compared to 20-something Environmental Impact Statements) have likewise become much lengthier and more time-consuming to complete.
Read that again: “The average EIS now takes 4.5 years to complete.” Why do mass-transit and other transportation projects cost so much? Because you get it designed, you get access to the land (perhaps through eminent domain), and then you spend a half-decade fighting in court to make sure that building the new subway station won’t endanger a snail darter. Keep in mind, most large-scale infrastructure projects in blue states and cities now face opposition from environmental groups that oppose any project that involves fossil fuels. (Apparently, they prefer solar-powered underground subway cars.)

The Medici Project illuminates the problems that come once the construction finally begins:
In the United States, the prevailing contracting system is based on time and materials. In this setup, contractors are compensated based on the hours worked and the materials used. This arrangement can lead to budget overruns, as it incentivizes contractors to take longer, employ more laborers for tasks, or use excessive materials. . . .
Moreover, a substantial portion of government contracts stipulate or mandate the employment of unionized labor. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, union labor in the U.S. typically costs 18 percent more than its non-union counterpart. As one can deduce, this does not help the cost problem. . . .
The story of the Big Dig has been repeated time and time again across U.S. cities. Often, American infrastructure projects fall under the jurisdiction of numerous public entities, with various private groups participating at different stages. This dispersion of oversight and decentralization of control lead to significant cost inflation and open the floodgates for corruption. Politicians, unions, private contractors, and even organized crime entities exploit this fragmented system to extract maximum value for personal gain, always at the expense of the taxpayer.
We are indeed rich and brilliant, compared to any other country on Earth. But we haven’t figured out how to quickly create consensus around complicated projects, often underground, that would take years to complete in high-density cities even in the best of circumstances. It should not surprise you that Moscow under Stalin had an easier time getting things built than any modern American city; opposing the regime could get you lined up and executed. This doesn’t mean that modern America’s endless red tape, delays, lawsuits, and general paralyzing inertia aren’t real problems. It just means that, “Ah, Stalinist Russia must have figured out something we haven’t” is not the lesson we should take away from this.

“If we’re so rich and brilliant it should be easy as pie for us to make things like . . . the Burj Khalifa . . . .”

Compared to elaborate subways, building skyscrapers is easy. The United States has 890 buildings of more than 150 meters or 40 floors. New ones open their doors to residents and workers every year. The second-highest skyscraper in New York City, the 98-story Central Park Tower, just opened its doors a few years ago. The new 70-story J. P. Morgan Chase building is scheduled to open next year. There are 20 major skyscraper projects under construction in Austin, with another 30 proposed or in the planning stages.

And as you may have heard, there’s an audacious proposal to build the second-highest building in the country in Oklahoma City.

Architecturally, you might love the designs of these new skyscrapers, or you might hate them. Maybe the Brooklyn Tower gives you Eye of Sauron vibes. (I’m not going to lie, the under-construction Waldorf Astoria in Miami looks to me like a pile of glittering Christmas presents that could topple over.) But we still build amazing things in this country, and you just have to be willing to see them, even if they contradict your preconceived narrative that “our whole country is ugly and decayed.”

If you don’t like skyscrapers, there’s the new Gilder Center at the Natural History museum in New York, the cool-looking One River North in Denver, the soon-to-open Populus hotel in that city, or the planned “motorcycle amphitheater” outside the Harley-Davidson headquarters in Milwaukee. Or The Sphere in Las Vegas. The Alamo in San Antonio is working on a sweeping overhaul and restoration. Been to Gettysburg lately? They’ve got an amazing new “Beyond the Battle Museum.” In my neck of the woods, the southwest waterfront in Washington, D.C., and across and down the Potomac, the recently expanded waterfront in Alexandria, are dramatic improvements upon what was there before.

It’s so easy to moan and groan, “Ugh, everything sucks. We’re a country in decline. Americans are fat and lazy. Look at this idiot I saw on social media.” Why do some Americans think everything in our country sucks? Because the overwhelming majority of the media they consume, from their social-media feeds to their prime-time cable-news shout-fests, is designed to make them angry and frustrated — and those hosts are likely telling them that the only way to save the country is to tune in every night, hit the subscribe button, buy their books, and vote for their preferred candidates.

You probably didn’t hear about two newbreakthroughs in slowing down Alzheimer’s from Eli Lilly and Eisai. Or the new gene therapies to treat sickle-cell disease. Next up: gene therapy to minimize or eliminate the risk of high cholesterol and to prevent heart disease. If you heard about the development of an mRNA vaccine for pancreatic cancer, you probably heard about it from someone telling you mRNA vaccines are bad and scary and all a sinister plot by pharmaceutical companies.

You name it, Americans are figuring out how to do it faster. Faster ways to count microbes and develop antibiotics? It’s happening at University of Colorado Boulder. Faster 3D printing? Happening at Harvard. Faster ways to conduct biopsies of brain-cancer tumors? Happening at New York University Langone.

Chat GPT? Made in America. Quantum computing? As far as we know, we’re leading the pack. Light-based computer chips that don’t use electricity and are effectively un-hackable? University of Pennsylvania researchers developed them last week. You probably didn’t hear about that, but you did hear about the sketchy story of the advice columnist who claims she was conned into handing $50,000 in cash to a stranger. (Charlie has questions about her story.)

This country still does great things, you just don’t hear about it much because it doesn’t draw as many eyeballs as “you won’t believe what this idiot just did.”

Finally, there’s never a good time to draw the spectacularly erroneous conclusion, “Oh, Vladimir Putin and Russia have got things figured out, and we don’t.” But it’s particularly egregious to draw that conclusion the week Alexei Navalny died in prison because of Putin’s despotic rule.
 
Most of what this journalist says is true, but also completely misses the point. "Why can't we have something like the Moscow subway" doesn't mean "why can't we build more subways." It means, "Why are our subways crap?" Why are they ugly, grimy, and full of various antisocial types? Why do the cars smell like pee? Why are there advertisements for PrEP everywhere, am I going to get sodomized? At its best, the Washington Metro looks like a prefab nuclear bunker decorated by Raytheon's advertising department. I think the Moscow Метрo actually is a nuclear bunker but no one in Washington expects or wants Metro riders to survive the first strike, so that's kind of ironic.

"Why can't we have something like the Burj Khalifa" doesn't mean "why can't we have tall buildings." It means "Why can't we make a building that is a point of national pride?" What's the last American building that really captured the world's imagination, something that represented America? The first iteration of the World Trade Center? I guess maybe we already have our allotment of iconic buildings and we can't build any more.

I don't imagine all of Russia or the UAE look like their showcases. Obviously they don't. But we should still be better than Russia or UAE at their best.
 
Who cares if some bank jews have built a new skyscraper? What possible positive impact on anyone's life does that have unless you're one of the goblins who work in it?
You have to see it through free market liberalism' eyes: the skyscraper means people worked to build it, meaning they have jobs, meaning money circulates, meaning everything is well!
 
America has shitty public transit primarily due to Americans not wanting to interact with other Americans.

Not even the people that talk of wanting walkable cities really want to be forced to take the bus, because it'd suck having to be around the poor people.

As far as normal "urban decay", they're usually talking about the diversity (non-whites) that aren't maintaining things and leads to neighborhoods feeling run down.
It’s so easy to moan and groan, “Ugh, everything sucks. We’re a country in decline. Americans are fat and lazy. Look at this idiot I saw on social media.” Why do some Americans think everything in our country sucks? Because the overwhelming majority of the media they consume, from their social-media feeds to their prime-time cable-news shout-fests, is designed to make them angry and frustrated — and those hosts are likely telling them that the only way to save the country is to tune in every night, hit the subscribe button, buy their books, and vote for their preferred candidates.
This is sorta true. People do eat up all kinds of rage-bait.

Part of what's happening though is people become more aware of those shitty parts of society. They're not turning a blind eye to it and instead going "what the fuck?", which is a good thing as nothing would be done about those problems if you just ignore it.

You probably didn’t hear about two newbreakthroughs in slowing down Alzheimer’s from Eli Lilly and Eisai. Or the new gene therapies to treat sickle-cell disease. Next up: gene therapy to minimize or eliminate the risk of high cholesterol and to prevent heart disease. If you heard about the development of an mRNA vaccine for pancreatic cancer, you probably heard about it from someone telling you mRNA vaccines are bad and scary and all a sinister plot by pharmaceutical companies.

You name it, Americans are figuring out how to do it faster. Faster ways to count microbes and develop antibiotics? It’s happening at University of Colorado Boulder. Faster 3D printing? Happening at Harvard. Faster ways to conduct biopsies of brain-cancer tumors? Happening at New York University Langone.

Chat GPT? Made in America. Quantum computing? As far as we know, we’re leading the pack. Light-based computer chips that don’t use electricity and are effectively un-hackable? University of Pennsylvania researchers developed them last week. You probably didn’t hear about that, but you did hear about the sketchy story of the advice columnist who claims she was conned into handing $50,000 in cash to a stranger. (Charlie has questions about her story.)
None of this helps with crime, jobs, improves schools, or makes our cities look nicer. Which are all obvious elements that affect how we feel society is doing. Being able to use bing ai to make some artists cry is funny, but it's not getting me a six figure job.
 
At its best, the Washington Metro looks like a prefab nuclear bunker decorated by Raytheon's advertising department.

The Washington DC Metro used to be awesome compared to New York City's. Sleek cars, attractive stations, even the way it opened and closed was much more modern and safer-feeling than what NYC had to offer, even in the 1990s when the NYC subway was as good as it was ever going to get. And they had 100% virgin wool carpets that were vacuumed, shampooed, and replaced on regular intervals.

Nowadays most of those niceties are gone, and the subways are just as bad as the NYC subways now.

America has shitty public transit primarily due to Americans not wanting to interact with other Americans.

No, it's because public transit tends to be filled with hobos, criminals, illegals, and other miscreants, with nominal rules but are rarely enforced. Mass transit advocates pretend these don't exist or at best install useless "ambassadors" who do nothing (or are afraid to). A druggie going on rants about he's going to kill everyone there is acceptable, and if you do something about, congratulations, YOU are the criminal.
 
Journalist who says "Get out more" advertises the latest bug people attractions in NYC and developing consumer opportunities.

I'd say come to Appalachia, but fuck off we're full.
 
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My neighborhood is falling apart. There's trash and graffiti everywhere. We got good public transportation here. But there's trash and graffiti all over that too. Junkies everywhere. When it rains it's all grimey.

It’s so easy to moan and groan, “Ugh, everything sucks.

But it does. A few shiny new glass towers and some Alzheimer's breakthroughs aren't going to change the obvious.
 
America has shitty public transit primarily due to Americans not wanting to interact with other Americans.
Isn't one of the enduring stereotypes of Americans is that they're actually too friendly? Especially compared to the more reserved nations like Asians or East Europeans.
 
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Isn't one of the enduring stereotypes of Americans is that they're actually too friendly? Especially compared to the more reserved nations like Asians or East Europeans.
Which may be why having to interact with the drug addicts, homeless, and diversity is more draining when on public transit. It's easier for decent Americans to deal with other decent people, but you get to come across those Americans (or those residing here) who don't really possess that element of American culture of wanting to put themselves out being nice to others.

Driving lets you avoid all that and stick to your own little enclaves of society where things are just nicer.
 
For American men, life expectancy is 73.5 years

That's actually outstandingly pathetic. 10% lower than other developed countries, I was legitimately shocked.

It's not a dissimilar gap between American males and Russian males as that between Western or Japanese or Korean and American males.
 
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No child, America is not decayed, look, 22% of Russians don't have plumbing (except 17% of that 22% actually do, it's just plumbing going to a septic tank instead of to the municipal water treatment system)

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But let's not let facts get in the way of a number you can throw in the face of uneducated American retards who can't read the Russian language source you're misquoting.

Journalists, hate, etc. It's all so tiresome.
 
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Galaxy Brain take:
Public transportation in America is terrible because the vast majority of Public Transportation customers in America are terrible people.
I was in the city one time taking the train and this black woman dropped her pants and pissed on ground at the station.
 
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