The infrastructural humiliation of America

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: DV Henkel-Wallace <gumby () henkel-wallace org>
> Date: February 6, 2019 at 1:21:12 AM GMT+9
> To: Dave Farber <farber () gmail com>
> Subject: Re: [IP] The infrastructural humiliation of America
>
> It’s not just physical infrastructure. In the US you simply spend a greater percentage of your time managing your 
> life rather than living it — calling to debug mysterious charges on your phone bills or bank statements, deciding 
> what health plan might actually function where you live, etc. Simple things are encrusted with intermediaries and 
> hangers-on so things like your retirement plan has to beat the market just to get a neutral return.  Taxes are 
> complicated and regulatory capture means that the IRS can’t help you... Food safety is regulated by food producers; 
> telecom maps are provided by carriers and then published as truth by “regulators”. 
>
> It can be tolerable if you work in a few fun pockets like silicon valley, but elsewhere the frogs are all being 
> boiled. 
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Feb 4, 2019, at 23:05, Dave Farber <farber () gmail com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > > From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> > > Date: February 5, 2019 at 4:00:40 PM GMT+9
> > > To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> > > Subject: [Dewayne-Net] The infrastructural humiliation of America
> > > Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
> > >
> > > [Note:  This item comes from friend Robert Berger.  DLH]
> > >
> > >
> > > The infrastructural humiliation of America
> > > By Jon Evans
> > > Feb 3 2019
> > > <https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/03/the-infrastructural-humiliation-of-america/>
> > >
> > > I’m flying back to the USA today, and as an infrastructure aficionado, it’s nice to be going home, but I’m dreading 
> > > the disappointment. I just spent two weeks in Singapore and Thailand; last year I spent time in Hong Kong and 
> > > Shenzhen; and compared to modern Asia, so much American infrastructure is now so contemptible that it’s hard not to 
> > > wince when I see it.
> > >
> > > The USA is nine times wealthier than Thailand, per capita, but I’d far rather ride Bangkok’s SkyTrain than deal 
> > > with NYC’s subway nowadays. I’d much prefer to fly into Don Muang, Bangkok’s ancient second-tier airport — which 
> > > was actually closed for years, before being reopened to handle domestic flights and low-cost airlines — than the 
> > > hostile nightmare that is LAX. And those are America’s two primary gateway cities!
> > >
> > > So imagine what it’s like coming to America from wealthy Asian nations, and their gleaming, polished, 
> > > metronomically reliable subways, trains, and airports. I don’t think Americans understand just how that comparison 
> > > has become a quiet ongoing national humiliation. If they did, sheer national (and civic) pride would make them want 
> > > to do something about it. Instead there’s a learned helplessness about most American infrastructure nowadays, a 
> > > wrong but certain belief that it’s unrealistic to dream of anything better.
> > >
> > > It’s not just those two cities. Compare Boston’s T to, say, Taipei, or San Francisco’s mishmash of messed-up 
> > > systems — Muni, where I have waited 45 minutes for a T-Third; CalTrain, which only runs every 90 minutes on 
> > > weekends; BART, which squandered millions on its useless white-elephant Millbrae station — to Shenzhen. And it’s 
> > > not just age; Paris’s metro was inaugurated in 1900, but its well-maintained system continues to run excellently 
> > > and expand continuously.
> > >
> > > Americans still tend to think of themselves as an example to other nations. Ha. I assure you, over the last few 
> > > years nobody has flown from Seoul or Taipei or Tokyo or Singapore or Hong Kong or Shenzhen into Newark Airport; 
> > > taken the AirTrain to the NJ Transit station; waited for the rattling, decrepit train into the city; walked through 
> > > the repellent ugliness of Penn Station to the subway; waited for its ever-increasing delays; ridden to their 
> > > destination; and finally emerged into New York City — the nation’s alpha city! — still thinking of the USA as 
> > > anything other than a counterexample, or maybe a cautionary tale.
> > >
> > > This goes beyond transport infrastructure. Airport security measures are much more sensible in Asia. Payments are 
> > > increasingly separately structured, and better, too — in many places, credit cards (which already barely exist as a 
> > > concept in China) are beginning to slowly wither away, replaced by Alipay and to a lesser extent WeChat Pay. (Not 
> > > least because an ever-growing proportion of the tourist population is Chinese rather than Western, nowadays.)
> > >
> > > That’s admittedly an example of leapfrogging, not decay, and American infrastructure does still have some bright 
> > > spots. American roads are mostly still superb. Lyft and Uber are much better than their Southeast Asian equivalent 
> > > Grab, which, whenever I checked it during this latest trip, was invariably both slower and more expensive than a 
> > > taxi (never mind a tuk-tuk) despite the infamous Thai taxi mafias. International mobile connectivity is excellent 
> > > and user-friendly and reasonably priced, at least if you’re on T-Mobile like me, and as an added bonus, due to a 
> > > technical quirk, mobile data roaming bypasses China’s Great Firewall.
> > >
> > > But that doesn’t change the fact that the state of much of America’s infrastructure is appalling on its face, and 
> > > even moreso when compared to nations which are on paper nowhere near as rich. The money other nations spend on 
> > > urban infrastructure (don’t even get me started on intercity trains) is instead siphoned off to somewhere else. It 
> > > makes the USA — still by far the wealthiest country in the world! — seem like an dying empire, one beginning to 
> > > visibly crack and crumble as it is slowly hollowed out from within.
> > >
> > > [snip]
> > >
> > > Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> > > Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp
> >
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