Posted on Saturday June 13th by The Infrastructurist | 124
When the New York Times does something big and ambitious you’re kind of required to mention it or you seem like you live under a rock. It would be like ignoring Carlos Slim at cocktail party or something. So: This week in the Times Magazine there is a generally-quite-good package on the theme of infrastructure. To save you the energy of skimming the table of contents and then feeling guilty for not reading anything, here is a summary:
- America has six times more retail space per capita than any European country. In his Consumed column, Rob Walker speaks with two experts we’ve done Q&A’s with on this site–Julia Christensen about re-using empty big box stores and Ellen Dunham Jones about reclaiming dead malls — who both support a building ban on new retail space. (Fat chance, kids.)
- Ray LaHood thinks of America as “one big pothole.” He thinks families will still have cars in the future, but one or two instead of two or three. And he’s not coordinated enough to skateboard.
- An excellent and rather comprehensive article about the California High Speed Rail project looks at the miserable condition of the Golden State’s passenger rail system today, the immense logistical challenges in a building a dedicated rail link (it makes fighting a war seem easy) and compares California’s efforts to the famous TGV in France, which got its start in 1971 and these days always runs on time.
- Whatever you do on the internet–play first-person shooter games, hang out on a Karl Marx discussion board, etc.–the information is going to pass through a data center. Where are these data centers? How many are there? Nobody is too keen to discuss specifics. But today they’re big ugly air-conditioned warehouses full of servers and generators. Tomorrow they’ll probably be more like electrical substations.
- The way we build bridges in this country often yields unattractive structures that aren’t all that durable. An example of a project done right though is the rebuilt I-35W bridge in Minneapolis. It’s fetching to look at and smartly integrates a new generation of electronic monitoring technology.
- Lovely pics by Jamey Stillings of a $190 million bridge being built over the Colorado River to connect Las Vegas and Phoenix without having to drive over the Hoover Dam. (Sample above)
- A video presentation of some radical proposals to remake Paris for the 3rd millennium. One scheme would create a Parisian knockoff of Central Park. Another has “a 1000 kilometer-long farmer’s market and garden.”
- Futuristic design ideas: an airport off on its own island like Lost, a second deck on NYC roadways for eco-style golf carts, and clean green waterwheel generators installed along the city’s waterfront so you always feel like you’re on a riverboat.
- Some famous hippie architect in Austria thinks that prisons shouldn’t be the most horrible buildings ever imagined. Plenty of Americans disagree though, so we keep building them that way. Here’s a slideshow of Austria’s fancy experimental “penitentiary.”
June 13th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
We don’t need no stinkin’ automobiles.
June 13th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Banning new retail construction would prove to be a complicated legal problem. Off the top of my head, I would think Equal Protection would be the most serious issue. You’re essentially creating two classes of property owners, ones who own already developed property and ones that don’t.
I would also think that local government would not be able to do it on its own even if it could justify some sort of permanent moratorium. New development would just move outside its boundaries. Instead we’d likely need amendment to each state’s zoning enabling acts.
We happen to be wrestling with such an issue in my town. The owner of two adjacent former car dealerships (closed before the financial crisis) wants to increase a building size cap in place in that business zone. The idea, though rather clumsy, is to force development to be a collection of smaller buildings. He’d prefer to build a large super retailer three times the size allowed. So while I’d like to have SOMETHING in that empty ugly space, building more big box when you’re trying to create a neighborhood is counterproductive.
June 13th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Thanks for posting this. Lots of good stuff in there. Of course they had to include that moronic Vinoly PRT proposal, didn’t they?
June 14th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Great Post! Been following the Hoover Dam By-Pass Construction. Thats truly an awesome project! Nothing like Concrete and Steel. Lets hope we can get some Rails n Ties down people!
June 14th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Thanks, Cap’n. I enjoy your site.
-Jebediah
June 14th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Great digest of a Sunday Times Magazine worth reading. I understand the odd burden you feel to be both amused and amusing, but providing a little context would confer on Sec. LaHood the cred he deserves. Not sure I understand the practice of painting allies and adversaries with the same jaded brush.
If you read the piece referenced above on high-speed rail, you’ll hear Sec. LaHood saying: “These things can’t happen unless you have real intense involvement from the government…These things are very expensive. But we wouldn’t have an Interstate system if there weren’t an involvement from the government. That’s how we should look at high-speed rail.”
Let’s help him build us some transformative infrastructure; we can teach him how to skateboard later.
June 14th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Thanks, Jeb! I like your site too; very informative! I can’t say I share your enthusiasm for highway bridges, but everyone’s got their own tastes!
June 15th, 2009 at 1:18 am
TAS,
Thanks for the comment. I’m a big fan of LaHood’s, as I think I’ve indicated on the site. But I’m not sure that being more dutiful in my summary of a Deborah Solomon q&a would help his cause. My goal in writing that item as I did was to entice people to click through and read the interview for themselves–that is, to pique some curiosity.
JR
June 15th, 2009 at 9:00 am
[...] massive piece on infrastructure in Sunday’s New York Times magazine . Here’s the Infrastructurist blog’s take on it [...]
June 15th, 2009 at 10:00 am
[...] how dachas, or summer cottages, have provided food for urban Russians in economic hard times; and The Infrastructurist breaks down the NY Times magazine special issue on infrastructure this weekend, so you don’t have [...]
June 15th, 2009 at 10:16 am
[...] how dachas, or summer cottages, have provided food for urban Russians in economic hard times; and The Infrastructurist breaks down the NY Times magazine special issue on infrastructure this weekend, so you don’t have [...]
June 15th, 2009 at 10:26 am
So, what’s a man gotta do to get into prison in Austria? Sounds nice! I don’t want to turn an infrastructure blog into a debate about human rights and criminal justice, but I must say that this quote etched on a wall outside the prison is just beautiful: “All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person.”
Crappy prisons only harden hardened criminals. Kudos to Austria for this excellent exercise in rehabilitative justice.
June 15th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
The Vinoly item about double-decking NYC streets and bikes causing traffic congestion was just utterly stupid.
June 15th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
[...] how dachas, or summer cottages, have provided food for urban Russians in economic hard times; and The Infrastructurist breaks down the NY Times magazine special issue on infrastructure this weekend, so you don’t have [...]
June 15th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
[...] how dachas, or summer cottages, have provided food for urban Russians in economic hard times; and The Infrastructurist breaks down the NY Times magazine special issue on infrastructure this weekend, so you don’t have [...]
June 15th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Ken - I missed that quote. But you’re right — it’s rather striking.
-Jeb
June 15th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
[...] wants to note The Infrastructurist’s take on this past weekend’s New York Times feature on “infrastructure.” Earlier this [...]