While We Dither, They Build

Strange, I know, but here's another one about China. Bear with me:

John Derbyshire at National Review points to this BBC article about a massive highway project connecting Chinese cities with the hinterland. Go ahead and read it in full. No? OK, here's a bit of it.

The new highway bypasses a winding, potholed rural road that weaves between some of the region's poorest villages. The old route is prone to dangerous rockslides.

Here every day an estimated 3,000 lorries churn up the tarmac round the hairpin bends. Many are old and overloaded, spewing-out clouds of rancid, black smoke that choke the farmers in the roadside paddy fields.

According to the Asian Development Bank, which finances around a quarter of the $800m project, the new route will power the economy by linking the local rural population to market opportunities, social services and employment, not to mention attracting investment deeper into the country.

Every year China is constructing around 4,000 km of expressways, towards its target of connecting every city with a population of 200,000 or more to an 85,000 km national motorway network.

Half the work is already done.

People often see China's low wages as a threat to American economic dominance, but perhaps a far more powerful force exists: Momentum.

These people are audacious and ambitious, and they are also damn quick about it. Compare these Chinese projects with something like the Parkway East. I think that started in the 1950s when my mom was in nursing school. Is it even finished? And what about the Mon-Fayette? The Intercounty Connector in Maryland has been in the planning stages for 50 years and it's still gummed up in discussions and community meeting and other delays.

That's not to say things would be better if we simply rammed these things through like a corrupt communist regime does. But there is something to be said for vitality and vigor. Quick: Do you think the American interstate highway system would pass muster today? Would any major infrastructure project?

Yes, some of these delays serve a purpose. Environmental assessments are important (Note the Chinese farmers choking on the black smoke in the BBC article). Still, it seems clear that a lot of what's going on here is due to a lack of vision, ambition and leadership. If you are going to build it, build it. If not, move on to something else. Where's our moon landing? We get casinos and convention centers instead. Or worse, Boston's Big Dig. We dither so much that a simple logging project on the Allegheny National Forest has been in the courts for almost a decade.

It doesn't have to be government projects, of course. I prefer otherwise. Silicon Valley, for all its faults, is a tremendous tribute to American ambition and innovation. Still, the get up and go that the Chinese display is impressive. Pittsburgh had that once. The Carnegies and the Fricks and the Mellons. Plenty wrong with them, sure, but plenty right, too. Is there still an inkling of it left? A sense of daring and courage? I hope so.

Update: I am predicting complaints that this is an endorsement of the Mon-Fayette, the Parkway East or other Big Government projects. Nope. Although sometimes roads are good. Again, what I am getting at is, build it or don't already. Instead, it seems like the planning and unplanning and replanning is a symptom of some larger sense of fatigue, either economic, cultural or political. I think we're much better off if it's political. 

Comments

[Al L'Agheny]

Don't forget the Allegheny Valley Expressway.... Rt 28 haggling has gone on for many decades, and is specifically hindered by a historic church nobody visits and railroad right of ways that can't be touched by the one legitimate use of eminent domain.... So the roadway to the northeast remains a giant quagmire during work hours, and a dangerous roadway juat all times.

[RichW]

Kim Jong-Il built a 10-lane expressway in a country with few cars. Not sure what the point is here.

We're talking America. And we're talking Pittsburgh. Somebody put all these obstacles in place for a reason. Maybe not good reasons, but if you follow the money behind why we have a zillion local governments and ordinances throughout our history, you'll figure out why all this crap passed referendums and why the people behind them got elected in the first place.

The only "American" way out of this is to create incentives to get rid of the obstacles - and the zillions of local governments. Make them offers they can't refuse.

Perhaps we should spring Buddy Cianci from Providence out of jail and make him mayor. Providence is a great example of a city that successfully rebuilt its downtown while keeping its character. So what if the mob was involved? Our government can't do what the Chinese are doing. So if we want the capital improvements, let's do it the old fashioned way - lots of union jobs and graft. The real economic liquidity of urban development isn't in the idle land. It's in stealing the bricks and copper and occasional backhoe.

Just a thought.

[Sam MacDonald]

RichW wrote: "Kim Jong-Il built a 10-lane expressway in a country with few cars. Not sure what the point is here."

Hmm... My point certainly not that "Kim Jong-Il built a 10-lane expressway in a country with few cars."

Kim Jong-Il is North Korean, not Chinese. But that doesn't matter. My point is that these people get stuff done. I tried to point out several times that I do not approve of their approach. Few do. Instead, I am saying that we face a real challenge, and that is one of leadership. Like I said, environmental review is important. But is it so important that it should have kept the ICC from cutting across Maryland for 50 years? I repeat: fifty years. That's not review, that's stasis and indecision. Maybe the ICC is a bad. If so, an extremely vital and efficient society would have killed it off and come up with new solutions 45 years ago. A slow and deliberate democracy would have done so 30 years ago. Fifty years is too long. Just like 10 years is too long to plan a logging project.

As for graft, who knows? A certain amount is inevitable. And the first dollars spent on anything probably yield good returns. But eventually, like with everything else, subsequent dollars yield diminishing returns. You don't spend a million dollars on a security system to protect a $30,000 house. Have we reached that point? Maybe.

Either way, all I am saying is that when it starts taking several generations to plan a road, whether it's in Pittsburgh or Baltimore or North Korea, something's wrong. And terribly so.

[RichW]

Sam,
My point was that using your analogy, the North Koreans are "can-do" people as well. There is no private property in our sense of the definition (therefore no eminent domain) in China (or N. Korea) so the government can do as it pleases. Thus, your argument is flawed.

As to your point about whether we could build an interstate system today, the answer is yes, assuming we didn't already have one in place. A key component of the argument for the interstate system back in the 40s and 50s was that it was necessary to mobilize troops and ordnance against the Red Threat. Facilitating interstate commerce was a bonus. If you recall, the original plans stated that for every X miles highway there had to be one straight mile of road unobstructed by overpasses so you could land a B-52 if needed.

Given today's passion for homeland security, it would be a top priority, pull out all the stops project. Again, assuming it wasn't already in place.

I'm with you on some of the waste (not PNC Park or the Convention Center though). I've been here four years and I'm still astounded anyone thought the Mon-Fayette was a worthwhile project. I wouldn't finish it.

I imagine the question you're asking is more like, "Where's our Bud Shuster?" Who did that guy have dirt on? That six-lane stretch of I-99 probably has about the same traffic density as Kim Jong-Il's highway to nowhere.

[Sam MacDonald]

Rich,

Good points, although I still doubt whether a highway system could go in. People make national security claims about oil drilling in ANWR and that battle has still been years in the fighting.

But again, I want to point out that I am talking about more than government projects. In fact, as a small "l" libertarian, I have grave concerns about the use of eminent domain. Kelo? Me no likey. So I am not talking about greasing the skids of big government. Hell, the facists made the trains run on time. And I think to that in the long run, the Chinese will only succeed to the extent that they incorporate market forces in their economy. And they appear in some cases to be going in that direction. Are we? I don't think so. We appear to have lost faith in that rough-and-tumble system.

I worry that this national sense of "slowness," of trepidation, betrays a lack of confidence. Or worse, a lack of imagination or daring. This is why I am so upset about plans to use public money to build hotels and convention centers and stadiums. Where is our generation's P.T. Barnum, or whoever else would be creative enough to drive that kind of industry? It appears that we are either not willing to wait, or certain that the market for such services will "fail." Why so scared? Why not let private developers research downtown and do something creative or new or daring. Bureaucrats are a lot of things, but they are not known for innovation.