I don't think this is really true about either country. America builds plenty. When people talk about it not being able to build they really mean mass transit and to some extent certain types of housing in some areas. Everything else gets built just fine.
Theoretically you’re right. But having read the book, I agree with the general thesis. Things just move so much faster in China when it comes to making or building anything. Like I know firsthand people whose towns were converted from run-of-the-mill village to a T2 city in the span of a couple of decades. When hundreds of millions of people experience major change in their lives in front of their eyes, it’s a nit different than waiting for 5 years to start a new bridge across the river. I’m not even talking about factories, or policy course-corrections, or long-term goal settings either.
You can make a lot of arguments in this debate, but in terms of speed and execution, there’s a clear winner.
Faster is something of an arbitrary standard because speed is almost always a trade off with efficiency. A lot of China's speed comes down to cheap labor and inefficiently allocated capital.
Every 6 months of US health spending above OECD baseline i.e. ~8% of GDP, aka ~2T/y buys you the entire HSR network in China, stations included. How inefficient is PRC capital allocation really? A few 10s of millions of extra housing units when they have 200-300m more people to urbanize? The point is PRC over allocates but quickly readjusts, i.e. even housing allocation basically capped in 2010s when new floor space peaked. The even more important point is PRC thinks it's important to over allocate and have in abundance than to have not enough. I argue most would prefer problems of over allocated abundance over under allocated scarcity.
Like US has plenty of cheap labour (mexicans), they just choose to exploit it maximally in some sectors (like agriculture), and partially (like construction), vs maybe maximally exploiting cheap labours in the latter would do US some good.
We can keep using that excuse, but the reality is they're building, uplifting millions of people (obviously with some problems, but with the idea of "for the greater good"), and going forward with technology. Also, labour is actually not that cheap in China, compared to a decade+ ago.
On the same note, if we only talk about high speed rails, Spain has built up quite a network as well. Not as fast as China, but still. Labour isn't cheap over there at all, but seems like they figured some stuff out.
Its easier to upgrade a city when you can just move people out of their house. In the west its a nightmare to get anything changed because people own their spot and dont want to leave.
China moves so fast that by the time knowledge gets back to the West it’s often outdated. So my info should be checked.
But as I understand it China has been famous for “nail houses” - homes from which the owner refuses to move out, causing all kinds of headaches.
It isn’t a lawless place and the Party / local government doesn’t have carte blanche. There is nuance that’s worth considering before making blanket statements.
Yeah, people keep saying that Chinese build wherever they want to, whenever they want to. It's just not really true. It's correct that there are less bureaucracy (less environmental analysis, less consultation and etc.), but people still go and protest in their local areas when something happens that they don't like. There are people that don't move, but their lives become increasingly harder when they don't, because everyone else might take the money and go forward.
Sometimes it's also the opposite, the local government fight for the new build ups, so they can get the money and investments in. Or block development through their areas when there is no real reason to allow it (think of rails but with no stops there).
> When people talk about it not being able to build they really mean mass transit and to some extent certain types of housing in some areas. Everything else gets built just fine.
Also, the obsession with public transit coverage and walkability as some sort of benchmark for how well your country is doing is at best misguided and at worst ableist and ageist.
Public transit fucking sucks even in countries where it's supposed to be good, because it's inherently sucky. Most of America is car-centric and it's pretty good once you buy into that model of living. Not everyone is a childless 25-year-old healthy able person who doesn't mind living in some 350 sqft box in the middle of a loud downtown hellscape and take public transit to almost-get-to everywhere they need to go before walking the last mile.
When you go to someplace like the Netherlands and see "everyone" riding a bicycle, just keep in mind that what you're seeing isn't actually "everyone".
> Most of America is car-centric and it's pretty good once you buy into that model of living.
Is it though? I'm for public transit because one day I'll be of an age where I probably shouldn't be driving but am still able and independent enough to get around.
In a car-centric culture, what's the solution? Making the elderly take taxis or rideshares everywhere (assuming there is taxi services or Uber available where you live)? That feels like an ageist tax unless those services are heavily subsidized somehow. Or allowing the elderly to drive, which in my experience can be its own hazard both to drivers and everyone else.
Imagine your entire access to the world is decided by an insurance company and their willingness to insure your driving in old age.
When my mom was dying of cancer she was lucky our small town has a public shuttle bus system. She was not able to drive herself to her cancer support group at the end.
When my very poor grandparents came to visit in Santa Cruz they could not afford a rental car. We took the bus everywhere. I have so many memories with them thanks to public transportation. My grandfather had a very very painful artificial hip.
I agree. Also the US seems to be smarter about what to build: the US has not built cities the size of Manhattan that stand empty year after year like China has.
