Why Not Here?

Is this strictly a cost? I notice all are using foreign labor and materials.

There may be a number of issues but, yes, it would be costly for both labor and materials.

I also think there may not be a building code/safety oversight. And the push by the country where the building is to be constructed as to national pride of being a progressive and modern society.

One more reason is a potential future growth market.

It is because America is not winning any more. But hold onto your britches, because we are going to get back in the game and we are going to win so much, people will be asking us to stop winning.

The problem as I say it over the last forty years was the loss of numbers in college science classes, as compared to journalism, for example. Then we started importing students, and once they learned what they needed, they went home.

You didn't repeat yourself enough, nor use Yuge three of four times or I would have guessed someone tweeted that speech to you at 2:00 AM this morning.

∇0 = 0

(check ignore box if Lyn replies)

dern it could not find a checkbox to insert here.

Well there's 32 Park Ave. and the One World Trade Center (both in NY). But if you look at all the great architectural accomplishments that have been achieved, America has its share:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America's_Favorite_Architecture

There are landmarks around the world that are popular; Dubai has certainly grabbed the headlines lately with its construction boom, but they are in a transition period. The three Gorges Dam in China was a huge project, but they too are in a transition period. As far as large construction projects in the U.S., we are mostly in a maintenance phase where we must begin to revamp and renovate and improve our huge infrastructure that already exists. So basically there is no need for these giant tallest of tall buildings to be built in any US cities. You are comparing apples and oranges. We are currently in a technological renaissance, still digesting the internet and communication innovation that has come into the lives of everybody, changing the way we live and work while entering the age of automation and AI. It threatens our concepts of how we live our lives and what the future will be.

A lunch beer break seems like a bad idea (unless perhaps the climate is hot enough that the beer's alcohol would not likely cause an issue).

It's no secret that a hundred million plus goes much MUCH further in other countries.

Ok, I may be out of line here but what about some American Unions (some, not all!) resulting in American labour wages being unnecessarily too high to be economically competitive and hence doing more damage to the company and workforce rather than helping them.

'not that easy'

From a practical and commercial view, your right - yes it is, from a bureaucratic view however the paperwork, vender approvals, long-winded procedures needed to be followed because it's even harder to change the existing procedures, etc they were probably right.

Did the people that responded look like life (and the 'system') had beaten them down with a dead horse?

First, let's kill all the lawyers.

Not so fast, Louie. They're an important source of protein.

BBQ tastes like frog legs, but is way more stringy. Jumps right out of the skillet when attempting to fry.

and the parking lot managers. Just kidding.

Truck Spring? Oh no no no no.. This spring and loop of steel was described as being an "ADA compliant" piece of playground equipment. Designed in such a way as to allow those with limited mobility to enjoy it. Rather than argue the point that an exact copy could be made with a truck spring and a loop of steel etc. I just figured the cost of the equipment into my bid. So even with a truck to deliver half a yard of concrete I'm close to $1500 material cost.

That barley leaves $100 an hour for 3 guys to dig a little hole in the sand and supervise the setting of the spring all morning.

So where the F does the other 7K go? .. To the Bureaucratic dump/bank.

Regarding the last statement one would be wise to ask the "city" treasurer, "city" accountant and "city" attorney.

$200,000,000.00+

To rebuid the Wilson train stop.

If that goes unnoticed what chance is there to make a point?

Obviously nobodies listening.. Just cashing checks..

..that doesn't mean i won't try!

But if it weren't ADA compliant, how could you reasonably expect anyone to floss with it?

_{^{(aren't TLAs wonderful? No ambiguity there! )}}

I have a few choice FLW's for TLA's!!!

And don't ask me what those silly smiley faces are all about.

"I have no idea how it came to be but the mentality I largely see now is its t better to spend a million dollars on a catering to the preventing of barely imagined worst case 'what if' scenarios from happening than it is to spend $1000 on actual rational study work to see if any of those concerns are even remotely valid to begin with."

Well said! I think this pretty much gets to the root of the issue. I think we all agree that there should be some precautions taken, but at some point we've got to accept some level of risk in order to get things done.

Well you are also comparing different types of government, and in a country that is ruled by a Family or a communist state where everything is owned by the government, then of course the cost structure is going to be different...and perhaps not accurately measured as the true cost....I don't see any workers getting rich here so I think a free market society is more representative of the true cost of something....Then of course you have permitting, regulations and codes, these can have a huge cost compared to somebody working without them...

You will not find hot riveters taking beer breaks, nor the beam walkers.

Actually i was watching a program about construction of another one of the world's tallest building's and that's pretty much what was happening. A beer with the pail lunch a thousand feet up.

Hot rivitt? Is that still a thing?

The breakfast of champion's.

I felt the same way, but I felt that the problems with this country is meeting safety standards, such as Fire escape, and the like. And that having the tallest building just does not hold the esteem it once did.

It's not here because other countries were discovered that could provide labor at almost nothing compared to U. S. labor rates and container ships were coming into their own as a cheap means of moving goods and materials all over the world.

American companies, with millionaire lawyers and accountants and the ability to purchase votes in Congress saw a way to "offshore" many products at about the same time that Japan started instituting efficient manufacturing practices.

Later Mexico, and even later China started their own industrial revolutions and America lost the edge it had gained as a result of industrial and educational advances made during the war.

Cheap steel could be shipped from Chinese steel mills at a fraction of the cost of American steel. Steel manufacturing began to decline and jobs were lost to overseas companies.

Electronics began leaving here in the 1970's as companies like Motorola (where I worked at the time) built plants in Japan, Korea and other countries. More jobs lost.

Walmart singlehandedly raise the GDP of China substantially and America's expense.

"Numerous modern skyscrapers are being built elsewhere" because oil money flowed to those areas and they could afford to buy "Large".

It remains to be seen if james Stewart's rose colored glasses present a clear picture of our future. I am very skeptical and fear that the USA may well find itself in further decline due to our diminishing stature in the world, and that the new administration with it's arrogant, totalitarian attitude may well take us further into decline if not war.

You can't bully your way to respect, it must be earned.

Wars do stimulate the economy, unless you lose.

Well we are currently at war on terrorism, and it's not a good way to "stimulate" the economy...The government must borrow money to wage war through the issuance of bonds...Unless you are supplying weapons and war supplies, you are not making much....Issuing bonds to rebuild the infrastructure of the country is a much better way to stimulate the economy...at least in the end you have something to show for your money....

Agreed, terrorism is a rather weak substitute because you cannot put a face and location on it like you can a country. When a Democracy goes to war a great deal depends on public opinion.

Also to make money you need a lot of targets and a lot of ordinance to expend. And of course a nice subdued country you can send your government contractors in to rebuild and clean up afterwards. America isn't mass producing ships, tanks and airplanes to fight terrorism.

Again this is ONLY from a economic stimulation point of view.

"Wars do stimulate the economy, unless you lose."

9/11/01 should have been as galvanizing an event as December 7, 1941.

After a month or so - crickets!

Never! Nothing like WWII.

It was terrible and will always be etched into the American conscience, but it did not plunge us into a world wide war.

My wife and mother in law were stranded in Estes Park, Colorado when the FAA instituted an unheard of national ground stop, but our lives all went on and they spent two more days in paradise.

I remember precisely where I was when John Kennedy was assassinated and when those planes hit the WTC.

Neither event changed the course of humanity like WWII did.

“There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Damn you for taking my name in vain you A #1 hole!

What we have, is failure to communicate.

Just don't go all Capt. Moosie on me. He seems to harbor a deep and abiding hatred for anyone that disagrees with his radical views.

NO wait! He's just being Presidential I guess. Maybe that's the latest "Craze"!

[He said as he left his office with a street view, to hide out in one of his parking garages]

You silly poop!

The UK has been asking itself this question for at least 40 years. If you find the answer, please let us know

The better question: Why here at all?

When I went to work for this city, they play this training video called, "Lubbock, the city that should never have been".

There was a choice between Lubbock, LaMesa, and Plainview, as I best recall for the site of Texas Technological College (now Texas Tech University). Thus far, I can see that Lubbock has used up most of the resources of West Texas, edumacated some farm kids, made a few astronuts, and inspired morons such as myself to attend clusters of hoigher larnin'.

All the while, the sprawl has consumed far more cotton acreage than the boll weevil ever did. But it is a nice city with fast food on virtually every corner, and lots of fat butts to boot.

We now have a world economy.

The days of isolationism are mostly over, except here in the US where we are about to take a giant step backwards and try to go back in time 50-100 years.

China and the other members of the world economy have unique advantages in how their goods are manufactured and marketed that our respective countries can't match.

Much worse for us, our new administration is taking steps to insult and alienate most of the other countries in the world, except maybe Russia. We're not shooting ourselves in the foot, we're about to blow our entire leg off and slowly bleed to death.

Oh yeah, like anything out of China made of steel, especially their so-called high speed steel cutting tools, dies, and taps that are somewhere below reject grade?

Tungsten carbide or anything else they make that is carbide is probably worth having.

Isn't this more evidence of impending ''Bureau-calypse'' ? ...

GA from me...

( and can I also give a GA for the by-line, as well?... )

One thing i have noticed across all areas, is adherence to a notion called "best practice." If you or I, deviate from "best practice" we are hanging our neck out with a placard saying 'cut here'. This, IMHO, is stagnating all endeavours.

What? You are interested in the safety and well being of others? What's wrong with you?!.. Here, now swallow these. Get on board and pay your taxes without questioning "best practice" for crying out loud!

what? who turned my aren't into an are?

...me supose

Yesterday JPool's comments were being modified long after the editor timed-out. Not just spelling changes, but whole lines of text being added to his comments.

Glad to see I am not alone in this.... Admins still have not responded to my complaint.

Vindicated! I am not crazy! Found this message in my mail box in regards to text changes : "The recent Changes were done by a new mod. I'll have a chat with this person."

As Brian Fellows used to say.. That's Crazy!

..as for my mistake.. I think it was.

Obviously a case of someone not having enough work to do!

OR perhaps it is not so much an insufficiency of work to do, as an insufficiency of appropriate work to do. Somehow busting rocks in the hot Texas sun comes to mind as useful to cure many social ills.

How about something more productive like repairing roads instead?

First you have to bust rocks, where do you think gravel comes from? Did dinosaurs chew up rock, and spit gravel? Did they pee on the rocks, and split them wide open?

You did notice in the example above that Herbert was the one digging. That is King Herbert to you. The fools standing around him are all church officials waiting for the offering plate to come by.

Vikings do not require roads or streets. Think on that a while.

A lot of this silliness could be solved by one simple, easy move.

Give me mod. power and I would restore sanity and order to this motley crew in a heartbeat!

I'd be more Presidential. "It's my way or the highway you pukes"!

Yes, but then you would hate what you had become, and we cannot have that.

Correction. He would have to become what he hates plus act in similar fashion including having to occasionally have his facts in order and trust others who are more knowledgeable and skilled in areas he is clearly not to give him good advice.

That's just silly. What next, proclaim how great an operating system Microsoft Windows is?

The very fabric of the universe would unravel!

Or worse, an Executive Order making Win10 mandatory.

On the plus side, we'd never see his Tweets again - nor anyone else's.

Their servers run Linux.

You would not make so much as a cheese fart compared to the Chief Cheeto in charge of the smokin' hot Cheetos. Did I mention I love Cheetos?

Power corrupts, and you with absolute power is too frightening for children to behold.

I defy you anyway. LOL If your lungs were on fire, I could not psee down your throat to put you out.

Yes, i get that. The extreme concern for safety has led to us trying to prevent Darwin Awards from being awarded. In the process, adventurous endeavours have been bridled and held us back. I am sure that countries that actively applaud new and innovative endeavours regardless of the injuries/deaths caused, achieve great things. Aside; what is in the pic?

Jim

what's in the pic? glad you asked..

.. So yeah.. it's those little bumps to HELP the blind and visually impaired. navigate the outside world.

In Chicago the rip out about 300 sq ft of sidewalk with new curb all the way. (even if the new sidewalk was perfect or just a year old.) to install a couple of these at a single corner. Four corners per intersection. it adds up. there are tens of millions in annual maintenance because they did a crap job or selected the style that crumbles or pop up..

I don't see people use them but I hear about tripping, falling, cane and wheelchair hazards etc.

Blind people know better than to rely on them because they will put them in the stupidest locations as well. Talk about projecting a false sense of security.

I never saw that when I was there last year and I spent a day just walking around the central city, magnificent mile, parks and waterfront?

They are there. They are everywhere.. Downtown you'll likely see the ones made from a rusty slab of cast iron.. Not much to look at but more durable. They pretty much go unnoticed which is pretty sad for something that's supposed to be for the visually impaired. Most of them installed units are brick red and pop upfrom moisted freeze/thaw.

in this lawsuit is says the city installs 2500-3000 sets per year.

typical of every corner.

It must be a disease. Lubbock has the same malady with plumber crack showing on every corner as they install blind person, deaf wheelchair ramps for the encumbered and mentally unstable snowflakes.

Now that's irony.

All the low hanging fruit has long since been picked.

I'd like to expand on what seems to have degraded into a shouting match. What does BA practice, and BA technology actually mean if the the conditions are not monitored real time by the groups defining what the BA practices or technology are to be.

I remember being at an Engineering Congress in Essen, Germany back in the 1980's. One exhibit by the government and an industrial group had fully instrumented a coke plant facility and was remotely monitoring the operation 24/7 at the Congress. They tracked the BA practices and used them for conformance.

I think a lot of it has to do with the practicality of things being more of a factor in today's business world.

Why spend a few billion on a tall building that will be permanently surrounded by terrible traffic, parking, and all round poor access plus security issues and high tax and operationg costs when that sme money will buy a company a huge tract of land outside of the reach of urban stretch plus a substantial amount more equivalent building space as well that will largely never have any of those other problems to deal with.

Well once upon a time people had to be somewhere to meet somebody to conduct business....now we can do that virtually....

Actually on our "smart" phone from virtually anywhere.

The U.S. went through its 'stupendous buildings' phase early on I think. If you look at the countries currently engaged in building these marvellous structures, many (but not all) are up-and-coming economies. It's almost like a phase countries go through, stepping onto the world economic stage and saying "Hey guys! Look what we can do!"

It may also be a snipe at the established economies: "Our building/dam/bridge/whatever is bigger than yours! Take that!" Almost like teenagers flouting their new-found freedoms in their parents' face.

The U.S. is grown up, built impressive skyscrapers, sent men to the Moon and robots to Mars, has a huge economy. It doesn't need to build impressive buildings to wow the rest of the world, that's what teenage countries do. In light of U.S.' other accomplishments it would almost seem anti-climactic, as in "Been there, done that."

Just my two 2¢ worth.

Anti-climactic.

Fixed. Thanks.

Trump's now in, the current environmental policy is very pro-industry and anti-climatic.

Insanity rules!

That is because you sir have been working overtime to keep the supply of fools above the demand curve. I see them all over the news every night.

All they know how to do is (1) abridge the rights of others, especially free speech, and (2)burn other people's sheite.

Were I you, I'd ask the girls in your prayer circle to pray night and day for your bitter soul!

Perhaps a visit with a psychiatrist might help you quell your fits of vitriol!

....and that, my friends, is pure left-wing projection. Did you ever work in a movie theater as a projectionist? You should have.

I just call it like it is.

No, he is clearly pro-climate. Business climate, military climate, diplomatic climate change. See? Before long, we will see the climate begins to gee and haw by executive order. Just what the world order calls for. Someone to take charge.

"built impressive skyscrapers, sent men to the Moon and robots to Mars, has a huge economy."

Yes, we did.

And now we have a crumbling infrastructure (highways/dams/bridges/railroads/transportation in general) ignored by a dysfunctional Congress, poison water in Flint brought on by incompetence and neglect and a dysfunctional Congress, an educational system in shambles and headed toward a for-profit nightmare of unqualified teachers and no oversight, astronomical health care and drug costs, brought on by big pharma and their lobbyi$t$.

Instead, we get a useless wall on our southern border that will be a monument to racism, waste and ignorance.

No offense to you, but, there's work that needs to be done here too.

No argument there.

Where is your compassion? We have to protect all the Hondurans from coming here and tripping over the sight challenged additions to our sidewalks. A bridge might crumble and hit them over the head, and then they would have to go to the doctor (just one visit that is supposed to take place for 30 mins will get you to maybe see a doctor 4 hours later, and maybe just a PA, depending on the luck of the draw), or maybe they go to Taco Bell, and eat bacteria meat (mystery meat "product" made from oats and bacteria).

The pathway leads to the nearest emergency room, and we just can't have that, now can we?

Infrastructure need to be addressed with more than dollars that amounted to nothing more than "Shovel Ready" lip service.

What kind of question is this, anyway? Even the Donald knows enough to avoid some investments.