The Minnisota Bridge Collapse and Alantic Yards.

You think this would be a wake up call to corrupt politicians, but no, it will just be another reason so raid public coffers to provide lucrative inspection and building programs to favored companies - of course the real profit comes in cutting corners::

Steve Sailer writes:

Spend More On Infrastructure? Or Cut Back On Immigration?
[Steve Sailer] @ 8:30 am [Email author] [Email This Article] [Print This Article]

In the wake of the Minnesota bridge collapse, Ross Douthat wants to. A few observations:

* - Road-building is a national disgrace. It’s corrupt — Mayor Daley’s closest buddies in Chicago are the road-builders who finance his campaigns in return for enormous contracts–and thus the quality of our roads intentionally stink, wearing down our cars and lowering our gas mileage. They’re supposed to fall apart because that puts more money in campaign donors’ pockets. Roads in Belgium are made to last 40 years, in Chicago 12 years.
* - The more densely populated the country gets, the harder it is to build infrastructure because of Not In My Backyardism, which increases with the number of backyards. There will never be another freeway built in Southern California, even though the population is expected to climb sharply, because land is now so expensive.
*
* - Compared to 1950, it takes forever to build anything these days, largely because of environmentalism, but every activist has his hand out too. To finish the Century Freeway to LAX, for example, CalTrans had to payoff hundreds of “community“ organizations, including an AIDS group in West Hollywood, ten miles and two freeways to the north!
* - The simplest way to slow the worsening of the population-to-infrastructure ratio is to cut back on immigration, just as it’s also the simplest way to lessen the increasing stress on other problem spots, such as public schools, inequality, and health insurance. Instead, what we constantly hear is: “Oh, no, all we have to do is fix the public schools [inequality] [health care] [or various other problems that we have no likelihood of ever coming up with a magic bullet fix for].

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New York City politicians either bribed by campaign contributions from developers or anticipations of more tax revenue, are letting developers like Ratner build build build without improving infrastructure -they just keep piling and piling on more buildings and people without seriously looking at mundane but necessary things like sewage, electricity and subway capacity. Ratner doesn't care, nor the does Bloomberg, because it doesn't effect them and serous consideration gets in the way of their objectives (in Ratner's case lining his own pockets at public expense).

Its well known that Bloomberg has flippantly ignored doing anything long term that might help with our seriously antiquated infrastructure, while allowing developers to build at an unprecedented rate. It will be up New Yorkers of the future to pay for it...and as Minnesota shows us, the cost might be more than many of us care to contemplate.