State capacity and eight parking spaces(brethorsting.com)
brethorsting.com
State capacity and eight parking spaces
https://www.brethorsting.com/blog/2025/07/state-capacity-and-eight-parking-spaces/
87 comments
And he doesn't do it because he thinks the experience would be so miserable compared to working in tech
I've worked for the US federal government, big tech and another big corp. I would say my experience with the government (and the non tech big corp) was more positive than big tech, as my team was more focused on working/growing together rather than trying to individually outshine everyone else. I feel like we were working towards practical goals that has clear benefits for our customers rather than trying to hit seemingly arbitrary kpi's.
Working for the government I also feel like my work/life balance was most respected as well. YMMV though. Admittedly, N=1 here.
I've worked for the US federal government, big tech and another big corp. I would say my experience with the government (and the non tech big corp) was more positive than big tech, as my team was more focused on working/growing together rather than trying to individually outshine everyone else. I feel like we were working towards practical goals that has clear benefits for our customers rather than trying to hit seemingly arbitrary kpi's.
Working for the government I also feel like my work/life balance was most respected as well. YMMV though. Admittedly, N=1 here.
I had a student job at the State of Illinois a long time ago.
From what I could tell their biggest problem hiring good people were:
1) pay rates tended to be well below industry, even when considering benefits (for programmers at the time)
2) their hiring process was really long. They had to go through this process where they had to find someone they wanted to hire and then get the req opened, which required apparently going through a lot of layers. It would take months and the candidate would find another job. Then they'd have to do it over again. I may have the details wrong, but going from finding a candidate they liked to giving an offer with a start date was multiple months.
There was also some other weirdness. Every time I logged into my computer it had this warning about everything I did being monitored. We were always lectured that anything we do could by FOIAed, and don't type anything that you don't want to be a headline the next day. They were also extremely strict about alcohol. There was a rumor in the office that on a student worker's last day his manager took him to a going-away-lunch and ordered a round of drinks. The student spilled the tea back at the office and the manager was fired the next day.
Overall in retrospect it wasn't a bad place to work. It seemed kinda oppressive to me as a student but in retrospect the environment wasn't bad.
From what I could tell their biggest problem hiring good people were:
1) pay rates tended to be well below industry, even when considering benefits (for programmers at the time)
2) their hiring process was really long. They had to go through this process where they had to find someone they wanted to hire and then get the req opened, which required apparently going through a lot of layers. It would take months and the candidate would find another job. Then they'd have to do it over again. I may have the details wrong, but going from finding a candidate they liked to giving an offer with a start date was multiple months.
There was also some other weirdness. Every time I logged into my computer it had this warning about everything I did being monitored. We were always lectured that anything we do could by FOIAed, and don't type anything that you don't want to be a headline the next day. They were also extremely strict about alcohol. There was a rumor in the office that on a student worker's last day his manager took him to a going-away-lunch and ordered a round of drinks. The student spilled the tea back at the office and the manager was fired the next day.
Overall in retrospect it wasn't a bad place to work. It seemed kinda oppressive to me as a student but in retrospect the environment wasn't bad.
Having worked for both FedGov and Contractors directly, plus several F500s, the Gubmnt was wayyyyy more focused on loss, waste, and long-term planning.
the levels of waste and BS and general suck at some large mining + O&G companies was astounding, on top of being absolutely brutal, miserable places to work.
the levels of waste and BS and general suck at some large mining + O&G companies was astounding, on top of being absolutely brutal, miserable places to work.
Interesting! I guess government doesn't equal government and highly depends on where you work and what you work on. The same way being a product manager at Google vs. a founding engineer at a startup vs. a research scientist at OpenAI are different, though they all "work in tech".
Plus, I'm in Europe and my friend runs his own startup, so very different environment.
Plus, I'm in Europe and my friend runs his own startup, so very different environment.
That's close enough to my experience in state government. The biggest problem was generally a lack of widespread competence. There was plenty of red tape, but there were also lots of people whose job was to deal with that tape.
I also thought that as well, then I worked with the privat sector as a freelancer and people where even more incompetent.
> regulations don't just add up, but compound
I agree with the wider point but I think the reality is a bit more complicated than that, policy needs to be written with price signals in mind, or if they are addressing a market failure they satisfy some cost benefit analysis to demonstrate the cure isn't worse than the poision. Regulation can also reduce transaction costs when they address coordination problems where a private solution may be discouraged by a fear of free riders.
Regulations can increase fixed costs or variable costs, but if it leads larger markets for the service or if the reduction in services is seen as a smaller cost than an existing negative externality (like costs required to ensure a private water treatment company isn’t poising a public water way, a cost otherwise handled by the government), despite the regulations these are scenarios where costs pay for themselves.
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HOWEVER, much of town planning and land use policies in English speaking world does none of these things. Maybe with the exception of deciding a street grid which addresses a coordination problem.
What market failure do minimum lot sizes or room size address? There are no positive or negative externalities to smaller rooms or lots, people simply choose not to buy or rent something if it’s too small.
Planners hail mixed use zones as a policy only possible with planning, as if it isn't a solution to a problem of their own creation (mutually exclusive residential & commercial land use zones).
Parking per land use is another awful policy. This is simply something the developers can determine based on their own market research. They are handling the development let them handle the risk.
Free parking is also another poor planing policy, parking is definitely something of value which would be a more productive use willing if it had market pricing.
Floor area caps are just evil, infrastructure charges are a much fairer way of handling increased land usage.
Upper level setbacks are just dumb, as they add so much in terms of costs, often to handle more in terms of support columns, and increase the likelihood of water damage. As a result the top most levels end up costing much more and less for less than they could, which puts development feasibility at risk when building heights are too low (sometimes that is the whole point).
I agree with the wider point but I think the reality is a bit more complicated than that, policy needs to be written with price signals in mind, or if they are addressing a market failure they satisfy some cost benefit analysis to demonstrate the cure isn't worse than the poision. Regulation can also reduce transaction costs when they address coordination problems where a private solution may be discouraged by a fear of free riders.
Regulations can increase fixed costs or variable costs, but if it leads larger markets for the service or if the reduction in services is seen as a smaller cost than an existing negative externality (like costs required to ensure a private water treatment company isn’t poising a public water way, a cost otherwise handled by the government), despite the regulations these are scenarios where costs pay for themselves.
————————————
HOWEVER, much of town planning and land use policies in English speaking world does none of these things. Maybe with the exception of deciding a street grid which addresses a coordination problem.
What market failure do minimum lot sizes or room size address? There are no positive or negative externalities to smaller rooms or lots, people simply choose not to buy or rent something if it’s too small.
Planners hail mixed use zones as a policy only possible with planning, as if it isn't a solution to a problem of their own creation (mutually exclusive residential & commercial land use zones).
Parking per land use is another awful policy. This is simply something the developers can determine based on their own market research. They are handling the development let them handle the risk.
Free parking is also another poor planing policy, parking is definitely something of value which would be a more productive use willing if it had market pricing.
Floor area caps are just evil, infrastructure charges are a much fairer way of handling increased land usage.
Upper level setbacks are just dumb, as they add so much in terms of costs, often to handle more in terms of support columns, and increase the likelihood of water damage. As a result the top most levels end up costing much more and less for less than they could, which puts development feasibility at risk when building heights are too low (sometimes that is the whole point).
I read all the articles. I didn't see any mentioning red tape, or regulations.*
All that talk of 'regulations' and 'red tape' is a guess.
This stink of a "Low priority project use as a place-holder, but as soon as even a mouse-sneeze comes up, the resources are put to a better used, and it is kicked down the road"
But (as you say) we are all pre-trained to assume 'red tape / regulations' so we back-fill that explanation, even with no evidence.
*(I Wouldn't mind a second reader, read them fast and searched, may have missed something.)
This stink of a "Low priority project use as a place-holder, but as soon as even a mouse-sneeze comes up, the resources are put to a better used, and it is kicked down the road"
But (as you say) we are all pre-trained to assume 'red tape / regulations' so we back-fill that explanation, even with no evidence.
*(I Wouldn't mind a second reader, read them fast and searched, may have missed something.)
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As someone working in a German university in a technical role: I notice new technical contractors absolutely go into this with the mindset that they can extract money for a half-assed job here. I tend to very quickly and meticulously shatter those dreams by being more prepared than the private sector in my requirements.
>It's not that each individual, well-intentioned regulation is bad (though some are), it's that many regulations intersect and create edge cases.
We would never excuse such ignorance of 2nd through Nth order consequences in any other context. Can you imagine "the catholic church wasn't trying to provide cover for abusers, that was just an accidental side effect of protecting their own image"? That'd be laughable.
So why does government get the pass?
We would never excuse such ignorance of 2nd through Nth order consequences in any other context. Can you imagine "the catholic church wasn't trying to provide cover for abusers, that was just an accidental side effect of protecting their own image"? That'd be laughable.
So why does government get the pass?
I don't necessarily think the problem is not forgetting about consequences. It's more about the confluence of rules.
I remember playing a game where one card you drew let you ban a word for the duration of the game. If you said that word, you'd lose points in the game.
In the beginning, it leads to funny moments. But as more and more (at least somewhat common) words get banned, people just stop talking altogether and communicate the minimum because everything becomes a minefield.
It's obviously a flawed analogy, but I think the overall point holds:
Even if the rules are merely arbitrary and have no real effect whatsoever (such as banning a word for the next 15 minutes), the rules don't just get rid of the words but keep up overall conversation, they eventually kill the conversation itself.
The same goes for regulation. Even if zoning laws, environmental reviews, vendor evaluations and design specifications and community surveys are all individually useful, their confluence creates a knot that makes it impossible to build 8 EV chargers.
I remember playing a game where one card you drew let you ban a word for the duration of the game. If you said that word, you'd lose points in the game.
In the beginning, it leads to funny moments. But as more and more (at least somewhat common) words get banned, people just stop talking altogether and communicate the minimum because everything becomes a minefield.
It's obviously a flawed analogy, but I think the overall point holds:
Even if the rules are merely arbitrary and have no real effect whatsoever (such as banning a word for the next 15 minutes), the rules don't just get rid of the words but keep up overall conversation, they eventually kill the conversation itself.
The same goes for regulation. Even if zoning laws, environmental reviews, vendor evaluations and design specifications and community surveys are all individually useful, their confluence creates a knot that makes it impossible to build 8 EV chargers.
The legitimate criticism I read against "Abundance" is that for the most part regulations and due process emerged to protect public interests from private capture. In the article the author says we should use "pre-approved vendor lists" or "streamlined approvals" and that sounds great in principle, but could also easily be exploited.
One of the reasons American and German cities are made for cars is because of the influence of their car industry. However, this also pushed out investment in competing alternatives like public transport infrastructure.
One of the reasons American and German cities are made for cars is because of the influence of their car industry. However, this also pushed out investment in competing alternatives like public transport infrastructure.
I have to admit this essay struck me as sort of strange. On the one hand, the EV charging station seems like something fairly straightforward, that should be approved and built fairly quickly. On the other hand, it's just an EV charging station, and without knowing anything more about it, I am just as inclined to believe that this is some small pet project of interest to the author, who no one else really cares about, and he's invoking some grand criticism of government writ large as a way of bringing urgency and grandeur his idiosyncratic interest that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
EV sales are in the middle of a nationwide decline, especially for one of the major manufacturers. I doubt it has anything to do with the 8-space parking lot in Seattle in particular. Add to this stories about charging station compatibility, and I'm not surprised there isn't a greater sense of urgency from the city.
I have my pet projects I'd like to see finished as well, but I don't blame my municipality for not prioritizing them. They have a lot on their plate. It has nothing to do with capture or overregulation, but priorities with constrained staff, budget, and time. People change their minds and city priorities change with popular sentiment.
In some ways, this is a good example of why some prudence is warranted, and maybe you should get the other side of the story. The essay neglects to mention that four of the eight charging stations would be owned by Tesla for example — something that if you're not opposed to, you might at least admit is reasonable for the city to reevaluate — and there is apparently contaminated soil at least nearby the site.
I'm generally in favor of reregulation or deregulation, but I generally feel like land use, environmental, and public space or resources are something where there should be a lot of scrutiny and layers of approval. Once it's gone, it's hard to reclaim and expensive to clean up. I also feel like many examples of complaints in this area and mention of things like Abundance are just like this — someone complains their personal project of interest isn't done fast enough, criticizing the government for being cumbersome and overwrought, while neglecting to mention all the reasons why people might not prioritize their pet project, or why their pet project might reasonably be seen as requiring safeguards or approval processes. The reason why the government is slow with your pet project is because not everyone agrees with you, and there is a commons issue involved.
Meanwhile, discussion about deregulation of things that actually involve personal choice, with little or no public commons issues involved, like medical care, go by the wayside and are never mentioned, or are even hyperregulated.
EV sales are in the middle of a nationwide decline, especially for one of the major manufacturers. I doubt it has anything to do with the 8-space parking lot in Seattle in particular. Add to this stories about charging station compatibility, and I'm not surprised there isn't a greater sense of urgency from the city.
I have my pet projects I'd like to see finished as well, but I don't blame my municipality for not prioritizing them. They have a lot on their plate. It has nothing to do with capture or overregulation, but priorities with constrained staff, budget, and time. People change their minds and city priorities change with popular sentiment.
In some ways, this is a good example of why some prudence is warranted, and maybe you should get the other side of the story. The essay neglects to mention that four of the eight charging stations would be owned by Tesla for example — something that if you're not opposed to, you might at least admit is reasonable for the city to reevaluate — and there is apparently contaminated soil at least nearby the site.
I'm generally in favor of reregulation or deregulation, but I generally feel like land use, environmental, and public space or resources are something where there should be a lot of scrutiny and layers of approval. Once it's gone, it's hard to reclaim and expensive to clean up. I also feel like many examples of complaints in this area and mention of things like Abundance are just like this — someone complains their personal project of interest isn't done fast enough, criticizing the government for being cumbersome and overwrought, while neglecting to mention all the reasons why people might not prioritize their pet project, or why their pet project might reasonably be seen as requiring safeguards or approval processes. The reason why the government is slow with your pet project is because not everyone agrees with you, and there is a commons issue involved.
Meanwhile, discussion about deregulation of things that actually involve personal choice, with little or no public commons issues involved, like medical care, go by the wayside and are never mentioned, or are even hyperregulated.
>In some ways, this is a good example of why some prudence is warranted, and maybe you should get the other side of the story. The essay neglects to mention that four of the eight charging stations would be owned by Tesla for example — something that if you're not opposed to, you might at least admit is reasonable for the city to reevaluate — and there is apparently contaminated soil at least nearby the site.
No, I think the "other side of the story" here is laughably weak. Four measly charging stations in the whole city of Seattle owned by Tesla? That barely warrants a comment on Hacker News, much less a town hall.
And "contaminated land"? How contaminated are we talking about here? It's crippling to any hope of widespread brownfield redevelopment that something so minimally invasive could be shut down by nebulous, ill-defined contamination. Perhaps we need a standard grading system for land contamination instead of just lumping gasoline and arsenic in the same category.
>I am just as inclined to believe that this is some small pet project of interest to the author, who no one else really cares about, and he's invoking some grand criticism of government writ large as a way of bringing urgency and grandeur his idiosyncratic interest that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
I am inclined to think that this argument could be used to shut down any case study used to critique the bureaucracy. The idea that eight city-owned parking spaces are somehow personally important to anyone is weird enough to demand at least a little evidence.
No, I think the "other side of the story" here is laughably weak. Four measly charging stations in the whole city of Seattle owned by Tesla? That barely warrants a comment on Hacker News, much less a town hall.
And "contaminated land"? How contaminated are we talking about here? It's crippling to any hope of widespread brownfield redevelopment that something so minimally invasive could be shut down by nebulous, ill-defined contamination. Perhaps we need a standard grading system for land contamination instead of just lumping gasoline and arsenic in the same category.
>I am just as inclined to believe that this is some small pet project of interest to the author, who no one else really cares about, and he's invoking some grand criticism of government writ large as a way of bringing urgency and grandeur his idiosyncratic interest that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
I am inclined to think that this argument could be used to shut down any case study used to critique the bureaucracy. The idea that eight city-owned parking spaces are somehow personally important to anyone is weird enough to demand at least a little evidence.
> That barely warrants a comment on Hacker News, much less a town hall.
I think that's maybe what I'm saying? Or the other side of the coin? I personally don't think there's some compelling harm being done by the government in this case.
Maybe some general discussion of neglect in the use of the land might be more compelling to me, but I'm not sure that delays in allocating it to charging stations in particular seems like a grand failure of governance. The soil is contaminated and the government wants to clean it up while they're tearing it up? Next to a planned park apparently? And this is causing harm by... holding up EV charging stations? Not a light rail hub, or walking trails connecting neighborhoods, or cycling infrastructure, or a clinic, but EV charging stations?
> I am inclined to think that this argument could be used to shut down any case study used to critique the bureaucracy.
I guess another way of phrasing my reaction is that I don't find this particular example very compelling in critiquing bureaucracy. Maybe more to my point, the fact that the author presents it as urgent to me sort of ironically underscores the problems with the argument they advance. It's an urgent need to them, but maybe not to the public at large?
It's also maybe worth pointing out the converse is true: the argument in Abundance could be used to shut down any case study used to support the government in being prudent or thorough?
I think that's maybe what I'm saying? Or the other side of the coin? I personally don't think there's some compelling harm being done by the government in this case.
Maybe some general discussion of neglect in the use of the land might be more compelling to me, but I'm not sure that delays in allocating it to charging stations in particular seems like a grand failure of governance. The soil is contaminated and the government wants to clean it up while they're tearing it up? Next to a planned park apparently? And this is causing harm by... holding up EV charging stations? Not a light rail hub, or walking trails connecting neighborhoods, or cycling infrastructure, or a clinic, but EV charging stations?
> I am inclined to think that this argument could be used to shut down any case study used to critique the bureaucracy.
I guess another way of phrasing my reaction is that I don't find this particular example very compelling in critiquing bureaucracy. Maybe more to my point, the fact that the author presents it as urgent to me sort of ironically underscores the problems with the argument they advance. It's an urgent need to them, but maybe not to the public at large?
It's also maybe worth pointing out the converse is true: the argument in Abundance could be used to shut down any case study used to support the government in being prudent or thorough?
> And "contaminated land"? How contaminated are we talking about here? It's crippling to any hope of widespread brownfield redevelopment that something so minimally invasive could be shut down by nebulous, ill-defined contamination. Perhaps we need a standard grading system for land contamination instead of just lumping gasoline and arsenic in the same category.
If the article is accurate, the cleanup was completed by January 2024, and first phase of work started September 2022. So who knows how long cleanup took, long enough to mention, but less than 1.5 years. The city website about the project [1] says the contamination was removed in 2022, so maybe not very long at all. The site's former use was as an electrical substation, so I'd expect soil contamination from spilled transformer oil, and similar things; some nasty stuff, but usually not a lot of it.
Sounds like the root cause of delays is availability of appropriate chargers, and probably a lack of priority. Also, 8 EV chargers doesn't sound like much, but if they're level 3 chargers, that's a lot of power if 8 cars plug in at the same time, which necessitates a bit of engineering and oversight. If it were 8 level 2 ev chargers, that would probably be a quick and easy install.
[1] https://www.seattle.gov/city-light/in-the-community/current-...
If the article is accurate, the cleanup was completed by January 2024, and first phase of work started September 2022. So who knows how long cleanup took, long enough to mention, but less than 1.5 years. The city website about the project [1] says the contamination was removed in 2022, so maybe not very long at all. The site's former use was as an electrical substation, so I'd expect soil contamination from spilled transformer oil, and similar things; some nasty stuff, but usually not a lot of it.
Sounds like the root cause of delays is availability of appropriate chargers, and probably a lack of priority. Also, 8 EV chargers doesn't sound like much, but if they're level 3 chargers, that's a lot of power if 8 cars plug in at the same time, which necessitates a bit of engineering and oversight. If it were 8 level 2 ev chargers, that would probably be a quick and easy install.
[1] https://www.seattle.gov/city-light/in-the-community/current-...
>who no one else really cares about, and he's invoking some grand criticism of government writ large as a way of bringing urgency and grandeur his idiosyncratic interest that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
Everyone with a pet interest levies just about the same criticism at government and it paints a pretty consistent picture.
Whether you wanna develop EV chargers, buy discounted office space and turn it into residential, open a coffee shop, etc, etc, the same stupid government red tape born at the behest of generations of stupid voters who couldn't think a step ahead or about the big picture stand in your way.
>I'm generally in favor of deregulation or deregulation, but I generally feel <bunch of text>
Sounds like "believe in deregulation" only to the extent that you can lie to yourself and say that you do. You really believe in high regulation, but deep down you know that's a bad thing to believe in so you reframe it so you can sleep at night. You are a worse person than one who believes in regulation and is honest with themselves about the tradeoffs of it and has made some assessment that it is still worth it.
If you wanna prevent bad outcomes then make people liable for bad outcomes. The current status quo where all the cost of litigating a bad outcome must be born by every single party up front in the form of surveys, studies, impact assessments, etc, etc, steals money from literally all of us in one way or another, puts some in the pocket of government and puts orders of magnitude more in the pockets of well positioned private parties who government essentially makes work for is beyond insane and anyone who supports it is of bad character.
Everyone with a pet interest levies just about the same criticism at government and it paints a pretty consistent picture.
Whether you wanna develop EV chargers, buy discounted office space and turn it into residential, open a coffee shop, etc, etc, the same stupid government red tape born at the behest of generations of stupid voters who couldn't think a step ahead or about the big picture stand in your way.
>I'm generally in favor of deregulation or deregulation, but I generally feel <bunch of text>
Sounds like "believe in deregulation" only to the extent that you can lie to yourself and say that you do. You really believe in high regulation, but deep down you know that's a bad thing to believe in so you reframe it so you can sleep at night. You are a worse person than one who believes in regulation and is honest with themselves about the tradeoffs of it and has made some assessment that it is still worth it.
If you wanna prevent bad outcomes then make people liable for bad outcomes. The current status quo where all the cost of litigating a bad outcome must be born by every single party up front in the form of surveys, studies, impact assessments, etc, etc, steals money from literally all of us in one way or another, puts some in the pocket of government and puts orders of magnitude more in the pockets of well positioned private parties who government essentially makes work for is beyond insane and anyone who supports it is of bad character.
>In the article the author says we should use "pre-approved vendor lists" or "streamlined approvals" and that sounds great in principle, but could also easily be exploited.
As patio11 would say, "The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero". Fraud is bad, but if fighting fraud involves so much red tape that it costs more than whatever petty corruption could ever cost, it's bad.
[1] https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra...
As patio11 would say, "The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero". Fraud is bad, but if fighting fraud involves so much red tape that it costs more than whatever petty corruption could ever cost, it's bad.
[1] https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra...
> "pre-approved vendor lists" or "streamlined approvals" and that sounds great in principle, but could also easily be exploited.
Nearly any kind of public spending can be exploited, including auctions. There are countless cases where the cheapest vendor that satisfies the written criteria is chosen, only to end up with delays, cost overruns that far outweigh the initial savings, or equipment that malfunctions and breaks.
I know somebody who was in charge of writing these auctions for their government department. They picked a vendor, and then worked backwards to write the requirements so that only that vendor would satisfy them. Not because of corruption, but because they knew that vendor's equipment was quality.
There was another case, in a different department, where this was not done - the auction was written naively (and honestly), and the cheapest vendor chosen. The equipment failed within months, putting people at risk, and a different vendor had to be quickly chosen.
It's better to just put some conflict-of-interest guards in place, and then trust the judgment of whoever needs those goods, than to try to eliminate corruption through bureaucratic procedures. Because it can't be eliminated with bureaucracy - but efficiency can, and will be.
Nearly any kind of public spending can be exploited, including auctions. There are countless cases where the cheapest vendor that satisfies the written criteria is chosen, only to end up with delays, cost overruns that far outweigh the initial savings, or equipment that malfunctions and breaks.
I know somebody who was in charge of writing these auctions for their government department. They picked a vendor, and then worked backwards to write the requirements so that only that vendor would satisfy them. Not because of corruption, but because they knew that vendor's equipment was quality.
There was another case, in a different department, where this was not done - the auction was written naively (and honestly), and the cheapest vendor chosen. The equipment failed within months, putting people at risk, and a different vendor had to be quickly chosen.
It's better to just put some conflict-of-interest guards in place, and then trust the judgment of whoever needs those goods, than to try to eliminate corruption through bureaucratic procedures. Because it can't be eliminated with bureaucracy - but efficiency can, and will be.
> for the most part regulations and due process emerged to protect public interests from private capture.
In truth I think it's a mix of this, and the opposite--where private interests have already captured the public good.
In truth I think it's a mix of this, and the opposite--where private interests have already captured the public good.
> In the article the author says we should use "pre-approved vendor lists" or "streamlined approvals" and that sounds great in principle, but could also easily be exploited.
Every kind of regulation can be exploited and is currently being exploited. GDPR led to law firms squeezing money out of neighborhood bars with cease and desists. Government grants spawn companies doing the exact minimum to keep getting grants without building real businesses.
I totally agree that lobbyism is a massive problem (and often the reason we get such complex regulation—they shut out the little players). But any proposed solution will have to be some type of risk.
Every kind of regulation can be exploited and is currently being exploited. GDPR led to law firms squeezing money out of neighborhood bars with cease and desists. Government grants spawn companies doing the exact minimum to keep getting grants without building real businesses.
I totally agree that lobbyism is a massive problem (and often the reason we get such complex regulation—they shut out the little players). But any proposed solution will have to be some type of risk.
Regulations and process are just scar tissue from mistakes of the past. Excessive process indicates abundant past mistakes.
If we want to go back to taking risks and making mistakes, by all means, let's cut red tape and get rid of process. But, we should do it knowing the tradeoff we're making. I think some people here just think "regulation/process = bad" and "getting rid of regulation/process = good" but it's more complex than that.
If we want to go back to taking risks and making mistakes, by all means, let's cut red tape and get rid of process. But, we should do it knowing the tradeoff we're making. I think some people here just think "regulation/process = bad" and "getting rid of regulation/process = good" but it's more complex than that.
Every regulation is a Chesterton's Fence.
Maybe there's a different regulation that fences in the past mistake. Maybe it's historically contingent and irrelevant. Most laws exist without a direct reference to their relevancy and it takes legal archeology to uncover the telos of each clause.
Maybe there's a different regulation that fences in the past mistake. Maybe it's historically contingent and irrelevant. Most laws exist without a direct reference to their relevancy and it takes legal archeology to uncover the telos of each clause.
“ that for the most part regulations and due process emerged to protect public interests from private capture”
I just flat out don’t buy this. The majority of regulations I see “abundance” type people arguing against were never aimed at curtailing private capture. They are aimed at keeping neihborhoods unchanged for generations, making sure everyone up-and-down society gets veto power over any project regardless of type or upside of it, and making sure arbitrary unrelated “goods” are enforced with as much bureaucracy as possible during development (the best example of this is trying to get solar panels built and having to fight many years of “environmental” review for something so desperately needed for our environment).
I just flat out don’t buy this. The majority of regulations I see “abundance” type people arguing against were never aimed at curtailing private capture. They are aimed at keeping neihborhoods unchanged for generations, making sure everyone up-and-down society gets veto power over any project regardless of type or upside of it, and making sure arbitrary unrelated “goods” are enforced with as much bureaucracy as possible during development (the best example of this is trying to get solar panels built and having to fight many years of “environmental” review for something so desperately needed for our environment).
>keeping neighborhoods unchanged for generations, making sure everyone up-and-down society gets veto power over any project
You're giving government too much benefit of the doubt. It's not even private stakeholders vetoing these things. Often times is even opposed to these small projects in ways that the most tiny cheap concessions couldn't mitigate. A great many of these projects are dying because the government and its bureaucracy can't/won't approve them, not because anyone doesn't want them.
You're giving government too much benefit of the doubt. It's not even private stakeholders vetoing these things. Often times is even opposed to these small projects in ways that the most tiny cheap concessions couldn't mitigate. A great many of these projects are dying because the government and its bureaucracy can't/won't approve them, not because anyone doesn't want them.
Biggest problems with "Abundance" are:
1) Somehow he decided euclidean zoning was a leftist project. Most leftists and environmentalists I've ever known hate euclidean zoning and this includes many urban planners. Euclidean zoning exists pretty much because property owners want to be able to exclude nearby land uses. It's fundamentally conservative, especially when the goal is to enforce limited housing density.
2) Setting up euclidean zoning as the main whipping boy and then saying "and also air quality regulations are basically the same thing" is a form of straw-manning the stuff he's arguing against.
3) He sets up a dichotomy between California and Texas ignoring that a lot of California's problems are conservative (downzoning, prop 13) and also ignoring the weaknesses in the Texas model including corporations running roughshod over locals (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7_WDzPyoqU) a fragile power grid, huge flooding problems etc. It's possible to look at quality of life metrics and see that Texas is doing quite badly. Also, you had the whole tech moving to Austin thing that already fizzled out.
4) He set up developers as the heroes in the story and apparently got a lot of his info from private equity ride-alongs. He ignores that developers are also often land speculators and are in favor of blocking competitors projects and downzoning areas to keep land value high. (https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/abundance-hudson-yards-west?u...)
Basically Abundance is a way for Ezra Klein and his fellow travelers to repackage Clinton-era triangulation and Obama-era neoliberalism as something completely new, so the party can carry on with its pro-donor agenda and ignore why they keep losing. That's also the reason why it was astroturfed into every left media space with a massive marketing budget.
1) Somehow he decided euclidean zoning was a leftist project. Most leftists and environmentalists I've ever known hate euclidean zoning and this includes many urban planners. Euclidean zoning exists pretty much because property owners want to be able to exclude nearby land uses. It's fundamentally conservative, especially when the goal is to enforce limited housing density.
2) Setting up euclidean zoning as the main whipping boy and then saying "and also air quality regulations are basically the same thing" is a form of straw-manning the stuff he's arguing against.
3) He sets up a dichotomy between California and Texas ignoring that a lot of California's problems are conservative (downzoning, prop 13) and also ignoring the weaknesses in the Texas model including corporations running roughshod over locals (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7_WDzPyoqU) a fragile power grid, huge flooding problems etc. It's possible to look at quality of life metrics and see that Texas is doing quite badly. Also, you had the whole tech moving to Austin thing that already fizzled out.
4) He set up developers as the heroes in the story and apparently got a lot of his info from private equity ride-alongs. He ignores that developers are also often land speculators and are in favor of blocking competitors projects and downzoning areas to keep land value high. (https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/abundance-hudson-yards-west?u...)
Basically Abundance is a way for Ezra Klein and his fellow travelers to repackage Clinton-era triangulation and Obama-era neoliberalism as something completely new, so the party can carry on with its pro-donor agenda and ignore why they keep losing. That's also the reason why it was astroturfed into every left media space with a massive marketing budget.
Writ-large, isn't what the article is referring to the plot of 生きる(Ikiru, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikiru)? My suspicion is that the solution to lack of ability for government to enable building in the US will be the same, writ-large, as in the movie. That is, it will happen, but (I'll stop here, least I spoil the movie for you).
There's a lot in my city that had construction going on for about a month, they barely got anywhere, and now it's been deserted for a while. It's meant to be a new block of flats, and I know that takes a while, but every time I pass it, I think about the stories of Chinese workers erecting a 57 storey building in 19 days (Though I don't know if that includes wiring, plumbing, etc, or if it's just the concrete shell)
That just seems to be some sort of common construction scam. I've seen it more than once with private construction.
There is a private dental office down the street from me that's has an expansion which somehow took years. Same story. Ton of construction for a month or two, and then nothing happened.
There was a union protest about using non-union labor for a bit. It felt like they were protesting the wrong issue, as no labor was occurring.
There is a private dental office down the street from me that's has an expansion which somehow took years. Same story. Ton of construction for a month or two, and then nothing happened.
There was a union protest about using non-union labor for a bit. It felt like they were protesting the wrong issue, as no labor was occurring.
It is a weird subject - on the one hand, I don't think anyone would argue that the story in the article makes sense from a process perspective. But simultaneously the people who are of the opinion that the regulations burdens should be lightened seem to be in a political minority that can't be much bigger than around 30% of the population. Raising the question - what do the majority of voters actual think about this sort of regulation? Maybe they are just of the opinion that case studies like this aren't representative of reality.
I'd incline to believe that if the US body politic set out to solve this one they'd end up in a position of introducing a loophole for charging projects (ie, increasing bureaucracy) and reducing the regulatory burden wouldn't be an option.
I'd incline to believe that if the US body politic set out to solve this one they'd end up in a position of introducing a loophole for charging projects (ie, increasing bureaucracy) and reducing the regulatory burden wouldn't be an option.
I think most people have an opinion similar to NIMBYism. Everyone agrees there are too many regulations but no one agrees which ones are the extra. Every rule is someone's highest concern.
That's why part of the argument in Abundance is that current processes give too many people too much veto power. When every issue is someone's pet issue nothing can ever get done.
That's why part of the argument in Abundance is that current processes give too many people too much veto power. When every issue is someone's pet issue nothing can ever get done.
Regulations are like code of a program. It's the business logic of how we want the world to be.
Like all code, it can be buggy, bloated and slow, or it can be well-written and efficiently achieve ambitious things.
If you have crappy unmaintainable code that doesn't work, then deleting it is an obvious improvement.
Like in programming, it takes a lot of skill to write code that achieves its goals in a way that is as simple as possible, but also isn't oversimplified to the point of failing to handle important cases.
The pro-regulation argument isn't for naively piling up more code and more bloat, but for improving and optimizing it.
Like all code, it can be buggy, bloated and slow, or it can be well-written and efficiently achieve ambitious things.
If you have crappy unmaintainable code that doesn't work, then deleting it is an obvious improvement.
Like in programming, it takes a lot of skill to write code that achieves its goals in a way that is as simple as possible, but also isn't oversimplified to the point of failing to handle important cases.
The pro-regulation argument isn't for naively piling up more code and more bloat, but for improving and optimizing it.
As a leftie - admittedly one who thinks - I thought the article was actually quite positive and didn't bring politics into it: "What would that look like for something as simple as EV charging stations? Standardized approval processes. Pre-approved vendor lists. Streamlined permitting for routine infrastructure. Clear timelines with accountability mechanisms."
A clear and sensible suggestion. Cool.
I think state capacity shouldn't be a left-right issue. Whether you want oil rigs or public parks to be built, everyone can agree that once the decision is made, it should be built swiftly and well.
And the public should be able to have an expectation that when the government says they'll do something, they're capable of doing so within a reasonable budget and timeframe.
And the public should be able to have an expectation that when the government says they'll do something, they're capable of doing so within a reasonable budget and timeframe.
In my neck of the woods, you’d be called a capitalist bootlicker for this point of view by many lefties. I get called that for basically any suggestion besides complete communist revolution.
I can always tell who on the left is ideologically poisoned by how vehemently they hate anything related to the idea that current government processes and regulations could improve or that government regulations can go (sometimes very) wrong. As if somehow that admission is the same as wanting anarcho-libertarianism.
I can always tell who on the left is ideologically poisoned by how vehemently they hate anything related to the idea that current government processes and regulations could improve or that government regulations can go (sometimes very) wrong. As if somehow that admission is the same as wanting anarcho-libertarianism.
Where is your neck of the woods? (Vaguely, of course, nobody wants to reveal where they live on the internet). I spent a lot of time in New England college towns (the region is stereotyped as very blue, and so are college students), but didn’t much like that. The activists I knew were… not so interested in infighting that they’d turn away anyone who was willing to canvass.
Maybe it is a West Coast thing though, stuff seems more acrimonious out there.
Maybe it is a West Coast thing though, stuff seems more acrimonious out there.
There’s a typo in my post but the edit window has closed:
> I spent a lot of time in New England college towns […], but didn’t much like that.
I meant
> I spent a lot of time in New England college towns […], but didn’t see much like that.
With that being liberal vs leftist infighting. I loved living in New England college towns, they are great. You can walk to a cafe or a bar, it’s like being in another country.
> I spent a lot of time in New England college towns […], but didn’t much like that.
I meant
> I spent a lot of time in New England college towns […], but didn’t see much like that.
With that being liberal vs leftist infighting. I loved living in New England college towns, they are great. You can walk to a cafe or a bar, it’s like being in another country.
They can't think far enough ahead to see that competent government would make more people more comfortable allowing more things to be done by government which would help their goals.
These are the sort of "can't think two steps ahead" voters that historically voted for the people who passed the laws that we here in these comments are lamenting now.
These are the sort of "can't think two steps ahead" voters that historically voted for the people who passed the laws that we here in these comments are lamenting now.
As a “liberal” (American definition), you’re in a far different bubble than I am.
I'm an American, in my circles "liberal" is almost a curse word. It's what we tend to call people who support corporate power, profit motivation, and social progress as long as it doesn't inconvenience them personally.
We broadly use "leftist" to refer to ourselves, whether that's democratic socialists, anarchists, communists, syndicalists, unionists, etc. Philosophically, these folks are fundamentally pushing for wellbeing of all, social motivation, and social progress even if it inconveniences me personally.
I don't think it's helpful to refer to these differences in ideology as bubbles, though. I think there's a very real philosophical difference between liberals and leftists, and has been for generations. 60 years ago Phil Ochs sang "Love me I'm a liberal", and it wasn't a new idea back then. Liberals and leftists hold incompatible worldviews. Just like liberals and conservatives do. I think deploying the term "bubble" for such broad groups is probably more reductive than helpful.
We broadly use "leftist" to refer to ourselves, whether that's democratic socialists, anarchists, communists, syndicalists, unionists, etc. Philosophically, these folks are fundamentally pushing for wellbeing of all, social motivation, and social progress even if it inconveniences me personally.
I don't think it's helpful to refer to these differences in ideology as bubbles, though. I think there's a very real philosophical difference between liberals and leftists, and has been for generations. 60 years ago Phil Ochs sang "Love me I'm a liberal", and it wasn't a new idea back then. Liberals and leftists hold incompatible worldviews. Just like liberals and conservatives do. I think deploying the term "bubble" for such broad groups is probably more reductive than helpful.
I'm a lefty, but off the anarchist stripe, if you start calling for communist revolution I'll be there to oppose you. ;)
But more seriously, I think we could do a lot more with local governments and our capacity to build things. Part of that is regulatory, but a I think a majority of the problem is we focus too much on getting a thing built and not enough on continuing to run it. Whether it's housing, transportation, bridges, whatever, everyone is excited for opening day then we immediately start paring back funding and support for it. Which results in loss of quality, which makes people go "why are we even paying for this", which leads to loss of funding.
But more seriously, I think we could do a lot more with local governments and our capacity to build things. Part of that is regulatory, but a I think a majority of the problem is we focus too much on getting a thing built and not enough on continuing to run it. Whether it's housing, transportation, bridges, whatever, everyone is excited for opening day then we immediately start paring back funding and support for it. Which results in loss of quality, which makes people go "why are we even paying for this", which leads to loss of funding.
The article highlights a failure, which is good, but gives a very surface level review of what failed here. Some gestures are made at environmental review but it's not clear that the root cause here was regulation. If the project needed three redesigns, why? Maybe electrical capacity for 8 high capacity outlets on that site was tricky. Maybe the transformers and their cooling was louder than that site could accommodate. Maybe this was a low priority project and other things kept stealing time from it.
I can think of many reasons why a project like this stalls. And too be clear, regulation could absolutely be one of them. The article just doesn't support that as a root cause beyond conjecture.
I can think of many reasons why a project like this stalls. And too be clear, regulation could absolutely be one of them. The article just doesn't support that as a root cause beyond conjecture.
Spot on. I read the article wondering when they were going to describe what specifically failed or got stuck. Instead it's just a vague implication that such redesigns must have been unnecessary, but never saying exactly why such redesigns were being done. What/who is the project currently waiting on? It's never specified.
In light of that, maybe a better description of the problem is more the absence of responsibility/accountability (for both the proponent and the reviewers, although it's not indicated which is dropping the ball here) rather than the processes/regulations themselves.
In light of that, maybe a better description of the problem is more the absence of responsibility/accountability (for both the proponent and the reviewers, although it's not indicated which is dropping the ball here) rather than the processes/regulations themselves.
I think the article was clear that this was a series of delays at all steps -- no one issue (eg redesigns) that prevented progress. I would like to have seen more details, however it's possible they just don't exist in any one place.
That is the opposite of being clear - there is no analysis of what was responsible for each delay, leaving the reader to fill in their own imagined idea. And we can imagine many different scenarios. Maybe permits were stonewalled and denied for petty reasons. Maybe the muni electric company assigned the project as a low priority to an intern who kept missing key requirements. Maybe the better charging station vendor had too long of a lead time, and the muni electric was trying to ram it through with a different vendor that is more aggressively trying to privatize the commons. Each of these things are going to have wildly different fixes.
Great read, and a great example of America's failure to complete infrastructure projects. I agree with the proposed solutions, and I do hope that some local governments start enacting some of them.
I'm reminded of the staggering cost for a new railroad in the US, that can go up to $4M/mile near urban environments[0]. We need more articles like these and some political courage to get building again!
[0] https://www.freightwaves.com/news/commentary-do-you-want-to-...
[0] https://www.freightwaves.com/news/commentary-do-you-want-to-...
An idle observation about bureaucracy:
In my big tech job we have a pretty small (by public sector standards) red-tape burden but it does exist. It does slow work down and it does increase the activation energy such that some small projects that might otherwise happen simply don't.
Sometimes, I choose to semi-transparrently ignore it. I see this happen at the institutional level too. So there's a spectrum of tactical non-compliance, extending roughly between:
- I do not submit my conference material to PR/legal, I just go to the conference and present without approval. I admit this to my management chain, they are mildly uncomfortable about it but ultimately don't care enough to make my life difficult.
To:
- We have a policy stating that all open source code in our stack must be fully reviewed internally. I think this does genuinely happen for lots of libraries but for the Linux kernel we are in flagrant violation and nobody cares.
I assume there are very good reasons this is not something you can just do in the public sector. I assume there's also a factor in there about how there is no serious constituency in my company that genuinely cares about the PR/legal approvals, whereas the regulations blocking parking spaces are probably ultimately due to someone who really does care about whatever they are supposed to represent.
And yeah I guess I do like the rule of law, I prefer that our governments don't break it. But maybe there's something there.
In my big tech job we have a pretty small (by public sector standards) red-tape burden but it does exist. It does slow work down and it does increase the activation energy such that some small projects that might otherwise happen simply don't.
Sometimes, I choose to semi-transparrently ignore it. I see this happen at the institutional level too. So there's a spectrum of tactical non-compliance, extending roughly between:
- I do not submit my conference material to PR/legal, I just go to the conference and present without approval. I admit this to my management chain, they are mildly uncomfortable about it but ultimately don't care enough to make my life difficult.
To:
- We have a policy stating that all open source code in our stack must be fully reviewed internally. I think this does genuinely happen for lots of libraries but for the Linux kernel we are in flagrant violation and nobody cares.
I assume there are very good reasons this is not something you can just do in the public sector. I assume there's also a factor in there about how there is no serious constituency in my company that genuinely cares about the PR/legal approvals, whereas the regulations blocking parking spaces are probably ultimately due to someone who really does care about whatever they are supposed to represent.
And yeah I guess I do like the rule of law, I prefer that our governments don't break it. But maybe there's something there.
It’s funny that this is being portrayed as example of abundance being stymied.
This is more about abundance of cars, or abundance of car subsidy in the form of free land and infra. Deregulation of cars and car infra while maintaining the stranglehold on non vehicle land uses.
In a Seattle where land use had actually been reformed, no landowner, public or private, would choose a glorified parking lot as a good use of land. They would build something more important to the public - as evidenced by prices - such as housing or office or some other structure.
This is more about abundance of cars, or abundance of car subsidy in the form of free land and infra. Deregulation of cars and car infra while maintaining the stranglehold on non vehicle land uses.
In a Seattle where land use had actually been reformed, no landowner, public or private, would choose a glorified parking lot as a good use of land. They would build something more important to the public - as evidenced by prices - such as housing or office or some other structure.
Living in a less dense place where the municipal electric has set up EV chargers in public parking lots and it all seems sensible, this hadn't occurred to me. But it's another astute point, and ties right into how this article doesn't analyze the actual hangups. Maybe the city has delayed this project of creating a new 8-space parking lot in favor of building multi-story or underground parking garages (which can also have EV charging spots).
In my country, obtaining a permit to build something is so very complicated and long that most people prefer to just build and then pay the fine for building without permits.
From Noah Smith, "America needs a bigger, better bureaucracy":
> In other words, environmental regulation doesn’t threaten America’s economy via a sea of red tape enforced by an army of punctilious bureaucrats. It threatens America’s economy via a plague of lawsuits and pointless paperwork that we implemented as an alternative to hiring an army of punctilious bureaucrats. If we scrapped this legalistic permitting regime and replaced it with an army of bureaucrats, we would still be able to protect the environment just fine, but we would be able to do it without causing insane multi-year delays and driving costs to the moon.
> The nine most terrifying words in the English language are not “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help”. Nine far more terrifying words are: “Please spend four years completing your Environmental Impact Statement.”
[…]
> But even more important is what economists call an “agency problem”. Nonprofits would rather get the government to give them as much money as possible; they would love to rip the government off. And if all the expertise involved in building housing or providing social services resides in the nonprofits instead of the government itself, the government doesn’t have the ability to judge whether it’s getting ripped off. Here’s how I put it in my earlier post:
>> When the government controls the purse strings but only the contractors know how much things should really cost, you get the worst of both worlds — a government that doesn’t know how to save taxpayer money, paying contractors who don’t want to save taxpayer money.
* https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/america-needs-a-bigger-better-...
> In other words, environmental regulation doesn’t threaten America’s economy via a sea of red tape enforced by an army of punctilious bureaucrats. It threatens America’s economy via a plague of lawsuits and pointless paperwork that we implemented as an alternative to hiring an army of punctilious bureaucrats. If we scrapped this legalistic permitting regime and replaced it with an army of bureaucrats, we would still be able to protect the environment just fine, but we would be able to do it without causing insane multi-year delays and driving costs to the moon.
> The nine most terrifying words in the English language are not “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help”. Nine far more terrifying words are: “Please spend four years completing your Environmental Impact Statement.”
[…]
> But even more important is what economists call an “agency problem”. Nonprofits would rather get the government to give them as much money as possible; they would love to rip the government off. And if all the expertise involved in building housing or providing social services resides in the nonprofits instead of the government itself, the government doesn’t have the ability to judge whether it’s getting ripped off. Here’s how I put it in my earlier post:
>> When the government controls the purse strings but only the contractors know how much things should really cost, you get the worst of both worlds — a government that doesn’t know how to save taxpayer money, paying contractors who don’t want to save taxpayer money.
* https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/america-needs-a-bigger-better-...
> California’s failed high-speed rail
Everybody throwing shade a California HSR but uh Texas wanted one starting in 2009 [1], "finished" planning in 2015 [1] and a decade later only has a fancy website to show for it [3].
While California voted in 2008 [4] and broke ground in 2015 and has an impressive ;) 22 miles done in the past decade. And in response to the very slow time, California is blocking CEQA [5] from affecting government projects which will speed up construction [6].
The author does have some points, however they are missing that work is being done on this.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Central_Railway
[2]: https://texascentral.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/...
[3]: https://www.texascentral.com/project/
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
[5]: https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/06/30/governor-newsom-signs-into...
[6]: https://gsppi.berkeley.edu/programs/highspeedrail/docs/Schwe...
Everybody throwing shade a California HSR but uh Texas wanted one starting in 2009 [1], "finished" planning in 2015 [1] and a decade later only has a fancy website to show for it [3].
While California voted in 2008 [4] and broke ground in 2015 and has an impressive ;) 22 miles done in the past decade. And in response to the very slow time, California is blocking CEQA [5] from affecting government projects which will speed up construction [6].
The author does have some points, however they are missing that work is being done on this.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Central_Railway
[2]: https://texascentral.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/...
[3]: https://www.texascentral.com/project/
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
[5]: https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/06/30/governor-newsom-signs-into...
[6]: https://gsppi.berkeley.edu/programs/highspeedrail/docs/Schwe...
We need to stop calling these insane perverse situations the outcome of "well-intentioned regulations". Every single one of theses regulations passed over the warnings of people at the time who predicted they would cause or contribute to exactly the outcomes we see now. The regulations and their peddlers are about as well intentioned as the carbon fiber submarine dude. The peddlers of these regulations wanted the regulations and ignored everyone who told them something they didn't want to hear. That's not well intentioned. That's behavior on a spectrum from ignorant to malicious.
Agreed, but it’s not just government. I just spent 2 days in a Kafka-like hell where a credit card I had for 22 years was closed by Citi. At every stage the many people I spoke with wanted to help but couldn’t, because the software had made the decision and it was final. No human was in the loop. And it wasn’t until many hours of phone calls that we even learned the reason for the closure. This army of humans employed by Citi are just slaves to a computer system.
I find it quite interesting that US private industry can be incredibly effective relative to non-US private industry, but the opposite seems to be more the case when it comes to government projects.
The idea of US private efficiency is overblown. It doesn't take long working in a large US company to see massive delays, red tape, duplicate work, self-sabotage, or favoritism. Even when it is fast, that doesn't equate to efficient. It's not uncommon to see 8 figures put into throw-away work.
I’ve seen massive waste in private business. Incredible amounts of it. Somehow these companies don’t collapse.
Sometimes I think the only real difference is it’s easier to sell stuff to upper management than it is to a congresscritter. Easier for one person to waste a lot of money than it is for a committee to do it.
Sometimes I think the only real difference is it’s easier to sell stuff to upper management than it is to a congresscritter. Easier for one person to waste a lot of money than it is for a committee to do it.
>Sometimes I think the only real difference is it’s easier to sell stuff to upper management than it is to a congresscritter. Easier for one person to waste a lot of money than it is for a committee to do it.
How does this square with congressional pork like the SLS[1], or buying tanks that the army doesn't want[2]?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System#Criticism
[2] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/12/18/congress-agai...
How does this square with congressional pork like the SLS[1], or buying tanks that the army doesn't want[2]?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System#Criticism
[2] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/12/18/congress-agai...
The article pretends that the EV charging project failed because of bureaucratic hurdles, but then says 'But they had to switch charging station vendors due to supply chain issues, and the new equipment had “a very long lead time.”' That has nothing to do with bureaucracy, and none of the abundance stuff comes anywhere near addressing it.
> And yet here we are, three years later, staring at an empty lot.
By way of comparison, Project Gemini was conceived in 1961 and Gemini 3 successfully flew in April of 1964.
But I'm sure that 8 EV parking spots is a more complex endeavor somehow...
By way of comparison, Project Gemini was conceived in 1961 and Gemini 3 successfully flew in April of 1964.
But I'm sure that 8 EV parking spots is a more complex endeavor somehow...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality has been noted for a long time. Unfortunately much bigger projects are now affected in ways that perhaps they would not have been in the past.
Folks;
Yeah this is a run of the mill dead low-priority project. It happens in private industry, capitalism, communism, the roman empire, etc. Only because government is out in the open, it is easy to see.
I don't have proof, but this stinks of 'Failed project used as a place-holder for schedule slop'. I see is so so so many places.
Somebody, or a lot of somebodies knows this [Refactor AIP / Electric Charge Lot] is not a good idea. Instead of saying 'It's dead' it gets used as a buffer in the project plan. Oh it's there, and if things are every slow enough, it will happen. But even a mouse sneeze will move it out a year, to make budget [time, or $$$ ] for something useful.
Once a year the [ boss / newspaper] will ask "Oh what about, [refactor / Parking Lot]' and somewhere points to the start and end date on the chart. But it's not a priority, and is a placeholder job that gets bumped and shifted for priority work.
It is all over the place, since time began. WWII had it. The Revolutionary War had it. Ford has it. Roman Empire had it. Lockheed Martin has it. Hell, your own house projects have it.
This is just 'A dead project is a placeholder since the org is bad at planning.' It is everywhere.
I don't have proof, but this stinks of 'Failed project used as a place-holder for schedule slop'. I see is so so so many places.
Somebody, or a lot of somebodies knows this [Refactor AIP / Electric Charge Lot] is not a good idea. Instead of saying 'It's dead' it gets used as a buffer in the project plan. Oh it's there, and if things are every slow enough, it will happen. But even a mouse sneeze will move it out a year, to make budget [time, or $$$ ] for something useful.
Once a year the [ boss / newspaper] will ask "Oh what about, [refactor / Parking Lot]' and somewhere points to the start and end date on the chart. But it's not a priority, and is a placeholder job that gets bumped and shifted for priority work.
It is all over the place, since time began. WWII had it. The Revolutionary War had it. Ford has it. Roman Empire had it. Lockheed Martin has it. Hell, your own house projects have it.
This is just 'A dead project is a placeholder since the org is bad at planning.' It is everywhere.
codeflo(7)
"It’s about rebuilding government’s capacity to accomplish its basic functions efficiently and effectively."
That is a fairly hopeless aspiration as systems inevitably evolve to perpetuate themselves, not the services they were created to provide.
That is a fairly hopeless aspiration as systems inevitably evolve to perpetuate themselves, not the services they were created to provide.
I think that framing this as hopeless, and perpetuating the idea the government cannot operate efficiently, is a part of the problem. If a system is created to provide a service, it makes sense that said system would consider its existence instrumental to meeting that goal. This could be a positive motivator to provide the service efficiently and effectively. There are many reasons that it often does not work out that way, but one is public perception that government is supposed to be slow and inefficient.
Not a great example since building and maintaining an EV station is not something Seattle should be doing.
Cities have no experience building or maintaining charging stations.
Cities have no experience building or maintaining charging stations.
The city runs a municipal electrical utility (Seattle City Light), so building and maintaining electrical infrastructure is absolutely something they both have experience with and should be doing.
Why EV parking spaces and not a laundromat (which uses electricity)?
Because an EV lot is delivering power to a point (the charger) and parking is a business the city regularly operates. There's nothing novel to the city there.
A laundromat does take power routing, and there would be sufficient expertise to do that part, but operating a laundromat is a business the city has never done before. It requires knowledge of machines, customer traffic, laundry care, and a bunch of other stuff the city hasn't done.
A laundromat does take power routing, and there would be sufficient expertise to do that part, but operating a laundromat is a business the city has never done before. It requires knowledge of machines, customer traffic, laundry care, and a bunch of other stuff the city hasn't done.
Regardless of whether the City of Seattle should be in the EV charging station business, once they decide to, they damn well ought to be in the Getting Things Done™ business
-I think we underestimate the impact of the cultural assumption that anything the government does will be 10x as expensive, take 10x as long and then not work properly, with nobody ever being held accountable, but lots of people having been paid along the way.
Of all the ambitious, smart people I know, a single one has said he even believes it's a good thing to work for the government. And he doesn't do it because he thinks the experience would be so miserable compared to working in tech.
-Most people don't seem to understand that regulations don't just add up, but compound.
It's not that each individual, well-intentioned regulation is bad (though some are), it's that many regulations intersect and create edge cases.
And when there's regulation/paperwork at every point, it starts to look like an insurmountable barrier. This is true with entrepreneurship in Europe. People aren't against a specific regulation, the perception is that whatever you want to do, you'll have to ask permission from someone, somewhere, fill out 5 pages of paperwork and wait 3 months before you get to talk to a notary and finally change your business' mailing address (real example from Germany)
-It's hard to make a rational case for this because humans are wired to weigh danger more heavily than upside.
We don't have counterfactuals (the cafe that didn't open because of zoning laws, the parks that were never built, etc.)
Even when politicians admit this problem, they then proclaim they want more housing, innovation or whatever, but getting rid of a regulation has some amount of risk.
So then they try to find the "free lunch": a solution that has none of the downside, but all of the upside.
That free lunch doesn't exist and the resulting solution only gets even more complex.