> The richest 70 members of China’s legislature added more to their wealth last year than the combined net worth of all 535 members of the U.S. Congress, the president and his Cabinet, and the nine Supreme Court justices.

> The net worth of the 70 richest delegates in China’s National People’s Congress, which opens its annual session on March 5, rose to 565.8 billion yuan ($89.8 billion) in 2011, a gain of $11.5 billion from 2010, according to figures from the Hurun Report, which tracks the country’s wealthy. That compares to the $7.5 billion net worth of all 660 top officials in the three branches of the U.S. government.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-02-26/china-s-b...

So, if anything, wealthy Chinese people exert an even greater degree of control over the political process than wealthy Americans do over theirs.

Short term thinking is really destructive and limiting.

Eventually the pendulum swung in the other direction and people gained the ability to stop urban freeways, but now the pendulum has swung too far and people will sue projects out of existence.

China's land rights (or lack thereof) are not uncontroversial, and I would be surprised if they don't become a flashpoint in the future.

The interstate highway system through cities was a disaster that mostly served to turn economically productive land into craters of parking lots generating very little tax revenue. Those with the means fled severed neighborhoods with spiking pollution levels, leaving the poor with asthma in their wake. While some cities managed to recover in the following decades, not all of them have.

And suburbs that people fled to are not necessarily faring any better; suburbs are cheap to live in initially but become extremely expensive when you start having to replace infrastructure at the end of its life. Nassau County, NY, home of the first generation of suburbs, has been under state fiscal control since 2000 despite being one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, because the fiscal math does not add up.

A lot of the suburban growth that happened was also just shuffling it around a region rather than true growth. For example, Buffalo's metro area has tripled in land area despite the same population, so the same tax base is now expected to support triple the infrastructure.

Here’s my hypothesis: when it comes to infrastructure, the operative word is not yet, it’s therefore. Autocrats have a much easier time cutting through any red tape put up by those lower on the food chain than them.

In a democratic society, such as the US, there are countless stakeholders who need to be included in the process for huge infrastructure projects like this. Unfortunately, too many chefs spoil the broth as they say.

Another factor may be that the US has elections every 4 year. There is no long-term planning happening, because who knows what's happening in 4 years. Too much energy is spent on political campaigns, destroying your opponent and getting re-elected.

If you go back 50 years there were still the same election cycles but countries, not just US, were getting volumes of serious projects done.

I think its more abut the mindset change in both politicions and votes. Back then we were nation building. People expected some sacrifice to create a better future and they were witnessing this progress.

Today many people are seeing their quality of life reduce and this creates a focus on grabbing yours and looking for quick wins.

We have a great example in Australia where the govt tried to roll out nation fibre broadband. The oposition critisied what was largely a good plan as far as I can tell simply because they were the opposition. The opposition won the next election, implemented their 'this saves money' plan and fucked it leaving our country with a $50bn project that has done bugger all to improve internet.

Also now its buggered I regularily see people posting things like "why should my tax dollars pay to fix it, if you want fast interent you should pay yourself" type thing. This rather than, this is the modern circulation system of the economy and if we dont fix it our country will lose significant future oppurtunity.

But yeah we have a huge proportion of lawyer politicions in Aus and I think this is an issue. We should be looking for genuine 'doer' skill sets. I almost wonder if we should ban running as political parties and people have to run as themself so we fcus on theier histor and achivements more rather than are they my tribe.

China is much more willing to force people out of their homes for the greater good. It will be interesting to see which prevails.

"Residents living along the proposed maglev route have raised health concerns about noise and electromagnetic radiation emitted by the trains, despite an environmental assessment by the Shanghai Academy of Environmental Sciences saying the line was safe.[26] These concerns have prevented the construction of the proposed extension of the maglev to Hangzhou."

"In 2003, the MOR was believed to favor Japan's Shinkansen technology, especially the 700 series.[29] However, Chinese citizens angry with Japan's denial of World War II atrocities organized a web campaign to oppose the awarding of HSR contracts to Japanese companies. The protests gathered over a million signatures and politicized the issue.[31] The MOR delayed the decision, broadened the bidding and adopted a diversified approach to adopting foreign high-speed train technology."

I think that a big reason for this is that the US already has a half-working solution in place. Some infrastructure already exists that fulfills this role. China, on the other hand, didn't have much of an alternative in place, thus it was easier to find the will to build it.

We saw the same thing with internet connectivity and government services in Eastern Europe. Governments built much more modern infrastructures and offered more modern services because they weren't burdened by the past.

If the Chinese government wants to put a train line where houses, farms, or offices used to be, they do it. One, because they already own the land. And two, the faster goods and services can move, the faster the economy can grow.

Not an advocate for socialist/communist capitalism, but this is one area where central planning can move a little faster than the west. One are the west can vastly improve is permit streamlining.

There's a reason the autocratic government in Civilization has classically been the most efficient one in the ruleset for military and infrastructure buildout. Having to get consensus is slow and error-prone. Decentralized decision-making is effective at preserving a status quo while making minor tweaks, but not so great for changing a status quo radically.

I think the US has major infrastructure changes pinned largely to wartime, 20s Depression, and other extraordinary events that gave the government unusual flexibility.