This seems needlessly cynical. While I don't doubt there is some actual corruption and plenty of rent-seeking from political donors, the cited factors of poor project management and little expertise also play big roles, as you can observe the exact same thing in private construction projects that are self-funded by bad builders. I'm in a neighborhood that has been sort of the last Dallas neighborhood near downtown still "up and coming" and have seen this ever since moving here, from my own builder and also from effectively everyone else. They seem to have no relationships with tradesmen or subs, no ability to schedule or budget. Everything is late. Work happens in fits and starts, sometimes with nothing at all happening for months. Projects frequently outright fail and the project sits idle waiting for some other builder to come along and purchase it.
It's totally different in exurbs where they throw up new cities seemingly overnight. Working in pre-existing cities is an entirely different animal. There seem to be a lot reasons, but at minimum:
- Skilled tradesmen don't exist in large enough numbers to meet demand
- Subcontractors willing to do urban work are less skilled and scrupulous
- Onerous compliance at many overlapping levels of government that all have jurisdiction over the same land
- It takes forever to run new utility lines through a city because of how disruptive digging is
- Neighboring property owners fight you every step of the way
- Historical preservation and community culture councils come out of the woodworks with new requirements and restrictions on what you're allowed to build
That's just to build on existing empty lots you already purchased and have a permit for. For something like this infrastructure bill, now we're talking new roads and rail and you need to worry about clearing whatever is already there plus getting those permits. And work stoppages can happen for ridiculous reasons even in the middle of nowhere. It makes me remember being in the Army, when we trained at the National Training Center out in the Mojave desert, we had to constantly be on the lookout and stop if we saw an endangered desert tortoise we weren't allowed to touch, and basically just wait for it to get out of the way.
It's totally different in exurbs where they throw up new cities seemingly overnight. Working in pre-existing cities is an entirely different animal. There seem to be a lot reasons, but at minimum:
- Skilled tradesmen don't exist in large enough numbers to meet demand
- Subcontractors willing to do urban work are less skilled and scrupulous
- Onerous compliance at many overlapping levels of government that all have jurisdiction over the same land
- It takes forever to run new utility lines through a city because of how disruptive digging is
- Neighboring property owners fight you every step of the way
- Historical preservation and community culture councils come out of the woodworks with new requirements and restrictions on what you're allowed to build
That's just to build on existing empty lots you already purchased and have a permit for. For something like this infrastructure bill, now we're talking new roads and rail and you need to worry about clearing whatever is already there plus getting those permits. And work stoppages can happen for ridiculous reasons even in the middle of nowhere. It makes me remember being in the Army, when we trained at the National Training Center out in the Mojave desert, we had to constantly be on the lookout and stop if we saw an endangered desert tortoise we weren't allowed to touch, and basically just wait for it to get out of the way.