[entropyfails]

Allow me to regale you while dropping a bit on the anecdotal decay evidence pile. *grin* We have this drain along one of our bigger lanes for local traffic that has begun to sink. At first, they let it sink until it started to cause cars to “jump” the ramp the sinkhole made. Then they put one of those big orange and white sawhorses to mark it. A few weeks later, they filled it in with tar and rock. It continued to sink. A couple weeks after that, the sawhorse reappeared. After another week, a second sawhorse appeared on the other side marking the ever widening circumference of the sinkhole. It has been this way for a month now and all cars must swerve around these 2 markers in the roads. I’ll try to get a picture of this hilarious arrangement. They cannot fix it this year within budget constraints.

When driving on the roads here in MN, you can hit a pothole that can take out your tire on MN highways. I know because it happened to my girlfriend when we were in the car, from full tire to flat in less than 2 seconds.

MPR says 1/3 of MN roads need to be “rebuilt.”

I assume that roads in warmer climates last a bit longer due to the lack of freeze/thaw that causes most of the road issues around here. So in MN we get to see another side of global warming, in the winter it now thaws and freezes several times, completely destroying a roads ability to stay together. Add Peak Oil to this and…. well… We better fucking wake up.

Good luck!

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('entropyfails', '.')..........

When driving on the roads here in MN, you can hit a pothole that can take out your tire on MN highways. I know because it happened to my girlfriend when we were in the car, from full tire to flat in less than 2 seconds.

....

[bobcousins]

I love to bang on about Tainters collapse theory...so this is an ideal opportunity.

Creation of infrastructure leads to growth, but then maintenance requires further growth down the line. You are forced into ever growing capital investment - or abandon it. There is a good analytical extension of this in Greer's paper on catabolic collapse.

In London, the Roman system of drains and sewers fell into disrepair 400 AD or so, and London was without drains until about 1500 years later. The Victorian brick sewers are still in use today, and are obviously increasingly in need of replacement.

I keep seeing politicians etc saying "we need to spend X billion dollars repairing the infrastructure of Y", and I think "No!". If we attempt to maintain all this stuff we will head towards collapse. In fact, the best thing to do is to leave it to fall into disrepair.

Declining marginal return is our biggest enemy. If we are going to spend money, spend it on new sustainable infrastructure.

[jaws]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobcousins', 'I') love to bang on about Tainters collapse theory...so this is an ideal opportunity.

Creation of infrastructure leads to growth, but then maintenance requires further growth down the line. You are forced into ever growing capital investment - or abandon it. There is a good analytical extension of this in Greer's paper on catabolic collapse.

[nero]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')reation of infrastructure leads to growth, but then maintenance requires further growth down the line. You are forced into ever growing capital investment - or abandon it. There is a good analytical extension of this in Greer's paper on catabolic collapse.

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobcousins', '.')..........

I keep seeing politicians etc saying "we need to spend X billion dollars repairing the infrastructure of Y", and I think "No!". If we attempt to maintain all this stuff we will head towards collapse. In fact, the best thing to do is to leave it to fall into disrepair.

........

[Leanan]

Yes, I think we are facing Tainter's diminishing returns here. We never imagined, when we built the Interstate system, how difficult it would be to maintain them, never mind replace them. People are used to using these roads now. We cannot just close them for a few weeks to repave them, or replace the drains under them. So instead, we close half the lanes, a few hundred feet at time, and make the traffic share the remaining lanes. Because we're in such a rush to keep traffic moving and get the lanes open again, we use quick setting asphalt and the like, which doesn't last as long as the regular stuff. So the road's a mess again in a couple of years.

It's also become a lot harder to build a new road. The country is a lot more crowded now. There's little empty space to build a road, at least anywhere near where people want to go. Instead of farmland, it's all subdivisions, strip malls, and office parks - a lot more disruptive and expensive to take via eminent domain.

[bobcousins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nero', '
')I'm familiar with Tainter but I don't understand what you're saying here. Why does maintenance require further growth. It requires a continuing investment of time and energy but why does that require growth?

[Kingcoal]

Pennsylvania has never looked better. PA experienced this decay back in the 60's, 70's and 80's. This state went through fantastic job loss and industry loss back then. Since about '90 it's been all up hill. That's the light at the end of the tunnel, hitting bottom there is no where to go but up.

The decay you are talking about is a cyclical thing. I think a lot of people are talking about it today because areas other than the northeast are experiencing it for the first time.

[MicroHydro]

Silicon Valley is cyclical in nature. But, the recessions used to be brief. It has been 5 years since the bottom fell out of the dotcoms and we are still falling. So far 200,000 lost jobs and counting. This area is economically devastated.

[arretium]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leaf', 'A')merica has become a nation not worth caring about "read Jim Kunstler on that".
I like his old saying...if a soldier gets shot in Iraq...sees blood come out of his body and thinks of home...what comes to his mind? A Chuck-E-Cheese between blacktop parking lots?
America is a throw away nation. And when PO hits in bloom..it will be not worth defending...not worth saving...not worth giving a damn about...
Take away the USD and whats left? Any culture?
We seen the USA wasn't even worth saving or investing our time in trying to help it...lost cause...We left Garbage Can nation of America....best move we ever made! Leaf

[entropyfails]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kingcoal', 'T')he decay you are talking about is a cyclical thing. I think a lot of people are talking about it today because areas other than the northeast are experiencing it for the first time.

[mgibbons19]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('arretium', 'P')eople don't think about Chuckecheese, come on. They think about the same thing every other person in war thinks about. They think about home.

[mgibbons19]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MicroHydro', 'S')ilicon Valley is cyclical in nature. But, the recessions used to be brief. It has been 5 years since the bottom fell out of the dotcoms and we are still falling. So far 200,000 lost jobs and counting. This area is economically devastated.

[Claudia]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')ennsylvania has never looked better. PA experienced this decay back in the 60's, 70's and 80's. This state went through fantastic job loss and industry loss back then. Since about '90 it's been all up hill.

[ubercrap]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leaf', 'A')merica has become a nation not worth caring about "read Jim Kunstler on that".
I like his old saying...if a soldier gets shot in Iraq...sees blood come out of his body and thinks of home...what comes to his mind? A Chuck-E-Cheese between blacktop parking lots?
America is a throw away nation. And when PO hits in bloom..it will be not worth defending...not worth saving...not worth giving a damn about...
Take away the USD and whats left? Any culture?
We seen the USA wasn't even worth saving or investing our time in trying to help it...lost cause...We left Garbage Can nation of America....best move we ever made! Leaf

[marko]

Just an observation that I live and work along I-95, the main north-south highway along the east coast of the US. The stretch of it near me is a ring road that forms a semicircle around Boston (like the Beltway around DC or the M 25 around London, except that Boston is on the coast, so it's a semicircle).

This is probably the most important freeway in Massachusetts, and when I drive it, I keep one eye on the road surface and swerve to avoid the numerous potholes. Some parts of the road are extremely rough with hundreds of small potholes that have been filled imperfectly with asphalt.

The reason for this is that it has become political suicide to talk about raising taxes, even here in left-leaning Massachusetts.

Not that I think taxes should be spent on freeways. Nor that I like having to drive this wretched road to work.

Just an observation that our existing infrastructure is decaying, and we are unable to invest in a new infrastructure that might help us to have a soft landing from peak oil, because Americans have accepted a government that prioritizes channeling the nation's wealth into the private coffers of the superrich.

[Leanan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he reason for this is that it has become political suicide to talk about raising taxes, even here in left-leaning Massachusetts.