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Abandoned urban infrastructure

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GSM8
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Abandoned urban infrastructure

Post by GSM8 » Sun, 28 Sep 2014 9:16 pm

Intriguing yet sobering. These now abandoned and forgotten underground train stations probably drew the same hype and positive publicity back in their day, that today's grand public transport projects attract - and this was just a few short decades ago. It seemed in a way relevant in light of the massive investments in similar urban infrastructure in Singapore and the rest of Asia, in contrast to crumbling and decaying cities in many western countries.
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/ ... nderground

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PNGMK
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Re: Abandoned urban infrastructure

Post by PNGMK » Mon, 29 Sep 2014 9:54 am

GSM8 wrote:Intriguing yet sobering. These now abandoned and forgotten underground train stations probably drew the same hype and positive publicity back in their day, that today's grand public transport projects attract - and this was just a few short decades ago. It seemed in a way relevant in light of the massive investments in similar urban infrastructure in Singapore and the rest of Asia, in contrast to crumbling and decaying cities in many western countries.
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/ ... nderground
So do we not build infrastructure?

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Re: Abandoned urban infrastructure

Post by GSM8 » Mon, 29 Sep 2014 5:10 pm

PNGMK wrote:So do we not build infrastructure?
I suppose one thing that occurred to be me about the article that is that sometimes changes in profiteering motives result in good infrastructure projects getting defunded/abandoned. On the flip side some of these projects may not have been viable in the first place but got funded due to political priorities. Lastly, inadequately thorough feasibility studies might result in unsustainable developments. From what I've seen so far though Singapore doesn't currently fall into any of these categories. But less could probably be said about some of the other countries around.

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JR8
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Re: Abandoned urban infrastructure

Post by JR8 » Mon, 29 Sep 2014 8:32 pm

GSM8 wrote:
PNGMK wrote:So do we not build infrastructure?
I suppose one thing that occurred to be me about the article that is that sometimes changes in profiteering motives result in good infrastructure projects getting defunded/abandoned. On the flip side some of these projects may not have been viable in the first place but got funded due to political priorities. Lastly, inadequately thorough feasibility studies might result in unsustainable developments. From what I've seen so far though Singapore doesn't currently fall into any of these categories. But less could probably be said about some of the other countries around.
I don't see the connection between say London 100 years ago and the Perfectopore of today.

It's not 'profiteering motives', it's demographics. People live in big place, over a generation+ decide to move to new area, old area stagnate, shops close, cinemas close, stations close, and so on. Can't happen here of course where 6 million people live crowded onto a pin-head.

You cannot compare. Some of these stations, say in London, date back to 1850. What was SG then, a single mud hut?

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