Bureaucrats operate on the delusion that "If you build it - they will come"; the delusion that if you construct a shell, then the necessary people will flood into it. So we get new office blocks, research laboratories, 'traffic calming' speed-bumps etc. on roads, bike lanes, solar panels and 'wind-turbines'...
Or lavish updates and restorations when that is not possible.
There has been an orgy of 'construction' since around the millennium - in-line with the bureaucratic takeover of everything; and where has it got us?
New buildings are supposed to bring Good People, bike lanes are supposed to encourage cyclists
This is actually just a manifestation of self-serving, short-termist managerialism - because New Build is the best way for managers to buff their CVs. New Build is better than Good people - especially when there aren't many Good people...
Especially when the bureaucrats don't even Want Good people because you are focused on Affirmative Action Group Preference Quotas (which only exist because there are not enough Good people in the categories being affirmed).
And New Build is not even Good Build, because the priority is never functionality; but domination and virtue-signaling.
So the New Build is all extra-expensive, extra-gimmicky, pseudo-environmentalist, fake-sustainability - and horrible to behold and dwell-within.
This is why my city - and everywhere else I visit, even deep countryside - has been a frenzied maelstrom of building for the past decades; which only accelerated with the birdemic.
New Buildings are a visible symptoms, and anti-personnel method, of the totalitarian bureaucracy which has taken over The West.
But as the evil-affiliated leadership swings from managed Ahrimanic-bureaucracy towards sheer Sorathic destruction - we shall, I predict, see the slowing, cessation, and reversal of this mania*.
But not in a good way, because not for good reasons.
*(...Although the dismantling of so much concrete and steel is too difficult and expensive to contemplate - so the hideous hulks and crumbling shells of 21st century construction will continue to pollute the world for many generations to come - if there are generations to come.)
Note: Expanding Churches that have been subjected to managerial takeover will tend to focus on New Build - projected as a (fake) sign of spiritual growth and thriving. Or else - like the Church of England, which has more buildings than it can use for religious purposes - they might evolve towards repurposing as a 'cathedral'-based religion; by adding-to and extensively adapting beautiful old buildings into tourist attractions with cafes, restaurants, shops, exhibitions, brochures and tours - and making spaces to hire for secular/ political purposes.
Have you noticed Bruce that they knock down something the community needs like an ambulance station and replaces it with a totally useless hot desking office block and gym.
ReplyDelete@MB - Yes; it's almost as if they are trying to destroy our entire civilization... Deliberate and strategic destruction is perceptible at the microcosmic level of our streets and fields, as well as at the macrocosmic level of mass migrations and wars.
ReplyDeleteThe worst here in the US, is when there are so many deserted mini-malls and office blocks, yet the developers tear down more and more of our forest lands to build apartment complexes on!!
ReplyDeletePart of the reason hurricane Ian caused so much flooding here in Florida, is that there's too much tarmac/concrete and not enough natural lands left to absorb all the water!
This is insightful. I've experienced the same phenomenon in every single place I have lived, including England.
ReplyDeleteFor example, the university I work for here in Hungary recently switched from being publicly owned to some sort of public-private hybrid based on some sort of foundation model. The big boss of this model, who is now effectively my boss, is the owner and CEO of Hungary's largest bank. Anyway, as soon as the switch was made, grand visions of new buildings, including a totally unnecessary sports stadium were ceremoniously unveiled.
In the meantime, my employer insists it cannot afford to purchase ink for my printer at work. Nor can it afford to keep the university buildings open for two months this winter because of the energy "crisis". But boy those superfluous new buildings are going to be swell. And I'm sure no one is going to exploit the situation to line their own pockets or anything like that.
The ongoing drive to pedestrianise Norwich by banning cars from more and more of it, has resulted in there now being no safe space to walk as a pedestrian. Electric scooters and motorbikes (pretending to be bicycles) weave in and out at high speed. Pedestrians used to have pavements to stroll on. Now constant vigilance is required before making any change of direction to avoid being hit at 25mph.
ReplyDelete@Colin - As an avid pedestrian myself, I agree that we are now at the bottom of the pecking order (and that 'cyclists' are the most arrogant and entitled group of all!).
ReplyDeleteI see this all the time w/ roadwork, especially on the interstate highways. Road projects never seem to be finished and perfectly working routes are torn down to rebuild leading to traffic jams. The college town I once lived in was a nice quiet area w/ beautiful trees centuries old. Yet quiet communities have been upheaved to increase student enrollment beyond the college's capacity. Housing prices have skyrocketed as students bring government aid money attached. The once nice college town had become unlivable in just a few years.
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