Today I swung by “The Davenport,” the century-plus old apartment building that partially collapsed a few days ago. Roads were closed off for a radius of a block or two around it so I couldn’t get very close in my car, and I didn’t have the time to find someplace to park and walk. Ehhh, oh well. Anyway, a lot of information has come out about it; the city of Davenport has released a bunch of inspection reports and other documents going back several years showing that it has been falling apart for some time. Bricks have been popping out of the face of the building for years. It looks like the sort of place that your average person would have been able to look at and go “Nope” and run to some other accommodations.
Someone’s gettin’ sued.
The City of Davenport website with the documents:
https://www.davenportiowa.com/cms/One.aspx?portalId=6481456&pageId=19580321
In retrospect this sort of thing is not too surprising. A lot of the buildings around here are old brick structures, and The Davenport was only a few blocks from the Mississippi river. “500 year floods” seem to happen every few years now; this had *got* to have an effect. Whether water seeps into the ground that far inland I don;t know, but having tens of thousands of tons of new watery overburden from time to time has got to cause the ground to flex at least some. There are also the occasional earthquake; small by the standards of even Utah, but if you have a brick building not built with earthquakes in mind… that’s not so great.
In all honesty, “The Davenport” looks like a *lot* of buildings in this part of the midwest. Built a century ago, having seen better days. Like our roads and bridges, the infrastructure has not been well looked after. I won’t be surprised if the next few years are filled with increasing tales of buildings and bridges falling. Imagine if the dozens of trillions dumped down the black hole of welfare were instead spent on repairs, maintenance and replacements of structures that needed it.
4 responses to ““The Davenport” was a disaster”
Ever since the end of World War 2 we have spent all our money on keeping peace in the world. We’re sort of the World Mall’s Security Cop. It’s good for the world and good for the rich people who have made shiploads of money out of international trade but it has gradually impoverished the average American. The degradation of our infrastructure is just one aspect of this. I don’t see anything good for the future.
Military spending is a pittance compared to welfare:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/2020_Total_US_Government_Spending_Breakdown.png
Military spending is welfare. It isn’t just military spending it’s ALL Federal Government spending. Probably 95% of all Federal spending is malinvestment and/or waste.
While 95% is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration depending on your point of view, I see your point in at least a general way.
That said, entitlements are perhaps the most abused and least beneficial major category of spending, while maintenance would really be a no-brainer in a sane world.
This is a classic perverse incentive. Actually, taking care of things gets you little political support, it won’t truly hurt you until things fall down, which hopefully will not happen until you are long gone.