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Comment by satoru42 | Hacker News Reader

It is said that in many cities in China the governments actually did something similar. They broke parts of the roads repeatedly so that they could rebuild them later.

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That's how local corruption works in Eastern European cities. New mayor gets elected, so good streets get torn up and re-paved, so that his friend who runs a local construction company gets a lucrative government contract above market rates.

Rinse and repeat every time we get a new mayor. It's a tried and tested way of legally shoveling public taxpayer money into well connected private pockets.

I've seen similar corruption scandals in Western Europe as well, since the owners of construction companies and city leaders tend to not be strangers to one another, so I don't expect China to be any different here.

Yes, and it's also funny that they will re-pave the street, and then few months later it turns out that some water pipes need to be replaced, so the freshly re-paved street is torn up again. Then, few months later, new fiber cables needs to be put in the ground, so guess what?. Re-paving becomes one of the best businesses in such town :)

A few cities have someone who's job it is to coordinate between all the groups that have/want something under the streets so when the streets are torn up (which needs to happen every 20-60 years depending on how long the chosen pavement type lasts) everyone with something under the road goes out and does whatever they need.

The city I'm in now puts everything in the area between the streets and the sidewalks. I don't have a sidewalk yet because there are some thing that will be going in next summer.

SF too.

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