[SkeuomorphicBee]

Exactly, Chinas biggest secret is to lean on economies of scale. In case of transit they standardised early-on on only five types of train/rail-corridor and then whenever a city needed a metro, lightrail or any other type of rail transit they would just pick one of the five that fits best and build it using all the knowhow and economies of scale from previous builds. RMTransit has a good video about it [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehTy-qQVZhM&t=0

[gumby]

The article even lauds the benefits of this, using the LA schools as an example, but doesn’t follow that thread.

[secabeen]

As I understand it, the challenge in building is in adapting the plan to site specifics, or adapting the site to the plan. In China and other top-down planning regimes, they will adapt the site to the plan. If the station or school plan requires that a historic neighborhood be impacted to use the plan unchanged, farewell to historic buildings. Here we adapt the plan to fit within the space, or whatever, but that quickly eliminates the cost savings, as now each station or school is slightly unique.

This also shows up in residential and other smaller projects. Look at the historic aerial photos of Levittown, NY and PA, which created the notion of the suburb:

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=levitown&iax=images&ia=imag...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown

The original landscape is completely eliminated, all original trees are gone, it's been scraped clean. Most developments near major cities are infill or replacement, and they adapt their plans to the site. There are still greenfield builds happening in exurban areas, but in existing metro areas, everything is bespoke.