[bilbo0s]

I feel like only in places like Chicago could this have worked. It's like the water system in Chicago, just massive. And everyone just shrugs and says, "Dig 100 miles of deep tunnel and massive reservoirs? Yep. Let's get 'er done."

A lot of places I've lived, things like that wouldn't fly. I was equally amazed at Phoenix with their, what I can only call a "strategic water reserve".

A lot of thought and money goes into stuff like that.

I get the strong sense that in most American cities if you would have told the population that we all need to undertake a massive public work, (Oh, and pay for it by the way), they would yank you from office and tell you to go F yourself.

[grogenaut]

They massively re-landscaped most of downtown seattle, in one phase by using hoses to blast hills down and extend the waterfront. In another phase they built the streets up like 12' or more. I think stuff like this happened in many places.

Really it still does. I'll trigger many bostonians by invoking the dig. Seattle has bored some massive tunnels recently and re-scaped its waterfront

[bilbo0s]

I think there is a misunderstanding of the engineering challenges in some of these projects.

The Big Dig was less than 10 miles, never deeper than roughly 100 ft. TARP is over 100 miles always deeper than 100 ft. And because of intended use, it all has to be dug through solid limestone bedrock. The engineering challenges are non trivial in both, but one is on a massive scale that the other is just not.

Speaking to the Seattle example, the reason for building the streets higher is that, in Seattle, people would have revolted if they had decree'd "All shalt raise thine buildings 12 to 24 feet as did the multitudes in Chicago." That's what I mean. Seattle is the example that proves the rule. No one had the political capital to force a Chicago style raise on Seattle.

That said, between you and me, as an engineer, I would have done things the Seattle way and left the buildings at ground level. Raised the streets and then turn the formerly ground level floors into basements. It's not the end of the world if basements flood from time to time. And some drainage might even help with that. Chicago, on the other hand, wanted the "complete" solution. They were done with dealing with floods. Even in basements, they were intent on eradicating flooding. Which is a laudable goal, and Chicago has been much better off because of it. But the risk and the cost is just a whole lot higher than I would have felt comfortable with given the tech available to me at the time.

[dredmorbius]

I'm presuming TARP is the Chicago Tunnel and Reservoir Plan?

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_and_Reservoir_Plan>

That's been in process for 30 years, anticipated completion in 2029.

[fsckboy]

>I feel like only in places like Chicago could this have worked

the original downtown of Seattle got moved up 1 floor: they didn't raise the buildings, they raised the street, the old 2nd floors became first floors.* You can still visit the underground Seattle in some places.

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

* carefully worded to also work on European floor number systems.

[toast0]

Port Angeles, WA has a similar, but smaller Underground.

[dugmartin]

It was done in other cities. Boston flooded a bunch of towns 60 miles to the west to build a water supply:

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

New York City built three long aqueducts to bring in water:

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

I doubt you could get anything even resembling those projects built today due to environmental concerns.

[potato3732842]

That's kind of different because they were kicking out a relatively small number of people with not much wealth or power to resist as opposed to doing those sorts of projects in urban areas.

You can visit the reservoir area and see the razed town centers that are miles from the actual water. It's kind of a sad monument to the "messy" consequences of central planning.

[selectodude]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Water_Tunnel_N...

Likely not as greenfield development but they’re still building.

[dredmorbius]

Would the Phoenix, AZ, water plan be the "Water Resource Plan", or something else?

<https://www.phoenix.gov/waterservices/resourcesconservation/...>

[phailhaus]

To be fair, it took an epidemic that killed six percent of the city's population for them to take it seriously.