The city is forced to shoulder the cost, which comes from taxes of course. So large developers promise the world to the city and sell them the idea of how massively beneficial said skyscraper will be with business taxes, commuters which boost the economy, increased housing needed for workers, and so on.
Very few of these promises ever come true, and many skyscrapers are decades old at this point as local and state governments keep making the same “mistake” over and over again.
This is on purpose of course, as those land developers pay off officials, politicians, and land owners in order to receive contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, with little regard to the long term repercussions of what they are doing.
The land is owned by the city, and developers bribe officials into paying their companies massive contracts to build the buildings on that city owned land, and once they’re done they quickly hightail it out of there with the hundreds of millions they’ve just swindled off of the city. Then the burden of the building falls back on the city, as it’s technically not the building companies fault that the building became useless and has no buyers.
The absolute scale of corruption in the US, and the sheer shamelessness of said corruption, are pretty unbelievable. We’re sort of good at projecting a facade of invincibility, but inside, this place is collapsing by the day.
Fun fact: this is how one of the biggest hushed scandal in the recent history of Poland went, and it was just one building, which wasn’t even build. “Afera Srebrna”. PiS planned to build a small-ish skyscraper in Warsaw using some set-up with foundations so it was not officially connected to the party and they used their people in state-owned companies to already promise renting space in this building for long years ahead, which would basically secure party funding for 20-30 next years.
One, not big building in good localisation.
Fortunately, it was blocked by the liberal president of city, Trzaskowski, who refused to allow the building to be built because it was too tall for that place urbanist plan. That’s why PiS absolutely hates him now.
Again, this is just one building, which sheds some light on how unbelievable levels of corruption are in Poland and according to this thread, in America it’s much, much higher.
The city is forced to shoulder the cost, which comes from taxes of course. So large developers promise the world to the city and sell them the idea of how massively beneficial said skyscraper will be with business taxes, commuters which boost the economy, increased housing needed for workers, and so on.
Very few of these promises ever come true, and many skyscrapers are decades old at this point as local and state governments keep making the same “mistake” over and over again.
This is on purpose of course, as those land developers pay off officials, politicians, and land owners in order to receive contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, with little regard to the long term repercussions of what they are doing.
I am mildly confused about this part. So the city authorities say “Pay for the land”, and the developer can just go “Nah”? No repercussions? Nothing?
Basically.
The land is owned by the city, and developers bribe officials into paying their companies massive contracts to build the buildings on that city owned land, and once they’re done they quickly hightail it out of there with the hundreds of millions they’ve just swindled off of the city. Then the burden of the building falls back on the city, as it’s technically not the building companies fault that the building became useless and has no buyers.
Absolutely fascinating. It does sound like how housing building developers work in Russia, but apparently on a grander scale
The absolute scale of corruption in the US, and the sheer shamelessness of said corruption, are pretty unbelievable. We’re sort of good at projecting a facade of invincibility, but inside, this place is collapsing by the day.
Fun fact: this is how one of the biggest hushed scandal in the recent history of Poland went, and it was just one building, which wasn’t even build. “Afera Srebrna”. PiS planned to build a small-ish skyscraper in Warsaw using some set-up with foundations so it was not officially connected to the party and they used their people in state-owned companies to already promise renting space in this building for long years ahead, which would basically secure party funding for 20-30 next years.
One, not big building in good localisation.
Fortunately, it was blocked by the liberal president of city, Trzaskowski, who refused to allow the building to be built because it was too tall for that place urbanist plan. That’s why PiS absolutely hates him now.
Again, this is just one building, which sheds some light on how unbelievable levels of corruption are in Poland and according to this thread, in America it’s much, much higher.