弗雷德里克·普洛尼克（Fredric Plotnick）

1970年代我上大学时，我的高级项目涉及设计负担得起的模块化住房，这些模块化住房可以运送到需要最少的基础和公用事业工作的地点。我们的模块必须在由混凝土制成的所有48个连续状态中都可以接受，并包括碎玻璃和其他再生材料。

That forced us to make other decisions. One state had a maximum width for road transport, so that measurement became each module’s maximum; one state had a minimum width for a stairway, so that measurement became our minimum width, reducing the usable floor space. The use of glass aggregate reduced the strength of the concrete, requiring thicker walls, further cutting floor space. Our estimate for a livable unit was less than the national average for new, stick-built housing. But who would ever want to live in the concrete boxes we designed?

I thought of the assignment after reading“建筑行业的生产力问题”经济学家的最新文章。本文提出了一个合理的问题，但它提出了一个荒谬的解决方案。

《经济学人》惋惜的低迷水平产品ivity—and lack of improvements over the past half century—in the construction industry as compared to manufacturing. Since 1995, the global average value added per hour has grown at about a quarter of manufacturing’s rate, it states; according to McKinsey, “no industry has done worse.” Fragmented into many small firms that are reluctant to invest in new technology because of the industry’s frequent ups and downs, construction firms fail to adopt the project software and mass-production techniques “that have revolutionized” other industries.

文章提出，业主促进合并，以便随着业务周期的增长和下降，对建筑工作的需求将升级。只有政府才能“减轻……通过在建筑项目上支出支出来减轻……”。新利18备用网址

Let me understand this. When new factories, office buildings and housing developments are being built, we should hold back on government spending for infrastructure. When the boom ends, factories ramp down, office buildings sit vacant, and no new homes are being built, that should be the time for a government to spend on highways, hospital and wastewater treatment plants?

碎片,我知道几个large contractors may be more productive on megaprojects and especially on repeat megaprojects. But the megafirms still rely on local firms for delivery. Under The Economist’s concept, a local contractor doing work at up to a $200-million level of “at-risk,” “lowest bid” public projects would become a subcontractor to one of the very few national firms chosen to manage—not build—a $10-billion public program. When that contractor wins, it must finish on time or face penalties.

多个大型投资通常迟到新利18备用网址

But programs of multiple megaprojects rarely finish on time or on budget. I do not see as helpful further government encouragement to move our construction industry from at-risk private contractors of finite capacity to at-no-risk, quasi-government-owned behemoths where employees 10 levels below the “leader” would not know which end of a hammer to hold.

经济学家不喜欢大量的当地建筑法规，并指出：“建筑法规不仅在国家之间而且在其中有所不同。”我认为，经济学家希望所有代码都由布鲁塞尔的主建筑法规局颁布。

The Economist has it backward. Big factories will churn out widgets at a higher rate of productivity than an individual artisan. But other than for the largest of megaprojects, the nimbleness of small firms, which may start and complete a job while a larger entity is still entering details into a database, is usually better. There is a reason why, as The Economist states, Europe has 3.3 million contractors with an average of just four workers. So, while The Economist may hope for an industry in which four-person teams can be pulled in at a big firm at the last minute to finish a project, governments know that, to win votes, the best policy is to provide steady paychecks to a stable workforce—even if they come from tiny companies.