Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

The most prevalent themes in the discussion revolve around infrastructure development, political systems' influence on building capacity, and housing crises, particularly in Western contexts.

Here are the three most prevalent themes:

1. Western Democratic Hurdles vs. Asian Building Speed

There is a significant contrast drawn between the perceived ease of large-scale construction in Asian nations (often implicitly or explicitly authoritarian) and the difficulties faced by Western democracies in building modern infrastructure quickly.

Supporting Quote: > "The West just refuses to build anything. Whereas in Asia its not uncommon to build entire cites from scratch." - skx001 This theme is countered, however, by explanations locating the problem in bureaucracy and NIMBYism rather than fundamental inability: > "The real bottlenecks are governance, bureaucracy, and NIMBYism." - skx001 (later in the thread, clarifying his initial point)

2. The Role of Governance and Bureaucracy in Stifling Development

Several users pinpoint rigid governance, excessive red tape, environment regulations, and local political opposition (NIMBYism) as the primary impediments to infrastructure and housing construction in Western nations like Canada and the UK.

Supporting Quote: > "Like a few comments above pointed out, its keeping boomers happy with their high property values at the expense of the young." - skx001 (attributing this sentiment to prior comments, summarizing the political blockage) A lengthy counterpoint highlights that environmental regulation and democratic input are the costs of preferred Western living standards: > "When you hear the astronomical cost of building a house, when you hear the cost of red tape, what's being left out is that parts of the red tape are commitments to build things like parks, green spaces, paths, places for people to bike and walk without getting hit by cars." - bbarnett

3. Housing Affordability Driven by Market Forces (Interest Rates & Investment)

For the Canadian housing segment of the discussion, the consensus leans heavily toward macroeconomic factors, specifically prolonged periods of low-interest rates and foreign investment speculation, as the main drivers of high housing prices, rather than immediate zoning or red tape issues impacting construction volume.

Supporting Quote: > "The second reason is the lowest rate of inflation for the longest period of time, for decades. Prior to the last few years, interest rates have been lower than they have ever been... This made housing cheaper than it has ever been before... when interest rates drop dramatically... suddenly housing is immensely more attractive." - bbarnett

🚀 Project Ideas

Bureaucracy & Planning Bottleneck Analyzer (BPBA)

Summary

A tooling service/application designed to address the extreme friction, slow timelines, and high cost of infrastructure and housing development in democratic Western countries (like Canada/UK/US), as directly contrasted by commenter observations of Asian development speeds.
Core value proposition: Quantify and visualize the non-construction overhead (bureaucracy, environmental assessments, permitting, NIMBY impact) slowing major capital projects, benchmarking them against international best practices.

Details

Key	Value
Target Audience	Urban planners, mid-sized property developers, municipal/state infrastructure departments, policy analysts.
Core Feature	Inputting project scope (e.g., 18-mile road expansion, new rail line, housing subdivision) to generate a time/cost breakdown showing the legally required approvals vs. actual construction time, citing relevant statutes/local plans.
Tech Stack	Backend: Python (for data processing/scraping planning documents), GraphQL API. Frontend: React with heavy charting libraries (e.g., D3.js, ECharts) for timeline visualization. Data source: Public records scraping of planning decisions, FOIA requests data compilation.
Difficulty	High
Monetization	Hobby

Notes

Directly addresses the frustration from users like skx001 and bbarnett who noted: "The real bottlenecks are governance, bureaucracy, and NIMBYism," and contrasted the 30-year timeline for an 18-mile road in the UK with Dubai building an entire airport.
The tool creates a quantifiable metric ("Bureaucratic Drag Ratio") that could stimulate data-driven political debate around streamlining democratic processes without eliminating necessary checks and balances (environmental assessments, citizen input).

Infrastructure Incentive Mapping Tool (IMT)

Summary

A service that models and visualizes the financial incentives and public-private partnership structures required to kickstart large-scale urban development projects in areas with low immediate private interest (i.e., "building in the middle of nowhere").
Solves the "Who does the building?" political/financial coordination problem identified in the discussion regarding greenfield city development.
Core value proposition: Provides actionable financial blueprints for governments seeking to emulate successful planned urban growth (like Northern Virginia or Milton Keynes) through strategic foundational investment.

Details

Key	Value
Target Audience	Municipal/Federal Economic Development Agencies, large venture capitalists focused on "New City" projects (e.g., California Forever type groups), infrastructure consulting firms.
Core Feature	Scenario modeling where users define initial anchor tenants (e.g., corporate campuses, university satellite campuses) and the tool outputs the required public utility investment (roads, sewage, initial transit right-of-way) needed to achieve a target 5-10% annual population growth rate, based on case studies.
Tech Stack	Backend: Go or Rust for high-performance modeling engine. Database: PostgreSQL for storing case study data. Frontend: Interactive web application with strong map integration (Mapbox/Leaflet).
Difficulty	Medium
Monetization	Hobby

Notes

This directly serves the interest of users like abdullahkhalids who outlined the mechanism: "The government simply asks large companies to open offices/factories in the new city in exchange for tax breaks/subsidies." and mikepurvis who described PPPs.
Provides a framework for Western democracies to execute large "Build, Baby Build" plans by proving out the early-stage financial viability that often stalls without a centrally managed initial push.

Mass Transit ROI & Pathing Simulator (MTRPS)

Summary

A decision-support tool focusing specifically on the "If you build transit, developers will build" hypothesis proven in DC suburbs, helping Western municipalities decide between BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) and Rail/Metro expansion.
Addresses the common debate in the thread regarding whether to start cheap (BRT) or go high-capacity (Rail), accounting for future density and land use change.
Core value proposition: Projects the long-term property value capture and induced density around proposed transit lines, justifying infrastructure spending based on future tax base growth rather than immediate operational costs.

Details

Key Key	Value
Target Audience	Local transit authorities (e.g., in Calgary, Vancouver), transit advocacy groups, city planning departments.
Core Feature	Users define a proposed transit alignment. The tool simulates two paths: 1) Grade-separated Rail with high initial cost, and 2) BRT with low initial cost. It then overlays projected residential/commercial zoning uplifts (based on proximity to stations) onto a 20-year financial model to show which initial investment yields superior return on investment via value capture financing models.
Tech Stack	Backend: Python/Pandas for econometric modeling. Frontend: Vue.js, leveraging GIS libraries for spatial analysis visualization.
Difficulty	High
Monetization	Hobby

Notes

Directly tackles the transit-induced development point raised by steego ("If you build transit, developers will build") and the debate between lurk2 (BRT is a good start) and panick21_ (competent governments care about the long run).
It provides the economic justification needed to overcome political hurdles (Section 3 concerns in the discussion) for heavy investment in high-capacity systems that are harder to build later.