Because we have made great progress in infrastructure construction in recent years, the world has given us the nickname "infrastructure madman", so some people have begun to be proud and believe that our infrastructure level has no rivals in the whole world. But in fact, our infrastructure madman can only be regarded as the second generation, and in many aspects it has not surpassed the first generation of infrastructure madman so far, and this first generation of infrastructure madman is the United States.
The United States has experienced three major infrastructure frenzys in total. The first time was after Lincoln took office in 1860. With the great development of the western United States, the United States acquired vast land in the western region, but there was no railway running through the east and west. Lincoln believes that if a country is not coherent in transportation, it is difficult to be regarded as a complete country. As a result, a craze for railway construction began.
It took the Americans 10 years to complete a railway artery from the east coast to the west coast, namely the joint Pacific Railway , realizing Lincoln's idea when he was in office. After that, it took another 20 years to build 4 railway trunk lines across the east and west . The start of several railway trunk lines has also driven the rapid growth of the US railway network.
【1890, American Railway Network】
By 1910, the American railway mileage had reached 353,000 miles, or 566,000 kilometers, an almost average annual increase of 11,000 kilometers. This data also greatly stimulated Mr. Sun. He later mentioned in his "Founder of the Country" that it would take 10 years to build a 200,000-kilometer railway, which was also regarded as a joke by many people. But Mr. Sun didn't think about it by himself, but Americans did it first.
After entering the 1920s, the United States began its second infrastructure frenzy. High-rise buildings rose from the ground, bridges extended around, and dams began to accumulate floods and generate electricity. The whole of America is like a large construction site, with the roar of machines everywhere.
In April 1931, the New York Empire Building with a main height of 381 meters was completed. This tall building, which has been crowned the world's tallest building for 41 years, only took 410 days from construction to completion, and an average of two and a half floors are built per week.
In March 1936, the famous Hoover Dam was built to generate electricity. This 221-meter-high Gravity Dam consumes a total of 3.33 million cubic meters of concrete and has an installed capacity of 2,208 megawatts, which can supply electricity to 10 million citizens in Los Angeles. Moreover, this huge water conservancy project was completed two years ahead of schedule.
[Overhead map: Yamato battleship through Golden Gate Bridge ]
In May 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge, an important landmark in the United States, was completed and opened to traffic. This huge building with a total length of 2,780 meters and a bridge tower height of 343 meters has a construction period of 4 years and 4 months. It has overcome dozens of bridge construction problems and can be regarded as a milestone in the history of human bridge construction.
If a Chinese came to the United States during this period, he would definitely feel that the gap between the two countries was so big that it was hopeless. When Empire State Building was completed, Red Army was conducting a second encirclement and suppression operation. When the Hoover Dam was built to generate electricity, the Red Army had just completed the Long March and arrived in northern Shaanxi. When the Kinmen Bridge was completed and opened to traffic, the Red Army West Route Army had just broken into sand on the road to the West Expedition. No one would have thought that in a few years we will be called infrastructure madman.
[Houver Dam is still a world-famous water conservancy project]
In 1952, after Eisenhower took office, he started the third round of infrastructure frenzy in the United States. This time, the main focus of this time is the U.S. road network. When Eisenhower was a US military lieutenant colonel, he spent 62 days driving alone from the East Coast to the West Coast, impressed him with the poor road conditions. Therefore, as soon as he took office, he regarded the construction of the U.S. road network as a long-term goal, and this plan has lasted for nearly 40 years.
As the first generation of infrastructure maniac, the achievements made by
have attracted worldwide attention. As of the end of 2021, the United States has a total of 410,000 kilometers of available railway mileage, my country is 160,000 kilometers; the total mileage of highways in the United States is 5.6 million kilometers, my country is 4.4 million kilometers; the United States now has 15,000 airports, while we have less than 1,000.
[New York in 1935, the Red Army was still on the Long March]
It can be seen that although we have been chasing the name of infrastructure madman in the past few decades, we have not caught up with the accumulation of the first generation of infrastructure madman. So we can't just eat for a few days and start to be complacent and look down on this and that. You should know that every country that sits on the world's number one throne is not accidental, it is all accumulated by strength.
But we don’t have to underestimate ourselves. The infrastructure craze in the United States lasted for 150 years before this achievement was achieved, and how many years have we carried out? We caught up from a nearly zero starting point. The recession in the United States is also a fact. The infrastructure of the United States is outdated, but it has been repaired and used and cannot be rebuilt on a large scale. In time, we will definitely surpass the United States in infrastructure.
[I offer helium 3 to my motherland, the helium 3 drilling on Iova, the last infrastructure maniac must be us]
Infrastructure capability is the hard power of a country, which can comprehensively reflect a country's strategic vision and decision-making level, scientific and technological innovation and production capacity, mobilization ability and execution ability. Once these capabilities and levels are met, they will achieve unimaginable results, whether in infrastructure or in other fields.
