Wholly New, Says King Cuomo, of the Opening of La Guardia Terminal

I just read this article where the following is stated:

With the opening of the 840,000-square-foot building, the overhaul of La Guardia will be more than halfway complete. At the east end of the airport, Delta Air Lines is building a replacement for another terminal that is scheduled to open by the end of next year.

When everything is finished, it will amount to the first wholly new big-city airport in the country. The last major airport to open was Denver International Airport 25 years ago, Mr. Cuomo said.

I remember landing in the Denver Airport just about 25 years ago, not long after it was completed.  It was really a nice terminal and everyone marveled at the brightness provided by the natural light, the very cool fabric, tent like, roof, the huge shopping area which made the place feel like an open, airy mall. (Of course the entire interior had to be renovated and rebuilt to support the farce of "enhanced airline security" introduced after 9-11, a project still on going today).  Twenty five years ago!  Can you imagine?  It has been 25 years since a major city has built a "wholly new" airport?  

I find this NYT statement hard to comprehend.  Actually, I think the language is the problem.  Language in the US has migrated to become something I call "the commercial truth", or language specifically stated to give the reader, listener, viewer a specific impression or idea that negates any and all of what any rational person would understand as "truth" and replaces "truth" with a narrowly defined, often totally unrepresentative perspective of such "truth". This has become the norm. I think people who live in "free open democracies / societies" would consider this complete bastardization of language as "propaganda" but here in America people are completely and utterly incapable of seeing or understanding this. We take for granted that if you see a shiny floor in a TV commercial with a bottle of X cleaner in the foreground, the implication is that floor cleaner cleaned the floor, even though that is never specifically stated and there is just as much a chance not only was the floor not cleaned with the implied product but the entire image has been enhanced to make it look cleaner then it really is, if the floor actually exist at all!.  The same can be said for this NYT article.  If you take what the article states at face value, you would think not an airport in the US has been substantially upgraded, renovated or had new terminals built in the last 25 years.  Having said that, unless you fly frequently and know where new terminals have been built or substantially renovated  it is not easy to find a concise list of airports in the US that have been substantially rebuilt or renovated or "wholly new" built in the last 25 years.  So who would question this ridiculous statement?

My "local" airport, Washington Regan National Airport, built a New Terminal which opened in 1997.  At that time the older terminal still existed and was in use.  It was a great chance to see what still existed at most American airports and what a new terminal could be!  I have been to a few other cities that have rebuilt, renovated or added brand new terminals their airports as well.  But overall many American airports are still not unlike the now "old" La Guardia, cramped, ugly, with miles of drywall and drop ceiling in drab environments. 

On a side note: I find one of the images featured in the Times article especially funny reading "Mosaics display iconic New York Scenes" and there is a colorful food cart mosaic in the image... Yea, the Giuliani inspired banning of food carts back in the late 20th Century ("because they are viewed as incompatible with their vision of luxury New York") is now "iconic art".  Anyone who has visited NYC over the last 30 years will definitely notice the difference in Manhattan.  Along with the banning of food carts, it also seems they banned blacks and other people of color cause you would think America was 95% white if that is where you spend your time.  So with the complete transformation of Manhattan as a playground for the global elites (not unlike other international cities over the last few decades), why did it take so long to upgrade one of it's main airports?  And why are so many others so much in need of transformation as well?  These are the billion dollar questions indeed.

So now we have a beautiful new terminal and no passengers.  "Iconic" art of street vendors?  I foresee in the very near future many more street vendors as the economic collapse brought on by the closing down of the global economy will force millions of Americans, especially our recent immigrants, to live just like their counterparts in the developing world, where the only place they can make enough money to exist day to day is on the street.  But hey, I love street food culture so maybe we will gain from this economic collapse after all.

As for the airports, I have an inkling feeling we may have to live with many of the old structures for a while.

From the Horse's Mouth

Six years ago, our current president Obama was talking about rebuilding our national infrastructure.  Of course, after 2 pointless $1 trillion + wars we are sitting on an infrastructure that is essentially six years older with little to show for improvement.  So Vice President Biden's quote about LaGuardia Airport in NY is kind of ironic.  I mean it is his administration that ran on the premise they would increase investment in the nations infrastructure.

Here is the quote:

"If I...blindfolded you and took you to LaGuardia airport in New York, you'd think, 'I must be in some third world country."'

Why on earth does this obvious statement get so much attention?  My latest trending thought process goes something like this:  "America is in a great big state of denial." That this Biden Quote gets any attention at all by the mainstream press is proof of this.  I can see some of the regular folks who have been harping on the decline of America to a 2nd world status jumping on this statement and saying, "See, finally someone who runs the country is starting to understand how bad it is." or whatever.

But for mainstream media?  I mean aren't these folks people who travel regularly?  Don't they go to European and Japanese, Korean airports and even Middle Eastern airports that represent what can be  built in a developed environment?  Is it not painfully obvious that the miles of "drywall" that fills the interior of "public" spaces in the US and the extremely poor workmanship, lack of energy efficiency, lack of technology in nearly every facet and a general feeling of inhumanity is everywhere?  There are exceptions as the US rebuilds it's urban infrastructure after 4 decades of urban decline (in select cities) but for the most part we are still decades behind in our infrastructure upgrades. 

The FT article that discusses the US infrastructure issue also quotes from ASCE:

The US would need to invest $3.6tn to return its infrastructure – including energy, parks, schools and transport – to a state of good repair by 2020, according to estimates last year by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Then they go about discussing all these stupid ways various cities are going about raising extra money JUST TO KEEP UP WITH MAINTENANCE of the existing infrastructure.  Well, funny the $3.6 trillion is just about the cost of the two pointless wars (with interest, long term care of the solders etc.).  This nation has plenty of money to take care of all it's issues but it has a tax system the favors the rich and upper middle class so extremely they keep getting richer and richer while everything falls apart outside of their isolated little burroughs where their exceptional tax base supports the perception in their environment that everything is just fine. 

So while 50% plus of children drop out of high school in many top urban areas in the US and while the nations infrastructure, manufacturing base and wages go into a free fall, while the average weight, income disparity and per-capita energy use continues to increase, Americans are just plain "in a state of denial" about nearly every reality around them.

So this is my latest rant and thinking.  As many people who know me know, my ideas and trend thoughts shift every 6 months to year.  Moving to the 2nd world has been around for a while, living in a state of denial is the latest reality...  Hope to contribute a bit more going forward.

By the way, it looks like I will be pursuing my Master's in Econ this year going forward, so stay tuned for some interesting reads!