I'm not sure I understand the point here. Is it that strict government regulation saves lives?
If so, yes I suppose that could be true. Fewer people would die in traffic accidents if we had a stoplight on every corner, we had to drive Sherman Tanks, and the speed limit was 20MPH. The problem is we'd be way less productive and we'd be much poorer.
If China had Japan's strict building codes from 1980 to present, China's economic growth would have been far slower, but in an earthquake, more people may die in China. Is that a good thing or bad thing? Over the last 20 years, strong economic growth in China has likely saved far more lives than strict building codes may have saved. But that is too complex to get into here.
Also note Japan's poor economic growth during over the last 10-20 years.
Are some people in Japan better off because of strict building codes? Yes, no doubt. Is everyone in Japan better off due to strict building code? much harder to say.
I'm not sure that this article has much of a point beyond what is on the surface, or that it is necessarily making an argument for or against regulation based on economic principles.
The article's sole goal seems to be to help explain how a country with a large history of Earthquake experience has learned from it's history, and how the lessons and how they applied to their building structure helps explain how they might be able to deal with an 8.9 magnitude earthquake much better and with greater loss of life than if this earthquake had struck somewhere else.
I don't think there is a secret meaning in every New York Times article.
Decent building codes don't necessarily stop economic growth. Housing is slightly more expensive and it takes more capital to build, but its really not 2 or 10x the price of an unsafe home. Heck, some safer designs are cheaper than unsafe designs.
I don't really buy the "safety is cost prohibitive" argument much. Modern societies have no problem absorbing the cost. Not to mention the cost of post-earthquake cleanup is less.
That's a lot of hand-wavy claims. Care to back some of it up with data? Especially the part about China's economic growth being slower if they'd had stricter building codes. Absent any real data, it's equally intuitive to say that it wouldn't have been slower because [insert natural disaster here] would have been a big setback as often as [same natural disaster] occurs on average.
Plus, you know, lots of people would have died who could have been saved by stricter building codes. I'd rather be alive than have a couple more percentage points of economic growth every year.
From an economic standpoint, what modern building codes allow is the stable commercial insurance market necessary for a great deal of economic activity. In the US, many current construction requirements are based standards developed by the insurance industry, e.g. UL (Underwrither's Laboratories) and FM (Factory Mutual). And although it is now one of the foremost authorities regarding life-safety in the world, the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) was originally a creation of the insurance industry as well.
Modern building codes underpin property the property insurance which makes real-estate lending practical. They underpin much of the general liability insurance required for contemporary commercial transactions - not to mention making construction loans practical.
Yes, risk is always balanced against potential gain. And yes, the individual is the one who ultimately pays the price. So he should make the choices.
But I believe that even in a completely free market, there would be a lot of local voluntary contractual arrangements that would regulate many aspects of very small communities and building codes are certainly one thing people would consider when making such an arrangement.
As long as communities are competitive and contracts cannot be changed arbitrarily, this is not a problem. And if such contracts were not beneficial, these arrangements would lose to more sensible ones.
So, I'm not too concerned about what local governments do. Overall I think it maps to what we'd have in a free market, except where cities get too big and corruption becomes a problem.
One could easily argue that there is a worse safety/cost effectiveness tradeoff when you have to pay for corruption. Certainly when the average person is poorer than they would otherwise be, safety is harder to afford.
The important thing is competition and if you can drive 4 minutes in the opposite direction and get the community you want, competition exists.
> The problem is we'd be way less productive and we'd be much poorer.
There is no proof that the current ridiculous state of the matter, where everyone in the US constantly moves oneself together with 3 tons of steel for 2 to 3 hours a day is particularly productive either. If mobility was somewhat less easy, maybe we'd find another productivity hilltop which could be higher than the current one. In fact, we'll have to find such an alternative, less mobile way of life sooner of later.
This is rubbish. First of all Japan's economic circumstances of the past 10-20 years are generally much exaggerated in the media, both Western and Japanese. And building codes, of all things, have almost nothing to do with that growth positively or negatively. Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone regions in the world, so we make sure that buildings are always built to withstand them to the maximum reasonable extent. That's the why the destruction from this massive earthquake is actually so light, considering. Perhaps we could leave things to the magic of the free market, but either that would work, in which case we'd be right where we are now anyway, or it wouldn't, in which case we currently be totally fucked. Japanese, not having the luxury of dealing with this issue in the abstract from the comfort of their apartment in New York, prefer not to take the risk. Also there is less belief in magic here than in the States.
By way of comparison though, let's imagine the fate of New York and rest of the eastern seaboard of the US were a similar quake to hit there. I think you would not fare so well, and I suspect the low cost of your Chevy Impala would give you little comfort.
> Japan's poor economic growth during over the last 10-20 years.
Per capita GDP growth in Japan over the last 20 years has been about the same as in the USA. They just don't import two million people a year -- rather wisely in my opinion.
Building codes were on the books in Haiti too. There is a lot more to this question, including the presence of honest government, the ability of an economy to afford the code, and a healthy insurance market.
Insurance companies often require higher standards than building code demands.
Also, politically, the reason some societies have strict building codes is because there is a group-- insurance companies-- that have an economic incentive to push for stronger codes.
I feel compelled to point out that not all journalists from the New York Times necessarily reside in New York. Based on his past articles and Wikipedia entry, Norimitsu Onishi seems to have been the NYT's Tokyo bureau chief at one point in time.
There are many who would classify building codes as unnecessary and burdensome regulation, and would instead prefer to let the free market figure it out. One of their arguments for example would be that building codes increase the cost of building, thus leaving fewer people able to afford it. I'm not saying that I agree with that, just pointing out the opposing view.
They are just pointing out, that if this had happened somewhere else it would been much more devastating and that Japan was good prepared for this. So I don't really know why you're complaining about the article.
It's a news non-sequitur though: Huge earthquake in Japan, structural engineers know what they're talking about.
Does anyone know if Japan has some equivalent to the Canadian Iron Ring[1]? I feel like examples like this drive home how it's even more meaningful if you live in the Ring of Fire. (Which would be an ideal name for such a ring)
Look at the laws of Hammurabbi or Moses, the ancients even knew this. Building codes are an important part of developed society and this situation would have been significantly worse without a stringent set of codes.
The media are failing to point out that the Earthquake was 200+km offshore. There is a huge difference between an 8.9M 200km offshore and an 8.9M directly below a city. The ground motions recorded were relatively low in the cities and not very destructive. PGV (peak ground velocity) is a more accurate way to estimate the strain put on infrastructure. This shakemap shows that the intensity was relatively low: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/shakemap/global/shake...
Many people said the same thing about building codes after the 7.1 in Christchurch last September. That earthquake was 40km away from the city. Cruelly the 6.3 on Feb 22nd with its epicenter directly below the City showed the difference that proximity to the epicenter makes. Proximity to the epicenter and PGV is almost more important than magnitude when accessing how well buildings performed.
Everything has a cost and these costs are not always obvious. Government regulations like building codes and food safety generally ensure that buildings are safe and food is not contaminated, but they do so by defining acceptable things.
There are perfectly safe building designs which would never pass building codes. This is a huge barrier to innovation.
To be legally allowed to construct something that is not explicitly allowed by codes can require years and lots of money to hire engineers and lawyers.
Also, who writes these building codes? It's engineers employed by the construction and construction material industries. They have a perspective shaped by the status quo. So the codes require specific materials and techniques.
Codes also empower lots of unelected officals. A food safety inspector can shut down your plant and force you to throw away all of your products, with absolutely no form of appeal.
I don't really mind building codes. I just wish there were some objective criteria that designs went through. For example, if you could demonstrate your building can withstand an earthquake, regardless of it's method of construction, it's permissible. If you could demonstrate your food was not contaminated with bacteria, etc.
If you give a damn about any of this check out Mike Ohler's "The Fifty Dollar and Up Underground House Book" for the evils of building codes and Joel Salatin's "Everything I want to do is illegal" for food regulations.
The building codes are the objective criteria. Most government building codes I've seen will require compliance with certain engineering standards, and the engineering standards themselves will say things like "a building built in this part of the country must be able to withstand x ms-2 in vertical acceleration and y ms-2 in lateral acceleration". It doesn't get any more objective than that.
I find the comparison with SE Asia rather poor with regards to investment as I've been to Sri Lanka and the amount of money that is available for basic infrastructure, let alone anti-tsunami barricades, is negligible compared to Japan unfortunately.
From the article: "unlike Southeast Asians, many of whom died in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami because they lingered near the coast despite clear warnings to flee"
Interesting way to put it (implying that the issue was behavioral/cultural rather than one of engineering)
It sounds like the strict building codes served them well for residential housing and commercial spaces. However, it looks like the engineering standards for their nuclear reactors could stand to be a little more strict (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42025882/ns/world_news-asiapacif...). Perhaps the news article is overly sensational, but I can't help but wonder, "Why are we even talking about the possibility of a meltdown in 2011?" Shouldn't loss of reactor cooling capability result in an automatic reactor shutdown? Wasn't the lesson of the Three Mile Island accident that you should build your reactor so that the default thing that happens when you lose power (and therefore lose cooling capability) is that the control rods drop via gravity and stop the reaction? Any nuclear engineers out there care to comment on the design of Japan's reactors?
Please don't spread misinformation about this. The reactors stopped automatically, but you still have to cool them. They ran out of diesel, so they're getting mobile power units in to cool the rest.
Please don't get mad at this, but the reason I love hackernews is because its not like reddit has become: there are no silly posts or posts that don't relate to technology and programming. This post seems necessary for reddit, but not for hacker news. Please don't let this community change!
I'm not sure of the news aspect of this. Japan has a long history of damaging earthquakes and tsunamis, and they're famous for their preparations for the same.
> I'm not sure of the news aspect of this. Japan has a long history of damaging earthquakes and tsunamis, and they're famous for their preparations for the same.
Yet they still "needed" the Great Hanshin Earthquake 16 years ago to fix numerous issues, especially in disaster planning, prevention and response, and in infrastructure management.
[+] [-] solson|15 years ago|reply
If so, yes I suppose that could be true. Fewer people would die in traffic accidents if we had a stoplight on every corner, we had to drive Sherman Tanks, and the speed limit was 20MPH. The problem is we'd be way less productive and we'd be much poorer.
If China had Japan's strict building codes from 1980 to present, China's economic growth would have been far slower, but in an earthquake, more people may die in China. Is that a good thing or bad thing? Over the last 20 years, strong economic growth in China has likely saved far more lives than strict building codes may have saved. But that is too complex to get into here.
Also note Japan's poor economic growth during over the last 10-20 years.
Are some people in Japan better off because of strict building codes? Yes, no doubt. Is everyone in Japan better off due to strict building code? much harder to say.
[+] [-] brown9-2|15 years ago|reply
The article's sole goal seems to be to help explain how a country with a large history of Earthquake experience has learned from it's history, and how the lessons and how they applied to their building structure helps explain how they might be able to deal with an 8.9 magnitude earthquake much better and with greater loss of life than if this earthquake had struck somewhere else.
I don't think there is a secret meaning in every New York Times article.
[+] [-] drzaiusapelord|15 years ago|reply
I don't really buy the "safety is cost prohibitive" argument much. Modern societies have no problem absorbing the cost. Not to mention the cost of post-earthquake cleanup is less.
[+] [-] cap10morgan|15 years ago|reply
Plus, you know, lots of people would have died who could have been saved by stricter building codes. I'd rather be alive than have a couple more percentage points of economic growth every year.
[+] [-] brudgers|15 years ago|reply
Modern building codes underpin property the property insurance which makes real-estate lending practical. They underpin much of the general liability insurance required for contemporary commercial transactions - not to mention making construction loans practical.
[+] [-] stretchwithme|15 years ago|reply
But I believe that even in a completely free market, there would be a lot of local voluntary contractual arrangements that would regulate many aspects of very small communities and building codes are certainly one thing people would consider when making such an arrangement.
As long as communities are competitive and contracts cannot be changed arbitrarily, this is not a problem. And if such contracts were not beneficial, these arrangements would lose to more sensible ones.
So, I'm not too concerned about what local governments do. Overall I think it maps to what we'd have in a free market, except where cities get too big and corruption becomes a problem.
One could easily argue that there is a worse safety/cost effectiveness tradeoff when you have to pay for corruption. Certainly when the average person is poorer than they would otherwise be, safety is harder to afford.
The important thing is competition and if you can drive 4 minutes in the opposite direction and get the community you want, competition exists.
[+] [-] wazoox|15 years ago|reply
There is no proof that the current ridiculous state of the matter, where everyone in the US constantly moves oneself together with 3 tons of steel for 2 to 3 hours a day is particularly productive either. If mobility was somewhat less easy, maybe we'd find another productivity hilltop which could be higher than the current one. In fact, we'll have to find such an alternative, less mobile way of life sooner of later.
[+] [-] bluedanieru|15 years ago|reply
By way of comparison though, let's imagine the fate of New York and rest of the eastern seaboard of the US were a similar quake to hit there. I think you would not fare so well, and I suspect the low cost of your Chevy Impala would give you little comfort.
[+] [-] rubashov|15 years ago|reply
Per capita GDP growth in Japan over the last 20 years has been about the same as in the USA. They just don't import two million people a year -- rather wisely in my opinion.
[+] [-] Vivtek|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OstiaAntica|15 years ago|reply
Insurance companies often require higher standards than building code demands.
Also, politically, the reason some societies have strict building codes is because there is a group-- insurance companies-- that have an economic incentive to push for stronger codes.
[+] [-] brown9-2|15 years ago|reply
I feel compelled to point out that not all journalists from the New York Times necessarily reside in New York. Based on his past articles and Wikipedia entry, Norimitsu Onishi seems to have been the NYT's Tokyo bureau chief at one point in time.
[+] [-] muzz|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zyb09|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tel|15 years ago|reply
Does anyone know if Japan has some equivalent to the Canadian Iron Ring[1]? I feel like examples like this drive home how it's even more meaningful if you live in the Ring of Fire. (Which would be an ideal name for such a ring)
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring
[+] [-] jakegottlieb|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] va_coder|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NZ_Matt|15 years ago|reply
Many people said the same thing about building codes after the 7.1 in Christchurch last September. That earthquake was 40km away from the city. Cruelly the 6.3 on Feb 22nd with its epicenter directly below the City showed the difference that proximity to the epicenter makes. Proximity to the epicenter and PGV is almost more important than magnitude when accessing how well buildings performed.
[+] [-] icarus_drowning|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmm|15 years ago|reply
There are perfectly safe building designs which would never pass building codes. This is a huge barrier to innovation.
To be legally allowed to construct something that is not explicitly allowed by codes can require years and lots of money to hire engineers and lawyers.
Also, who writes these building codes? It's engineers employed by the construction and construction material industries. They have a perspective shaped by the status quo. So the codes require specific materials and techniques.
Codes also empower lots of unelected officals. A food safety inspector can shut down your plant and force you to throw away all of your products, with absolutely no form of appeal.
I don't really mind building codes. I just wish there were some objective criteria that designs went through. For example, if you could demonstrate your building can withstand an earthquake, regardless of it's method of construction, it's permissible. If you could demonstrate your food was not contaminated with bacteria, etc.
If you give a damn about any of this check out Mike Ohler's "The Fifty Dollar and Up Underground House Book" for the evils of building codes and Joel Salatin's "Everything I want to do is illegal" for food regulations.
[+] [-] jlangenauer|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Hovertruck|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pclark|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ffffruit|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hinathan|15 years ago|reply
Interesting way to put it (implying that the issue was behavioral/cultural rather than one of engineering)
[+] [-] jakegottlieb|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blahblahblah|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foobarbazetc|15 years ago|reply
They're not morons.
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] power78|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] orenmazor|15 years ago|reply
not even readability can save me here.
[+] [-] apike|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli|15 years ago|reply
Or you can just sign up; it's free.
[+] [-] Semiapies|15 years ago|reply
Someone needed column inches.
[+] [-] masklinn|15 years ago|reply
Yet they still "needed" the Great Hanshin Earthquake 16 years ago to fix numerous issues, especially in disaster planning, prevention and response, and in infrastructure management.
[+] [-] ollysb|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluedanieru|15 years ago|reply