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How much do some mega-expensive things cost? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by comfy@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Most people reading this are probably very familiar with buying things between $0-1000 USD (such as everyday food and everyday clothing, perhaps weekly rent). Some of us will have experience buying more expensive items, like a car ($10,000s), or maybe even a house ($100,000s or even $1,000,000s). Some of you might want to object to those numbers I listed, they obviously will vary wildly in different markets, but I want to now ask about much more expensive things.

What is the cost of some items that few-if-any Lemmy users can afford? What can the absurdly rich buy that we can't? How much does it cost them?

You must give a money value with some evidence, no just knee-jerking and saying something vague like "elections" - instead find articles disclosing how much manipulation campaigns cost a political party.

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[–] evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world 15 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Roads.

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/23cpr/appendixa.cfm

Roads have an unbelievable cost when you really start to put the numbers together. A lane mile of a new interstate on rolling terrain costs 6.2 million in 2025 $. Keep in mind that is only a lane mile, so for 2 lanes in each direction, it's $25 million per mile. Multiply that by the 49k miles of interstate, and you have a (super rough) estimate cost of 1.2 trillion to construct it today. Even resurfacing those roads is ~1/10 the cost, which is still a lot of money.

Ignoring interstates and looking at really run of the mill arterial is still staggering.

Picking a random square farming county, McPherson county, KS is an easy example. It is 30 miles by 30 miles, with a paved arterial every mile (ignoring towns). Thats 3600 lane miles. At $3.6 million per lane mile, that's ~$13 billion to costruct the roads in a county with a population of 30,000, or $432,000 per person.

[–] AnotherUsername@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 days ago

Oh! Last time we moved I found free land! All you had to do was pay for the road. Do I looked up road costs.

Nope. Noooooope.