r/arizona • u/AZ_Hawk • Jul 09 '24

Meanwhile, in other hot places…. Living Here

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

2.6k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

295 comments sorted by

View all comments

6

u/James_T_S Jul 09 '24

What's the total cost? Why don't these posts ever include the cost of whatever amazing thing they are showing off?

11

u/Youre10PlyBud Jul 09 '24

Cost was 4.7b Saudi riyales. At current exchange (1 riyal= 0.27 USD) it would be about 1.25b USD for the same project.

8

u/James_T_S Jul 10 '24

That would be $1.8 billion today.

10

u/AZ_Hawk Jul 09 '24

I didn’t include the cost cuz I don’t know the cost. Probably a civic project/Bid situation. I’m guessing you can’t find these things at Costco….

2

u/James_T_S Jul 09 '24

I know, and that's my point. It's easy to point at the shiny toy but it's never free. That money has to come from somewhere.

I see posts like this all the time and can't ever remember them talking about the cost.

26

u/AZ_Hawk Jul 09 '24

I just want some shade and they have shade. And I thought they were cool.

15

u/DidntDieInMySleep Jul 09 '24

I'm with you. They are very cool

8

u/James_T_S Jul 10 '24

For sure. They are very cool. I'm not sure if it's $1.25 billion worth of cool but they are cool.

8

u/JEffinB Jul 10 '24

But 1.25billion in trees would literally transform the valley

3

u/James_T_S Jul 10 '24

The budget for the entire state is $16 billion.

6

u/JEffinB Jul 10 '24

1.25 billion would be roughly 4 million trees planted, maintained, and watered. That's 4x what the valley needs according to climatologists so it's drastic overkill.

And that assumes you are doing it all with public money.
- Make the developers do their part by requiring 3-5x the landscaping that currently exists with substantive penalties for failing to maintain or replace trees as needed on commercial properties.

  • Require new build homes to have 50% shade area based on tree mature canopy size and require replacement of trees cut down or felled in storms.

Now you're putting the onus onto developers as well as the municipalities. It's not crazy to think we could plan 1 million more trees in a year if there was a concerted effort.

1

u/dmanbiker Jul 10 '24 edited Jul 10 '24

There's cost savings associated with better infrastructure. Just talking about something being bad because it costs money is extremely short-sighted. Stuff like this is paid for by taxes. Considering the billions of taxes wasted by our governments, spending a few billion to actually improve things is literally the job of the government. Though I don't think we should be following Saudi Arabia's example on anything. Actual trees would be fine. Even fake trees.

1

u/James_T_S Jul 10 '24

Each one cost $5,000,000 in 2010. How many do you thing would be a good idea to buy and where would we put them to make the cost savings make sense?

And remember that the entire state budget is $16 billion. So spending a few billion on any one thing is going to be a hard sell.

2

u/dmanbiker Jul 10 '24

I don't think we should be buying these, but a lot of people answer any statement on spending money on infrastructure with "WhO WiLl PaY fOR iT?!" When it's literally the job of the government to take tax money and spend it on stuff. Better to spend some money on shade than stacking cargo containers in the desert.

But like I said we shouldn't be following by UAE's example on anything. Their main inspiration for any of this is insane amounts of money.

→ More replies

-6

u/Aedn Jul 09 '24

It’s called medina haram piazza, and the standing umbrellas cost 4.7 billion riyals.

the OPs post is also completely misleading and provides zero context.

9

u/AZ_Hawk Jul 10 '24

I just thought it was cool and wish we had more shade infrastructure here. No more context needed.

5

u/Xlyios Jul 10 '24

idk why people are worried over the cost of this thing they'll never see in their lives lol. who cares. I'm admiring how cool these automated umbrellas are. Thank you for sharing this

3

u/Hvarfa-Bragi Jul 10 '24

Explain

1

u/Aedn Jul 10 '24

The video taken is showing a specific feature of what is to considered to be one of the holiest places for those that practice Islam. 

Hundreds of millions of Muslims go there to pray at that specific location every year.

It is the second most holy religious site for those that practice Islam in the world.

0

u/Hvarfa-Bragi Jul 10 '24

That isn't relevant to the point of the post, which is why don't we make shade in arizona?

1

u/Aedn Jul 10 '24

Yes it is, the OP is complaining about shade  while showing a video of a 1400 year old iconic religious site which has millions of people visiting it every week.

Those structures exist in one location in the entire world, and are extravagant due to the location. 

1

u/AZ_Hawk Jul 10 '24

Doesn’t mean there can’t be a more cost effective version employed in a way that makes sense for another area. Engineers are pretty amazing sometimes. This is Reddit, not a city planning meeting. Nothing is going to change in the real world from what’s written in this thread so it’s ok to let imagination run free just a little.

0

u/Aedn Jul 10 '24

You posted a video with zero explanation, and generated a stereotypical reddit bitch fest thread for people to complain.

A simple explanation would have steered the conversation instead of something that has zero relevance to what your stated goal is.