Because we have spent decades retooling our entire economy to send manufacturing and heavy industry to cheaper countries. Get an entire Chinese construction crew to come build a bridge in San Francisco under their own labor/safety/environmental laws and they will show you that early-mid 1900s efficiency.
Exactly that. In France the new EPR nuclear reactor has been 15 years in the making and should (hopefully) start in 2023. The Chinese built 2 of these in 9 years. As some engineer from Framatome overseeing the project said, "they achieve in 3 days what Bouygues (the French contractor) does in 3 months".
No, it’s because of everything. Increased specialization of our construction crews, increased oversight and regulation, increased labor costs due to improved working conditions, improved safety requirements reducing productivity, increased shipping and manufacturing time for increasingly specialized tools and building materials, reduced working hours to cause less impact to traffic and noise, increased sync points to inspect the work and ensure it’s good before moving to the next step, mechanization reducing the number of people that can work at one time because the equipment is large and expensive, increased project complexity because complex materials and construction practices are more efficient in specific ways, etc.
