About this episode
The episode discusses the challenges and inefficiencies in the construction industry with Brian Potter, author of The Origins of Efficiency.
If you live in a city in North America or Europe, you almost certainly have had the experience of watching a construction site slowly morph into a building over the course of many years. You might ask, “why’s it taking so long” as you traipse through a dirty sidewalk shed, frustrations mounting. You are not wrong, since construction has flatlined on efficiency even as other industries find ever novel ways to maximize productivity.The search for efficiency and its disappearance is at the heart of Brian Potter’s new book, The Origins of Efficiency. Through the book by Stripe Press and his popular Substack newsletter Construction Physics, Brian has tried to explain to an angry if curious public how construction actually works in the real world and why it’s an industry both ripe for innovation yet also mired in antiquated techniques.With host Danny Crichton, the two talk about the challenges of construction, why the variability of site selection is a huge problem, the lack of economies of scale in construction, and the regulatory burdens plus NIMBYs that make building so difficult. Then the two talk about why Brian doesn’t think aesthetic uniformity has improved efficiency over time…
People in this episode
Host: Danny Crichton
Guest: Brian Potter
Topics covered
- construction efficiency
- innovation in construction
- regulatory challenges
- site selection variability
- aesthetic uniformity
Keywords
- construction
- efficiency
- innovation
- regulations
- site selection
- Brian Potter
- Danny Crichton
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Stripe Press
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