How Much Money Would be Needed to Build a new New York City

Some people are wondering how much money would be needed to build a new New York City and the surrounding area.  This would include roads, trains, bridges and subways along with sewers and utilities, plus buildings and telecommunications.

To replicate the 6,000 miles of roads would be $30 billion and the subway $1 trillion. Bridges would be less so around $2.6 billion for the Verrazano Narrows, and therefore, the same can be estimated for the Manhattan Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, Triborough, Whitest0ne, George Washington, Throgs Neck, Henry Hudson, Williamsburg, Queensborough – then add on the smaller ones. All in all, around $25 billion for bridges.

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Now to the buildings and we can start with the offices. The cost here could be $400 per square foot and then to the house where it will be $300 per square foot. As there is 1,300 square feet of space that are lived in and 600 million square feet classed as non-residential, it will add $630 billion to the bill.

Construction Workers lunching on a crossbeam, 1932 © Bettman/Corbis

The rest of the items mentioned above still have to be factored in and for most places they are going to need all 4 – water, electricity, sewage and communications, so this is going to add a lot.

Another $1 trillion may cover it, but due to the complexities of starting from scratch, it is hard to say if that is enough.

Now that the main issues are covered it is $2.6 trillion as New York stands. To do this on empty land, it could be as low as $1.5 trillion.

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