I agree with everyone you said here (every day the temptation to quit my job and travel Asia grows stronger) but I do think there’s a tendency to miss the more negative aspects of a country when you’re visiting as a tourist. East Asian countries typically have much more competitive childhoods, much worse work life balance, lower incomes, and more rigid gender / societal norms.
re: public transit in particular, the main issue is just that America is much less geographically dense when compared to Asia or Europe, so almost everyone owns a car and the economics of bullet trains are difficult to make work. it’s not a surprise that the one place that has decent public transit - New York - also happens to be the most geographically dense area of the country.
anyways I enjoy reading your posts and keep up the good work!
it’s a misconception that america doesn’t have bullet trains because it’s less geographically dense than europe/japan. china and america are similar in terms of geographical density and china has bullet trains galore. in the 1900s america used to have a robust network of trains that connected all the major cities in the midwest and east coast, but they were actively torn down to make cars and highway infrastructure a necessity. it’s a conscious decision by the car industry to not make trains available to americans.
hmm I definitely agree that some of it has been due to policy decisions lobbied for by the auto industry. but I think the geographic density argument can be true as well. when I just googled it, it said the US has a population density of 36 per square km while China has a density of 146 per square km, but happy to take a look at whatever source you have! i’ll take a look at the yt video as well
woah very interesting discussion, its unfortunate that a side effect of the american economic system is the lack of a incentive to create a rail system here :(
ok I watched the video! just to be clear, I’m pro public transit and transportation. but in the video, I feel like the author is agreeing with me? he talks about how land use regulations are a big problem and how it’s one reason public transit is not as viable in america. and at the end of the video he mentions how he’s not sure america can overcome its car dependent development which is why he moved to the netherlands.
I agree that geographic density is a bad argument for why we can’t have good public transit within cities, but between cities (as in the case with bullet trains) I think it makes more sense.
anyways I hope this clarifies my views and thanks again for sharing the video!
he shows in the video that geographic density is also not a valid argument for why we can't have public transit between cities. he showed a map of common-sense train lines to build between cities like seattle and vancouver, montreal and toronto, or san francisco and LA.
it's capitalism and greed. american cities were not built for the car. they were bulldozed for the car.
100% :(
I agree with everyone you said here (every day the temptation to quit my job and travel Asia grows stronger) but I do think there’s a tendency to miss the more negative aspects of a country when you’re visiting as a tourist. East Asian countries typically have much more competitive childhoods, much worse work life balance, lower incomes, and more rigid gender / societal norms.
re: public transit in particular, the main issue is just that America is much less geographically dense when compared to Asia or Europe, so almost everyone owns a car and the economics of bullet trains are difficult to make work. it’s not a surprise that the one place that has decent public transit - New York - also happens to be the most geographically dense area of the country.
anyways I enjoy reading your posts and keep up the good work!
it’s a misconception that america doesn’t have bullet trains because it’s less geographically dense than europe/japan. china and america are similar in terms of geographical density and china has bullet trains galore. in the 1900s america used to have a robust network of trains that connected all the major cities in the midwest and east coast, but they were actively torn down to make cars and highway infrastructure a necessity. it’s a conscious decision by the car industry to not make trains available to americans.
hmm I definitely agree that some of it has been due to policy decisions lobbied for by the auto industry. but I think the geographic density argument can be true as well. when I just googled it, it said the US has a population density of 36 per square km while China has a density of 146 per square km, but happy to take a look at whatever source you have! i’ll take a look at the yt video as well
Russia has a population density of 8.5 per square km and is twice the size of the US but they have a sprawling and modern train network that stretches from Moscow to South Korea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Russia#/media/File:Russia_Rail_Map.svg
interesting… does the russian rail system gain or lose money?
looks like they made a profit of 135 million USD (15 billion rubles) in 2024. don't see how that's relevant though. https://www.railfreight.com/beltandroad/2024/12/23/russian-railways-net-profit-90-per-cent-lower-than-projected/
I brought it up because I was skeptical that the economics would work but it seems like I was wrong! thanks for looking into it
i recommend this video to understand why american cities are bad. spoiler: it's not because of geography. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REni8Oi1QJQ
woah very interesting discussion, its unfortunate that a side effect of the american economic system is the lack of a incentive to create a rail system here :(
ok I watched the video! just to be clear, I’m pro public transit and transportation. but in the video, I feel like the author is agreeing with me? he talks about how land use regulations are a big problem and how it’s one reason public transit is not as viable in america. and at the end of the video he mentions how he’s not sure america can overcome its car dependent development which is why he moved to the netherlands.
I agree that geographic density is a bad argument for why we can’t have good public transit within cities, but between cities (as in the case with bullet trains) I think it makes more sense.
anyways I hope this clarifies my views and thanks again for sharing the video!
he shows in the video that geographic density is also not a valid argument for why we can't have public transit between cities. he showed a map of common-sense train lines to build between cities like seattle and vancouver, montreal and toronto, or san francisco and LA.