this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2025
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Developed high speed rail since 2008 in China vs the US:
The silver lining of autocracy.
Why would a democratically elected leader plan for the long term if their sucessors, possibly from an opposition party, can claim credit for it.
In a dictatorship, they can plan for the long term, since they know they will be in power.
Also, the hyper-individualism in western countries doesn't make "working together" as a country easier. Just look at the anti-maskers and anti-vax people lol
And also, the big population in China would never allow for a "car culture" in the firsr place, since there just isn't room for that many cars, public transit is a must for a densely populated country.
I'd be careful with overgeneralizing that. Even though Latin American cultures also push for individualism to some extent, we do have tight-nit communities regardless because of the unified cultures that we have.
I’ve been to China plenty of times, I promise the car culture is alive and well.
Eh, parking costs is a huge problem.
Its probably the reason why my parents never got a car when they were in China.
Its the same in NYC tbh. I mean, brooklyn, maybe, but if you wanna go to Chinatown in Manhattan, yea... good luck finding parking. Its not even that "Public Transit is good" (NYC subway is filthy compared to China's subway, and also there's no safety barriers in NYC, feels sketchy to wait for a train/subway because you get the feeling like some racist is about to push you 😕), since missing a scheduled subway/bus is gonna make you like 30 minutes late. Its just that having a car is so inconvienient in a crowded city, so much so that even the terrible public transit system is better than having a car.
Now in philly, there is street parking, and malls with parking lots... so... yea we got 2 cars in the family... 🤷♂️
We had nice things before.
Got a not potato copy? Or context?
Extent of railway development from 1860 through 1870 to 1890
the story of streetcars in the US is similarly depressing; in the 1900s most large cities had trolly systems.
the automobile companies fixed that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
Gah, America as an empire is past its prime. Look what we had!!!
I've been to China as part of a company visit. They took us everywhere by car. Even what I would consider walking distance.
I did not see mass transit once.
That's because you were visiting. When I was in China (as a citizen), I always had to take public transit if I want to go anywhere. My mom had to take public transit to work. Parking costs wete high, because there's no street parking like in the US. (This was in Guangzhou btw) Now in the US, they just drive, because free street-parking is everywhere.
As a visitor, you'd of couse visit places by car.
Well that's why... they don't want ya'll getting lost and your group split up.
Lol where did you go? Some rural area?
Shenzen.
Okay, so I've never been to Shenzhen (or at least I don't remember ever going there), but I just looked it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhen_Metro
If you went there like... before 2010 or something, pehaps you wouldn't see much of that, because they were kinda still building it.
The subways are all underground, so you probably didn't notice them unless you went looking for them, it's not like the US where some parts of the subway are above-ground, and others are underground. I have no idea how you didn't see any of the busses tho... perhaps you didn't pay attention to your surroundings... 😅
TLDR: Public transit exists, you either went there like a long time ago before they got built, or just didn't pay enough attention.
Yeah, I don't doubt it exists and probably is well used by the people living there. Just wanted to address the part of the comment saying "China would never allow for a “car culture” in the firsr place" because there sure was a car culture. It felt like an American city.
I'm also aware that Shenzen is different from the rest of China, and, well, that the rest of China is different from the other rest of China.
"China has good railways because China bad" is one hell of a bad take.
China isn't an autocracy any more than the US is, getting to vote which party gets to erode your rights and enact genocide on your behalf isn't democracy
Xi Jinping's third term is literally autocracy. President Cheeto would kill for that much power.
America as fucked up as we, are can bash our president and resist his power grabs as much as our oligarchy allows.
In China, you can't even post a whinnie the pooh cartoon because making an autocratic dictator look bad can't fly.
China doesn't have rapid shifts in infrastructure because China bad, it's because China has an autocratic dictatorship which allows for massive investment of resources without argument.
The US has massive investment of resources without argument too when it comes to the military industrial complex or to rescuing banks that have committed fraud, or to genocide Palestinians. The fact that it doesn't do so with basic infrastructure is because the oligarchs in the US don't want that, not because of a lack of oligarchs in power. They make it theatrical in congress, but look at the defense budged and the speed with which they approve multi-billion expenses that go into bombing kids in the middle east, suddenly the American democracy works expediently.
People talk about it and complain. there was and is debate on all those topics. You have lost in all the topics you are talking about, but it was fair and square.
A democracy would be voting for a party promising not to erode your rights and getting your rights not eroded. That's not what you get in the ol' US of A, anywhere in the west for that master
Yeah that's what happens when all your manufacturing is outsourced there. China is insanely insanely rich now
Still not as rich as the USA.
China's GDP is 17.79 trillion dollars compared to the USA's 27,36 trillion.
There's plenty of money to invest in public infrastructure, but no one wants to do it.
Yeah, just to add, per capita the difference is even starker. The low population density in the US makes it extremely costly to build a high-speed railway from east to west coast, but there is no good reason why there is no railway between LA-Bay Area-Sacremento, and a high-speed rail connection along the East Coast is a no brainer.
USA is very wealthy. It's always a choice what to invest in.