• AnalogyAddict@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    But that’s a certain level of naivete. I’ve lived in Europe and in the Western US, and for people who have lived in urban or suburban situations their whole lives, they simply can’t comprehend the vast tracts of land that exist in most of the US. Public transport isn’t viable when your nearest neighbor is at least five acres away.

    • Sylveon@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Well yes, if you live in the middle of nowhere with literally no one else nearby, then public transport obviously doesn’t make sense. But that’s not where most people live.

      A large part of the population in the US doesn’t have access to public transport not because it wouldn’t be viable, but because car-centric infrastructure was built instead. And often better designed cities were bulldozed to make room for it.

      I was also going to recommend the Not Just Bikes video @Katana314@lemmy.world linked, definitely check it out!

      • AnalogyAddict@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        True, but a lot of US real estate, even in big cities, started out agricultural. Those underpinnings are still affecting them today, given that they are less than 300 years old. They just don’t have the history of being piled on top of each other that Europe has. The original American inhabitants didn’t have the infrastructure Europe has had since the Romans, even if their population HAD been so concentrated.

        The U.S population density is less than half that of Europe, even today.

    • Katana314@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Please. I have gone to Italy and seen far vaster landscapes in the mountainous areas than I’ve ever been cognizant of in the United States. And yes, I saw these locations from the window of a bus taking the highway system. The key thing is, people are not going to those far-out locations frequently. Actual transit problem-solving relates to the broad majority of the use cases people have, not about abstractly going to a pin thrown on a map.

      NJB summarizes why this argument is dumb better than I do.