Comment by renewiltord
15 days ago
Western countries will never match the new East Asian cities. All cities decay as the residents begin to oppose change. All residents begin to oppose change as they age and become wealthier. So whatever you become before the population gets rich is what you will remain.
There will be no new fast subway in San Francisco and there will be no maglev in NYC. There will be no autonomous buses in Sydney and London will be entirely devoid of skyways.
This is the nature of growth. One grows then dies as one fossilizes. The next one grows past but no one will ever reinvent themselves.
This is why death is crucial to improvement.
That doesn't make much sense to me. HK added transit long after it was a big city. Tokyo added transit. Heck, all the cities of Europe started long before transit became a thing and then added it later.
I agree it seems hard in NYC, SF, etc but other cities have added transit
Developing in Hong Kong has been much harder and expensive than before. The high speed rail that connected Hong Kong to the mainland system was (IIRC) the most expensive rail project per kilometer. (They did it anyway since it was a national objective from the central authorities.) And, given the recent tragic fire in Tai Po, there has been a lot more worry about people not being able to afford to renew aging infrastructure (as in residential buildings).
Not advocating for autocracies, there's something to be said about the relationship between building essential infrastructure and the ability to ignore NIMBYs.
Bangkok just built a new metro line and are currently developing a high speed train from Malaysia to Vietnam, which would eventually lead to a train from Singapore to China.
Australia can't even build a functioning train to the outer city suburbs, let alone between major cities