4 ms·
What I find interesting is that cities everywhere seem to be roughly at the same level of development. The GDP of a country may be different, GDP per capita mi
by epicureanideal 6y ago
What I find interesting is that cities everywhere seem to be roughly at the same level of development. The GDP of a country may be different, GDP per capita might be wildly different, but in most places on earth there are still roads, cars or motorcycles at least, reasonably well built structures, and so on.
If you look at the different architecture, you might be able to figure out roughly where you are, but you would also be able to tell WHEN you with similar accuracy.
- coding123 6y agoThe internet has sped up pretty much everything in modern society. I would say in the last 20 years, it wasn't the earth shaping the internet, it was the internet shaping the earth.
- 082349872349872 6y ago20 years ago, and even 40 years ago, it was also true that urban communities arguably[1] had more in common with each other than with their surrounding rural communities. (the future was there, it just wasn't evenly distributed yet) [1] Jane Jacob's "The Economy of Cities" argues that cities resembling each other has been true for at least 5'000 years.
- Daishiman 6y agoIf travel has taught me one thing is that singular measures of wealth such as GDP have very little correspondence to what is actually going in a nation's development, and points out the folly in chasing profit as many people's idea of career and lifestyle progress.
- 082349872349872 6y agoGDP gives nominal values; PPP attempts to give a better estimate of actual goods and services available.
- csomar 6y agoI don't think so. For one, this is probably only displaying the capital cities and main roads. These are usually in pretty good shape everywhere. Infrastructure is more than roads: Internet, Metro, Airports, Wireless Internet, Roads for remote neighborhoods, bridges, etc... While the US has a stupidly bad infrastructure in its main cities (no public transportation, airports are worse than third-world, mobile internet sucks, etc...) it's way ahead in terms of infrastructure for the neighborhoods.
- greggman3 6y agoMaybe it depends on which cities you pick. Singapore looks a lot more developed than Berlin (PS: I love both cities)
- JSavageOne 6y agoYup this was one of my lessons from traveling. Was impressed at how nice these so-called "poorer" countries looked. I grew up in the U.S., and despite our high GDP most of the country looks fairly unremarkable from a development perspective. Even in our wealthiest cities, there are areas that look like third world countries (eg. Skid Row).