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I've also seen rural US and Europe. Trains work well when you have enough people to care to use the infrastructure. But if not, you might try buses. I saw a ru

I've also seen rural US and Europe. Trains work well when you have enough people to care to use the infrastructure. But if not, you might try buses. I saw a rural village in Hungary (~80 people) which has a bus stop to the nearest town. That's very nice, but the village center is a mile walk from the bus stop on the highway. My point is that a train may not automatically work. (Some rural communities in the USA do have similar bus routes.) I'm curious: what is your example of a small European village with a train line? I'm asking because I just picked a random American town on the map: Spencer, Iowa. ~11k people, and it's about a two hour drive (~100 miles) in all directions to a larger city. A two hour drive is a decent drive, but it's not much overall, especially if you're comfortable driving. It's quite hard to find a similar scenario in Europe: these vast, sparsely-populated tracts of land. And that's my primary point: Europe's population is distributed more uniformly and densely than the USA. A blanket claim about how x transportation mode must be used in the USA ignores the stark regional variations. Sure, in certain large cities, widespread car ownership may lead to a tragedy of the commons scenario, but it's on a per-city basis. The vast majority of cities in the USA will never encounter this problem because their "commons" are just so big, all cows still find a spot to graze. The cities that do encounter large traffic jams eventually build public transportation infrastructure to reduce the burden on roadways. Playing out the maximal scenarios, I'd much rather live in a world where everyone drives cars than everyone rides trains. A mix of both is even better. Walkable downtowns are great, and cities of all sizes should have them.

hutzlibu 6y ago
"I'm curious: what is your example of a small European village with a train line?" Huh? We have lots and lots of train lines, also passing through very small villages. But sure, not at all to every village, so there are also enough villages, where only a bus goes. And in some only sometimes. Maybe only on the weekend, maybe only weekdays. So you also need a car in rural germany.
- emj 6y ago
  Your life choices decide if you need a car or not, you can live perfectly fine in rural Europe without a car. Sure I only had 10 km to nearest busstop, 15 km to nearest store and 60 km to nearest highspeed trainstation. So not really that rural, but you do not need a car even if those distances are longer. Most people do have a car so the pressure is high to get one, it is also cheapin rural areas of Sweden. Parking is free, always available, most of the infrastructure is slowly being erroded by car centric design. So yes soon you will be required to have a car in some rural areas to be able to travel anywhare ot get food.
  - hutzlibu 6y ago
    "Sure I only had 10 km to nearest busstop ... but you do not need a car even if those distances are longer." And you had those conditions, while having a family? I doubt that can work out, my wife is pregnant, for example. She cannot walk or cycle 10 km to get anywhere. Anyway, we had the choice and we live in a village with a supermarket and trainstation. But if we had to live in a place you describe, it would not work without a car.
- waterheater 6y ago
  Germans do have nice trains, no denying that. My understanding of rural Germany is that villages are usually are within 6 km of each other. Is this fairly accurate? I remember seeing a video or article about how towns in rural USA are ~15 miles (24 km) away from each other because half this distance is what a person could walk in a day, handle in-town business, and be home by dark. Density makes a big difference.
  - hutzlibu 6y ago
    "My understanding of rural Germany is that villages are usually are within 6 km of each other. Is this fairly accurate?" Pretty much. You have to search for places, where that distance is higher. But there is a increasingly number of ghost villages, where only some old people remain.
arethuza 6y ago
Pretty much everything north of 60 degrees North in Europe is pretty sparsely populated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density#/media/File:World_population_density_1994_-_with_equator.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density#/media/File... The largest H-bomb test ever carried out was in Europe!
- xoa 6y ago
  >The largest H-bomb test ever carried out was in Europe! While technically Severny Island is "in Europe" in the historical continental sense, Russian arctic islands aren't what anyone is referring to as a comparison point with the US in this discussion. Nor Russia in general for that matter.
  - arethuza 6y ago
    I was specifically addressing the point that: "It's quite hard to find a similar scenario in Europe: these vast, sparsely-populated tracts of land." Saying that a part of Europe should be excluded from debate about whether Europe has "sparsely-populated tracts of land" because it is remote and sparsely populated seems a bit circular. A sizeable chunk of Russia is in Europe - not sure why that should be excluded? Edit: If people mean the EU or Western Europe when they say "Europe" then that's fine - but it's arguably similar to people from Europe only regarding the US as the two coasts!
    - waterheater 6y ago
      >If people mean the EU or Western Europe when they say "Europe" then that's fine Yep, that's what I refer to. I imagine most Americans do as well. From my perspective, I don't expect Europeans to automatically include considerations of Alaska. >it's arguably similar to people from Europe only regarding the US as the two coasts! A well-known term in the USA is "fly-over country." That refers to all the land between the two coasts. Our own "coasties" already view the rest of the country as another world. We already do that to ourseleves!

hutzlibu 6y ago

"I'm curious: what is your example of a small European village with a train line?" Huh? We have lots and lots of train lines, also passing through very small villages. But sure, not at all to every village, so there are also enough villages, where only a bus goes. And in some only sometimes. Maybe only on the weekend, maybe only weekdays. So you also need a car in rural germany.

emj 6y ago
Your life choices decide if you need a car or not, you can live perfectly fine in rural Europe without a car. Sure I only had 10 km to nearest busstop, 15 km to nearest store and 60 km to nearest highspeed trainstation. So not really that rural, but you do not need a car even if those distances are longer. Most people do have a car so the pressure is high to get one, it is also cheapin rural areas of Sweden. Parking is free, always available, most of the infrastructure is slowly being erroded by car centric design. So yes soon you will be required to have a car in some rural areas to be able to travel anywhare ot get food.
- hutzlibu 6y ago
  "Sure I only had 10 km to nearest busstop ... but you do not need a car even if those distances are longer." And you had those conditions, while having a family? I doubt that can work out, my wife is pregnant, for example. She cannot walk or cycle 10 km to get anywhere. Anyway, we had the choice and we live in a village with a supermarket and trainstation. But if we had to live in a place you describe, it would not work without a car.
waterheater 6y ago
Germans do have nice trains, no denying that. My understanding of rural Germany is that villages are usually are within 6 km of each other. Is this fairly accurate? I remember seeing a video or article about how towns in rural USA are ~15 miles (24 km) away from each other because half this distance is what a person could walk in a day, handle in-town business, and be home by dark. Density makes a big difference.
- hutzlibu 6y ago
  "My understanding of rural Germany is that villages are usually are within 6 km of each other. Is this fairly accurate?" Pretty much. You have to search for places, where that distance is higher. But there is a increasingly number of ghost villages, where only some old people remain.

arethuza 6y ago

Pretty much everything north of 60 degrees North in Europe is pretty sparsely populated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density#/media/File:World_population_density_1994_-_with_equator.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density#/media/File... The largest H-bomb test ever carried out was in Europe!

xoa 6y ago
>The largest H-bomb test ever carried out was in Europe! While technically Severny Island is "in Europe" in the historical continental sense, Russian arctic islands aren't what anyone is referring to as a comparison point with the US in this discussion. Nor Russia in general for that matter.
- arethuza 6y ago
  I was specifically addressing the point that: "It's quite hard to find a similar scenario in Europe: these vast, sparsely-populated tracts of land." Saying that a part of Europe should be excluded from debate about whether Europe has "sparsely-populated tracts of land" because it is remote and sparsely populated seems a bit circular. A sizeable chunk of Russia is in Europe - not sure why that should be excluded? Edit: If people mean the EU or Western Europe when they say "Europe" then that's fine - but it's arguably similar to people from Europe only regarding the US as the two coasts!
  - waterheater 6y ago
    >If people mean the EU or Western Europe when they say "Europe" then that's fine Yep, that's what I refer to. I imagine most Americans do as well. From my perspective, I don't expect Europeans to automatically include considerations of Alaska. >it's arguably similar to people from Europe only regarding the US as the two coasts! A well-known term in the USA is "fly-over country." That refers to all the land between the two coasts. Our own "coasties" already view the rest of the country as another world. We already do that to ourseleves!