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Let me know when the US has comparable square mileage and population density to South Korea :P

• travisporter 6y ago
  Hey letting you both know that Sweden has the same population density as the US with better broadband.
  • wahern 6y ago
    The U.S. actually has similar weighted population density to most of Europe. Simply dividing the total population by total area is a very poor metric, especially for a country like the U.S. which just has an enormous amount of unpopulated land area. An example of a weighted population density metric is the local density of the median household. Unfortunately, weighted metrics are rather new and last I looked I couldn't find population numbers using the same metric. The U.S. Census Bureau uses a metric based on census tract as the local area; EU uses square kilometer. For that and other reasons the published data isn't directly comparable (at least not easily). But to a first approximation the U.S. and Europe seem very similar--the U.S. is far more dense than commonly believed, and Europe less dense than commonly believed. Of course, even with a better metric I presume South Korea is in another league entirely.
  • dudul 6y ago
    And how much of Sweden's population is concentrated in the southern quarter of the country? 80%? Dumb average density doesn't reflect the reality of population's distribution.
    • lotsofpulp 6y ago
      And how much of the US’s population is concentrated in and around cities? Most people in the US doesn’t have fiber internet because the rent seeking monopolies have no reason to make capital investments to provide better internet, not because of the population density. If anything, you’re more likely to find fiber in more suburban less dense areas with new developments. They will spend to put fiber down on new construction, but for existing urban areas, no one wants run fiber through existing buildings and pavement.
      • travisporter 6y ago
        This is the sad part. I live in a suburb of Houston, and while it’s certainly nothing like NY, it’s still near a major city. Comcast is the only game in my apt building.
    • throw0101a 6y ago
      2/3 of the US population live with-in 100 miles (160 km) of the border: * https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone/ https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone/ 40% of the US population lived in counties on the coast: * https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/population.html https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/population.html * https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/07/millions-of-americans-live-coastline-regions.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/07/millions-of-a... * https://www.livescience.com/18997-population-coastal-areas-infographic.html https://www.livescience.com/18997-population-coastal-areas-i...
• throw0101a 6y ago
  The average population density of South Korea is 507/km^2 (1,313.1/sq mi): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea Plenty of US communities are higher than that: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
  • johnfn 6y ago
    What? You can’t compare the population density of an entire country to individual cities.
    • throw0101a 6y ago
      There's no reason why high density cities in the US could not have the same infrastructure as "South Korea"—which is also made of high and low density areas like America is. This idea that some countries have better Internet infrastructure because they are "high density" is silly because the places where people live in the US also have the density to support the exact same infrastructure. The farm land / country side of South Korea is just as low density as the rural areas of the US, and America's cities and suburbs are just as dense as South Korea's.