What's interesting here is that the author grew up in Warsaw, which has about half the population of the bay area in one third the space (and the more than half

What's interesting here is that the author grew up in Warsaw, which has about half the population of the bay area in one third the space (and the more than half of warsowians living in the center live in 1/36 of the land area compared to the bay). The city was rebuilt after WW2 from almost nothing and was given a very car friendly layout. It's also a very dense city with lots of medium and high density apartment blocks and has excellent public transit that can zip you across the city in 15 minutes. While car vs. walking friendly are often at odds, it's possible to do them both reasonably well and Warsaw is an example of a new city that often gets it right. Score one for socialist city planning? A counterpoint to the California high speed rail situation is that Poland has been building new expressways to connect its major cities. This has been an enormous undertaking with enormous success. Huge swaths of farms, forests and villages are being bulldozed to make way. The needs of the many...