3 ms·

The Sweden statistic is misleading because their population is concentrated in the south, similar to Canada and other nations with large areas of extreme cold.

The Sweden statistic is misleading because their population is concentrated in the south, similar to Canada and other nations with large areas of extreme cold. A better measure would be median density or population-weighted density.

CogitoCogito 4y ago
To be fair, /u/billythemaniam ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32798946 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32798946 ) main argument seemed to be this: > Most of those other countries are like a small US state, but the US is much, much larger. Even a medium sized US state is larger than most of those countries. There is a massive scale difference that needs to be taken into account. So I was really kind of giving the benefit of the doubt when considering population density. That said I understand your point. But that doesn't explain why US _cities_ put so little effort into public transportation. Even ignoring the dispersal across the country, the US seems to not care to handle the problem on the local level where it really has no excuse at all. As to your comparison with population weighted density, here are comparisons between the US and Sweden: * "While the overall U.S. density stood at 87 people per square mile, population-weighted density shows that people actually lived at an average of 5,369 people per square mile." https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollective/census-bureau-embraces-weighted-density/69236/ https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollecti... * "Population-Weighted Density for Sweden was found to be much higher compared to simple density, 2288.8 people per square kilometre instead of 24.0 for 2015." http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1081407&dswid=-7781 http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1081... So it looks like the population weight density of Sweden would be 2288.8 * 1.609 * 1.609 = 5925.4308328 per square mile which is apparently 10% higher than the US. Now honestly that doesn't really seem to explain the difference to me. Is 10% such a big difference? Besides if it is, Sweden wasn't always at this value. In the past few decades, people have moved into cities so what I really wonder is how far back do you need to go historically before Sweden was lower than the US current number? As in, at what point recently was Sweden in a worse position? Personally I think the best explanation for the US' current position overall is cultural: they really just don't want to give up their cars. Anyway thanks for the info. Looks like I'd personally need to put more time and research into this than I have available, but I'll try to keep this info in mind going forward.

CogitoCogito 4y ago

To be fair, /u/billythemaniam ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32798946 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32798946 ) main argument seemed to be this: > Most of those other countries are like a small US state, but the US is much, much larger. Even a medium sized US state is larger than most of those countries. There is a massive scale difference that needs to be taken into account. So I was really kind of giving the benefit of the doubt when considering population density. That said I understand your point. But that doesn't explain why US _cities_ put so little effort into public transportation. Even ignoring the dispersal across the country, the US seems to not care to handle the problem on the local level where it really has no excuse at all. As to your comparison with population weighted density, here are comparisons between the US and Sweden: * "While the overall U.S. density stood at 87 people per square mile, population-weighted density shows that people actually lived at an average of 5,369 people per square mile." https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollective/census-bureau-embraces-weighted-density/69236/ https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollecti... * "Population-Weighted Density for Sweden was found to be much higher compared to simple density, 2288.8 people per square kilometre instead of 24.0 for 2015." http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1081407&dswid=-7781 http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1081... So it looks like the population weight density of Sweden would be 2288.8 * 1.609 * 1.609 = 5925.4308328 per square mile which is apparently 10% higher than the US. Now honestly that doesn't really seem to explain the difference to me. Is 10% such a big difference? Besides if it is, Sweden wasn't always at this value. In the past few decades, people have moved into cities so what I really wonder is how far back do you need to go historically before Sweden was lower than the US current number? As in, at what point recently was Sweden in a worse position? Personally I think the best explanation for the US' current position overall is cultural: they really just don't want to give up their cars. Anyway thanks for the info. Looks like I'd personally need to put more time and research into this than I have available, but I'll try to keep this info in mind going forward.