I have this sense that Australia and Texas have this "failure to truly grasp scale" thing in common, though obviously Texas is much smaller. Sparse population d

I have this sense that Australia and Texas have this "failure to truly grasp scale" thing in common, though obviously Texas is much smaller. Sparse population density probably has something to do with it. Even lots of Texans don't really consider how far away West Texas is from the parts of Texas most of us live in[1]. There's a sign on the westbound side of I-10 just inside the TX/LA border that I love. It says Beaumont 17 El Paso 857 Both are cities straight ahead, on the same road, in the same state. [1] A simple majority of Texans live in either greater Houston or greater Dallas-Fort Worth. 70% of us live in either those two places or somewhere in the Austin or San Antonio areas. The only big city west of those is El Paso, which has fewer than a million people in its entire metro area.