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I think what many people outside North America fail to grasp is the size of north America. To give you an idea: I live just outside Toronto (Ontario, Canada)

I think what many people outside North America fail to grasp is the size of north America. To give you an idea: I live just outside Toronto (Ontario, Canada) and if i want to drive east to the next province (Quebec) it will take me 4 hours to cover the 450 KM. If i want to go to the next province to the west (Manitoba) It will take me 20 hours to cover the 2,000 KM. So to cut across Ontario you are looking at something like 2,450 KM This is just my province of Ontario. The other provinces are not as large, but the country is vast when looking at Europe. Using google maps, i can drive from the south (footbridge) to the north (ChargePlace,Scotland) and this ~ 1,200 KM? In the case of my very simple order, one item is being shipped from 120KM away? How often do you order something simple and one of the distribution hubs is 120KM away from you? There is a massive 1 million square foot hub a few blocks away but i guess it isnt big enough to hold what i wanted? I hope this provides some context for you.

NikolaNovak 4y ago
HaH, exactly. 25 years ago, I lived in a city of Rijeka. You could start from Croatia; enter & drive through entire country of Slovenia; enter into Italy and go shopping into Trieste, two countries over - in 75km. Now I'm in the Greater Toronto Area, and my best friend lives about the same distance, officially in the same city or metro. There's just over two thousand kilometers between the capitals of two neighbouring provinces in Canada (Winnipeg & Toronto). Or you could go through dozen countries, with all of their states and provinces in Europe for same distance (e.g. Geneva to Istanbul or similar). Distances are vastly different and people's attitude toward them as well - what is daily commute in GTA used to be a yearly vacation pilgrimage in my childhood :)
- kennend3 4y ago
  > what is daily commute in GTA used to be a yearly vacation pilgrimage in my childhood :) This is something Europeans also overlook. I use to commute to Toronto every day. 100KM return trip daily, 500KM a week... I think Most Europeans would be surprised to know we have a train system which basically travels back and forth from Hamilton to Oshawa all day long.. 127KM one way. Basically the Width of England at the more narrow part and yet we consider this a "greater Toronto area" train system. People in Toronto dont think about how there are countries which would fit in this distance, Europeans dont think about how a daily passenger train service would cross the country dozens and dozens of times each day.
  - iso1631 4y ago
    100km return, or 30 miles each way, that's not far at all. I used to drive 50 miles/80km each way into London 4 days a week when I worked in an office. My wife still does a 100km return trip to work. I have colleagues that commute 7 days in 14 on a 250km round trip into West London. Your 127km one way train is about the same as the new Reading-Shenfield Cross London service which runs 6 times an hour 18 hours a day (well will do from next year), and less than the 160km Bedford-Brighton Thameslink service. It's pretty much the "Greater London Area", although that term is of course steeped in politics. The Paris RER D line is 190km and runs 466 trains a day, and is a "greater Paris area" train system The Greater Toronto Area has broadly the same population as the Frankfurt Rhine-Main area, but is only half the area. The "Slovenia is only 75km wide" claim is meaningless. Greenwich, CT to Oakland NJ is 75km and crosses the entire state of New York, a state with 10 times the population of Slovenia. Indeed talking about New Jersey and Slovenia, they're a similar size, but NJ has about 5 times the population of Slovenia. If something works for Slovenia, why doesn't it work for New Jersey? So why is Toronto so small compared with Europe? It's not a Geography problem, the challenges of serving the tiny number of people that like in rural North Dakota are a cruch to hide America's other infrastructure failings.
    - chrisbaker98 4y ago
      > "Greater London Area", although that term is of course steeped in politics. Is it? What's politicised about this term? "Greater London" and "Greater London area" have pretty clear definitions; I'm not aware of anything that's controversial about it.
      - iso1631 4y ago
        Greater London has a clear area defined [0], but the boundaries themselves were politically set. Look at say Surbiton, you contiguous sets of houses, some in Greater London, some not in Greater London (Say Beechwood Close). In fact I think this [1] house the Greater London boundary runs down the party wall between the two sides of the same semi. Jay Forman has a 9 minute video on the subject [2] The contiguous Greater London Built Up Area [3] extends well beyond the boundary of Greater London (Bracknell, Gravesend, Harlow), yet doesn't include parts of Greater London (New Addington for example) The London Commuter Belt is somewhat woolly [4], but certainly includes places like Slough and Maidenhead, Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells, Harlow and Southend. Significant numbers of people additionally commute on high frequency (4tph or more) trains from places like Oxford, Milton Keynes, Basingstoke, Ashford into Zone 1 45 minutes or less. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London [1] https://goo.gl/maps/2Zh9tuQnQoPyrnjC7 https://goo.gl/maps/2Zh9tuQnQoPyrnjC7 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAusbJmRB0c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAusbJmRB0c [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London_Built-up_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London_Built-up_Area [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_metropolitan_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_metropolitan_area

NikolaNovak 4y ago

HaH, exactly. 25 years ago, I lived in a city of Rijeka. You could start from Croatia; enter & drive through entire country of Slovenia; enter into Italy and go shopping into Trieste, two countries over - in 75km. Now I'm in the Greater Toronto Area, and my best friend lives about the same distance, officially in the same city or metro. There's just over two thousand kilometers between the capitals of two neighbouring provinces in Canada (Winnipeg & Toronto). Or you could go through dozen countries, with all of their states and provinces in Europe for same distance (e.g. Geneva to Istanbul or similar). Distances are vastly different and people's attitude toward them as well - what is daily commute in GTA used to be a yearly vacation pilgrimage in my childhood :)

kennend3 4y ago
> what is daily commute in GTA used to be a yearly vacation pilgrimage in my childhood :) This is something Europeans also overlook. I use to commute to Toronto every day. 100KM return trip daily, 500KM a week... I think Most Europeans would be surprised to know we have a train system which basically travels back and forth from Hamilton to Oshawa all day long.. 127KM one way. Basically the Width of England at the more narrow part and yet we consider this a "greater Toronto area" train system. People in Toronto dont think about how there are countries which would fit in this distance, Europeans dont think about how a daily passenger train service would cross the country dozens and dozens of times each day.
- iso1631 4y ago
  100km return, or 30 miles each way, that's not far at all. I used to drive 50 miles/80km each way into London 4 days a week when I worked in an office. My wife still does a 100km return trip to work. I have colleagues that commute 7 days in 14 on a 250km round trip into West London. Your 127km one way train is about the same as the new Reading-Shenfield Cross London service which runs 6 times an hour 18 hours a day (well will do from next year), and less than the 160km Bedford-Brighton Thameslink service. It's pretty much the "Greater London Area", although that term is of course steeped in politics. The Paris RER D line is 190km and runs 466 trains a day, and is a "greater Paris area" train system The Greater Toronto Area has broadly the same population as the Frankfurt Rhine-Main area, but is only half the area. The "Slovenia is only 75km wide" claim is meaningless. Greenwich, CT to Oakland NJ is 75km and crosses the entire state of New York, a state with 10 times the population of Slovenia. Indeed talking about New Jersey and Slovenia, they're a similar size, but NJ has about 5 times the population of Slovenia. If something works for Slovenia, why doesn't it work for New Jersey? So why is Toronto so small compared with Europe? It's not a Geography problem, the challenges of serving the tiny number of people that like in rural North Dakota are a cruch to hide America's other infrastructure failings.
  - chrisbaker98 4y ago
    > "Greater London Area", although that term is of course steeped in politics. Is it? What's politicised about this term? "Greater London" and "Greater London area" have pretty clear definitions; I'm not aware of anything that's controversial about it.
    - iso1631 4y ago
      Greater London has a clear area defined [0], but the boundaries themselves were politically set. Look at say Surbiton, you contiguous sets of houses, some in Greater London, some not in Greater London (Say Beechwood Close). In fact I think this [1] house the Greater London boundary runs down the party wall between the two sides of the same semi. Jay Forman has a 9 minute video on the subject [2] The contiguous Greater London Built Up Area [3] extends well beyond the boundary of Greater London (Bracknell, Gravesend, Harlow), yet doesn't include parts of Greater London (New Addington for example) The London Commuter Belt is somewhat woolly [4], but certainly includes places like Slough and Maidenhead, Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells, Harlow and Southend. Significant numbers of people additionally commute on high frequency (4tph or more) trains from places like Oxford, Milton Keynes, Basingstoke, Ashford into Zone 1 45 minutes or less. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London [1] https://goo.gl/maps/2Zh9tuQnQoPyrnjC7 https://goo.gl/maps/2Zh9tuQnQoPyrnjC7 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAusbJmRB0c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAusbJmRB0c [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London_Built-up_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London_Built-up_Area [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_metropolitan_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_metropolitan_area