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>If visiting San Francisco was like going to Tokyo or Copenhagen—clean, efficient, convenient A lot of the positive traits of these cities come from the citize

>If visiting San Francisco was like going to Tokyo or Copenhagen—clean, efficient, convenient A lot of the positive traits of these cities come from the citizens themselves. It's them as much as the government of these places that want that - therefore they create a system that achieves what they want - 'the government', and are willing to cooperate with it to get what they want. If all San Franciscans wanted a clean, efficient and convenient city, I'm more than convinced that all citizens working towards that goal could readily achieve it, and would make a government tasked with those goals. Governments I would argue, since they're usually made up of the local people, reflect the goals of these people. And if 'good enough' is OK for them, then that's what they get.

rayiner 4y ago
> A lot of the positive traits of these cities come from the citizens themselves. It's them as much as the government of these places that want that - therefore they create a system that achieves what they want - 'the government', and are willing to cooperate with it to get what they want. I would agree with that. > If all San Franciscans wanted a clean, efficient and convenient city, I'm more than convinced that all citizens working towards that goal could readily achieve it, and would make a government tasked with those goals. I think you have to carry through your reasoning from the first point. People in San Francisco have different goals than those in Copenhagen or Tokyo. I strongly suspect that they also have differing (and lesser) ability to put aside their individual concerns to work together on a mass compromise like public transit inevitably must be. Which is a good reason for the rest of the country to not want to throw a bunch of money on transit projects. American infrastructure reflects the American psyche. We drive around in individual steel tanks on roads that can take us anywhere we want to go because that’s who we are as a culture.

rayiner 4y ago

> A lot of the positive traits of these cities come from the citizens themselves. It's them as much as the government of these places that want that - therefore they create a system that achieves what they want - 'the government', and are willing to cooperate with it to get what they want. I would agree with that. > If all San Franciscans wanted a clean, efficient and convenient city, I'm more than convinced that all citizens working towards that goal could readily achieve it, and would make a government tasked with those goals. I think you have to carry through your reasoning from the first point. People in San Francisco have different goals than those in Copenhagen or Tokyo. I strongly suspect that they also have differing (and lesser) ability to put aside their individual concerns to work together on a mass compromise like public transit inevitably must be. Which is a good reason for the rest of the country to not want to throw a bunch of money on transit projects. American infrastructure reflects the American psyche. We drive around in individual steel tanks on roads that can take us anywhere we want to go because that’s who we are as a culture.