4 ms·

Netherlands (1100/sqm) has a lower population density than New Jersey (1200) The entire eastern seaboard from Boston down to Washington has a population of 50

by ta1243 3y ago

Netherlands (1100/sqm) has a lower population density than New Jersey (1200) The entire eastern seaboard from Boston down to Washington has a population of 50 million and a density of 900/sqm, 3 times the density of France, and 50% higher than Germany, and similar to Benelux (1000/sqm, 30 million) The "America is big" argument doesn't really apply when you look at regions. Southern California is similar density to Italy and Switzerland.

jacquesm 3y ago
It does apply because just like America NL is still divided up into provinces so 'Federal' level in the United States is the same as 'Country' level in NL. You can't compare 'New Jersey' with the Netherlands (though, you could compared it to say the province of Utrecht) they are at different levels in the 'org' and that has massive effects for things like public transport. In order to get coast to coast public transport you'd have to take the whole of the country (the United States) into account and then you'll find that that average population density suddenly matters a lot. Of course you can always chop up that big country into many small pieces and then focus on the few that are above the average of any other country but that's not a useful thing to do.
- thecopy 3y ago
  >In order to get coast to coast public transport you'd have to take the whole of the country (the United States) into account and then you'll find that that average population density suddenly matters a lot. Sure, but coast-to-coast is not what matters. Moving people between where they need/want to go is what matters. I suppose a very large portion of all trips people in NJ makes on an annual basis is not coast-to-coast. It is within New Jersey or adjacent communities.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    People in France will happily hop the TGV and be in Marseille (or Amsterdam... using the Thalys) a few hours later. Similar connections exist in and between other EU countries, for instance, Germany with the ICE. In the United States, almost without exception anything like that would be an airplane trip. And maybe it's me but I don't see aircraft as 'public transport', though I guess you could lump them in by some definition. So even if you zoom out from let's say NL to all of Europe and you compare Europe with the United States you still end up with a difference in how public transport is arranged. There simply isn't a nearly empty heartland.
    - ta1243 3y ago
      You're looking at the very rare long distance journeys. People don't travel from Paris to Marseille (400 miles) any more than people travel from Washington to Boston (400 miles). They typically would travel from Paris to Athens by jumping on a plane, just like you'd get a plane from New York to Houston (about the same distance) Compare public transport in the Berlin metro area (6 million, 500 per square mile) with the bay area (7 million, 1100 per square mile), or the Rhine-Main region (5 million, 1000 per square mile)
dmbche 3y ago
Washington is on the western side of the US, opposite boston. Are you thinking of New York? While the points you make are interesting, there is a massive swath of the us in between New York and LA, and I think that's where the argument is made. I'm in Canada with 38 millions individuals in the second largest country in the world, I can assure you it's quite different from Europe. (Edit: just looked it up and we get about 15 people per mile!) On average, North Americans also drive about double the distance europeans do per year.
- danabrams 3y ago
  From context they are almost certainly referring to the city of Washington (DC), which is part of the northeast corridor described, and not the state of Washington, which is on the west coast.
  - dmbche 3y ago
    It's been years I thought it was near Seattle or something. How did I get this mixed up? Feels like a Bernstein bear kind of thing. Thank you for the correction.
- ta1243 3y ago
  On average most Canadians do not drive from Ottawa to Vancouver. 95% of Canadians who drive on a commute in 2016 drove for under 1 hour, which can reasonably be approximated to under 50 miles [0] If you remove the 3 territories the population of Canada doesn't change but the density pretty much doubles. 99.99% of Canadians have never even been to one of the territories. In the US, adding Alaska to the union made no difference to the viability of public transport, but massively reduced population density. Looking at the density of a large country is meaningless. Just because Scotland has a population density the same as Michigan doesn't mean that the Central Belt can't maintain a decent public transport system. The density of that area of Scotland is around the Netherlands level. What's important in the density of a specific economic area. [0] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2019001/article/00002-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2019001/article...

by ta1243 3y ago

jacquesm 3y ago

It does apply because just like America NL is still divided up into provinces so 'Federal' level in the United States is the same as 'Country' level in NL. You can't compare 'New Jersey' with the Netherlands (though, you could compared it to say the province of Utrecht) they are at different levels in the 'org' and that has massive effects for things like public transport. In order to get coast to coast public transport you'd have to take the whole of the country (the United States) into account and then you'll find that that average population density suddenly matters a lot. Of course you can always chop up that big country into many small pieces and then focus on the few that are above the average of any other country but that's not a useful thing to do.

thecopy 3y ago
>In order to get coast to coast public transport you'd have to take the whole of the country (the United States) into account and then you'll find that that average population density suddenly matters a lot. Sure, but coast-to-coast is not what matters. Moving people between where they need/want to go is what matters. I suppose a very large portion of all trips people in NJ makes on an annual basis is not coast-to-coast. It is within New Jersey or adjacent communities.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  People in France will happily hop the TGV and be in Marseille (or Amsterdam... using the Thalys) a few hours later. Similar connections exist in and between other EU countries, for instance, Germany with the ICE. In the United States, almost without exception anything like that would be an airplane trip. And maybe it's me but I don't see aircraft as 'public transport', though I guess you could lump them in by some definition. So even if you zoom out from let's say NL to all of Europe and you compare Europe with the United States you still end up with a difference in how public transport is arranged. There simply isn't a nearly empty heartland.
  - ta1243 3y ago
    You're looking at the very rare long distance journeys. People don't travel from Paris to Marseille (400 miles) any more than people travel from Washington to Boston (400 miles). They typically would travel from Paris to Athens by jumping on a plane, just like you'd get a plane from New York to Houston (about the same distance) Compare public transport in the Berlin metro area (6 million, 500 per square mile) with the bay area (7 million, 1100 per square mile), or the Rhine-Main region (5 million, 1000 per square mile)

dmbche 3y ago

Washington is on the western side of the US, opposite boston. Are you thinking of New York? While the points you make are interesting, there is a massive swath of the us in between New York and LA, and I think that's where the argument is made. I'm in Canada with 38 millions individuals in the second largest country in the world, I can assure you it's quite different from Europe. (Edit: just looked it up and we get about 15 people per mile!) On average, North Americans also drive about double the distance europeans do per year.

danabrams 3y ago
From context they are almost certainly referring to the city of Washington (DC), which is part of the northeast corridor described, and not the state of Washington, which is on the west coast.
- dmbche 3y ago
  It's been years I thought it was near Seattle or something. How did I get this mixed up? Feels like a Bernstein bear kind of thing. Thank you for the correction.
ta1243 3y ago
On average most Canadians do not drive from Ottawa to Vancouver. 95% of Canadians who drive on a commute in 2016 drove for under 1 hour, which can reasonably be approximated to under 50 miles [0] If you remove the 3 territories the population of Canada doesn't change but the density pretty much doubles. 99.99% of Canadians have never even been to one of the territories. In the US, adding Alaska to the union made no difference to the viability of public transport, but massively reduced population density. Looking at the density of a large country is meaningless. Just because Scotland has a population density the same as Michigan doesn't mean that the Central Belt can't maintain a decent public transport system. The density of that area of Scotland is around the Netherlands level. What's important in the density of a specific economic area. [0] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2019001/article/00002-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2019001/article...