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I mean, China has 45,000 kilometers of HSR and the US has zero. So I'm not saying that taking people's houses to build public infrastructure is always the right

I mean, China has 45,000 kilometers of HSR and the US has zero. So I'm not saying that taking people's houses to build public infrastructure is always the right thing to do, but there's a case to be made for a more balanced view than just "never". (Also China is a huge, spread out place just like the US, so miss me with those arguments about that being the reason passenger rail doesn't work here.)

dylan604 3y ago
But you're totally ignoring the Texas ethos. I'm going to do whatever I want on my land, and I don't want your train that does absolutely nothing for me to cut through my property is a very common point of view. As a land owner, you never get back once it's been given away. They only continue to want to take more. You do it once, you just show you're willing. This is something that takes the land away forever, not leasing with monthly payments for access like an oil well. They really just need to wait until the older owners start to die off where their kids would rather have a check than the land. It might take a few more generations though. Generational land ownership is a helluva drug
- chgs 3y ago
  > Generational land ownership is a helluva drug Feudal lords like lording it.
dumbo-octopus 3y ago
The case you've presented is "China does it, so we should too", which is not all that strong of an argument.
- shermantanktop 3y ago
  Yes, the strawman version of the case is not strong, and of course plays on the fear of possible unspecified other things we would do if we copied China as a general approach. But what about the steelman version of the case? I think it's a lot stronger.
  - dumbo-octopus 3y ago
    What is the steelman you envision?
    - mikepurvis 3y ago
      That living in a society entails some costs but the nice things that come with it are on balance worth those costs? And just to be clear, different societies differ on where they put that marker. Canadians believe in free hospital visits but not (yet) in free drugs, dental, or vision care. Most westerners believe in free fire and police, free schools, and free roads to drive on. Some people are starting to experiment with food and basic housing also being human rights and therefore free, though that's not yet widespread. A lot of Americans are okay with occasional airline bailouts if it means cheaper ticket prices. So we're definitely okay with taking some things from people for the sake of investing in transportation infrastructure (roads, bridges, parking lots, airports). Just... not for trains.
      - dumbo-octopus 3y ago
        Nobody believes in "free" anything you say, they believe in the right of the government to tax all individuals in order to provide services to some (ok, some people might believe "free" hospitals are actually free, but they should hopefully be rare enough to ignore). The question here is to what extent should the government be able to take other things (besides money) from individuals in order to provide other services to some. I believe it should be limited as much as possible, any many agree with me. It would seem Texans generally do too, as no politician has come to power on the promise of building a train from X to Y by any means possible. (Much to the chagrin of random internet commenters who have in all likelihood never traveled from X to Y in their life and never will).
    - shermantanktop 3y ago
      For me, if we were to invest in rail infrastructure at scale, we could create benefits so undeniable that even the disgruntled landowners are ok with it. We did exactly that with freeways, and freedom-lovers generally view the open road as a vast source of individual opportunity, not a symbol of the crushing boot of government. Should we not have done that?
reaperman 3y ago
If people whose houses were taken were given an amount of money that allowed them to maintain their standard of living somewhere else, I'd have no issue with increased use of eminent domain. Too often we do see it used in the poorest neighborhoods where people are given some kind of "market price" for their home which isn't enough to buy any other home nearby. But even without this, the cost to build public transportation in the USA is absolutely insane. The latest figures for light rail in Houston indicate it costs $126 million per mile to build. Houston's "inner loop" (most of the densest housing, central Houston area) is 9 miles by 11 miles, and accounts for just 15% of the city of Houston's land area, or <1% of Houston metro land area. In order to get a "light rail" (above-ground subway) within 0.5 miles of everyone in the just the inner loop, you'd need to build 400 miles of light rail: 18 lines going east-west, each 11 miles long, and 22 lines going north-south, each 9 miles long. So at $150M per mile it would cost $50 billion to build this just for the inner loop, or $330 billion for the entire city of Houston, or $5 trillion for the Houston metropolitan area. Houston's budget last year was $6 billion, and the GDP of Houston metropolitan area is $513 billion/year. Inner loop: 96 mi^2, 450,000 people Houston city: 665 mi^2, 2.3M people Houston metro: 10,062 mi^2, 7.2M people Granted, if this was built for the inner loop of Houston, the density of both residential and office space would shoot up immensely. People would love to be able to genuinely get around without a car, and right now vehicle congestion is the #1 thing limiting most inner-loop neighborhoods from expanding any more.

dylan604 3y ago

But you're totally ignoring the Texas ethos. I'm going to do whatever I want on my land, and I don't want your train that does absolutely nothing for me to cut through my property is a very common point of view. As a land owner, you never get back once it's been given away. They only continue to want to take more. You do it once, you just show you're willing. This is something that takes the land away forever, not leasing with monthly payments for access like an oil well. They really just need to wait until the older owners start to die off where their kids would rather have a check than the land. It might take a few more generations though. Generational land ownership is a helluva drug

chgs 3y ago
> Generational land ownership is a helluva drug Feudal lords like lording it.

dumbo-octopus 3y ago

The case you've presented is "China does it, so we should too", which is not all that strong of an argument.

shermantanktop 3y ago
Yes, the strawman version of the case is not strong, and of course plays on the fear of possible unspecified other things we would do if we copied China as a general approach. But what about the steelman version of the case? I think it's a lot stronger.
- dumbo-octopus 3y ago
  What is the steelman you envision?
  - mikepurvis 3y ago
    That living in a society entails some costs but the nice things that come with it are on balance worth those costs? And just to be clear, different societies differ on where they put that marker. Canadians believe in free hospital visits but not (yet) in free drugs, dental, or vision care. Most westerners believe in free fire and police, free schools, and free roads to drive on. Some people are starting to experiment with food and basic housing also being human rights and therefore free, though that's not yet widespread. A lot of Americans are okay with occasional airline bailouts if it means cheaper ticket prices. So we're definitely okay with taking some things from people for the sake of investing in transportation infrastructure (roads, bridges, parking lots, airports). Just... not for trains.
    - dumbo-octopus 3y ago
      Nobody believes in "free" anything you say, they believe in the right of the government to tax all individuals in order to provide services to some (ok, some people might believe "free" hospitals are actually free, but they should hopefully be rare enough to ignore). The question here is to what extent should the government be able to take other things (besides money) from individuals in order to provide other services to some. I believe it should be limited as much as possible, any many agree with me. It would seem Texans generally do too, as no politician has come to power on the promise of building a train from X to Y by any means possible. (Much to the chagrin of random internet commenters who have in all likelihood never traveled from X to Y in their life and never will).
  - shermantanktop 3y ago
    For me, if we were to invest in rail infrastructure at scale, we could create benefits so undeniable that even the disgruntled landowners are ok with it. We did exactly that with freeways, and freedom-lovers generally view the open road as a vast source of individual opportunity, not a symbol of the crushing boot of government. Should we not have done that?

reaperman 3y ago

If people whose houses were taken were given an amount of money that allowed them to maintain their standard of living somewhere else, I'd have no issue with increased use of eminent domain. Too often we do see it used in the poorest neighborhoods where people are given some kind of "market price" for their home which isn't enough to buy any other home nearby. But even without this, the cost to build public transportation in the USA is absolutely insane. The latest figures for light rail in Houston indicate it costs $126 million per mile to build. Houston's "inner loop" (most of the densest housing, central Houston area) is 9 miles by 11 miles, and accounts for just 15% of the city of Houston's land area, or <1% of Houston metro land area. In order to get a "light rail" (above-ground subway) within 0.5 miles of everyone in the just the inner loop, you'd need to build 400 miles of light rail: 18 lines going east-west, each 11 miles long, and 22 lines going north-south, each 9 miles long. So at $150M per mile it would cost $50 billion to build this just for the inner loop, or $330 billion for the entire city of Houston, or $5 trillion for the Houston metropolitan area. Houston's budget last year was $6 billion, and the GDP of Houston metropolitan area is $513 billion/year. Inner loop: 96 mi^2, 450,000 people Houston city: 665 mi^2, 2.3M people Houston metro: 10,062 mi^2, 7.2M people Granted, if this was built for the inner loop of Houston, the density of both residential and office space would shoot up immensely. People would love to be able to genuinely get around without a car, and right now vehicle congestion is the #1 thing limiting most inner-loop neighborhoods from expanding any more.