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Related to this is a PDF from the USGS showing the average distance to the nearest road: https://www.fort.usgs.gov/sites/default/files/products/publications/21

Related to this is a PDF from the USGS showing the average distance to the nearest road: https://www.fort.usgs.gov/sites/default/files/products/publications/21426/21426.pdf https://www.fort.usgs.gov/sites/default/files/products/publi...

refurb 13y ago
Thanks for posting that link, very interesting! Two comments: 1. I lean towards the idea that the government wastes a lot of money on stupid things. This however, is pretty dam neat. 2. I'm surprised that most of the US (60%?) is purple/blue which would suggest most of the land in the US has a road within 0.2 to 0.5 km? That's really surprising. I guess if you threw in logging roads and any type of path that could support vehicle traffic it makes sense.
- dmm 13y ago
  It's worth taking a look at the federal budget in detail sometime. Politicians love to argue and make a big deal about relatively small outlays, in comparison Social security + medicare/medicaid = 48% of spending, with military you have 66%. Non-military discretionary is only 17% which includes all of the department of the interior, including the USGS.
  - Retric 13y ago
    The US government spends money in odd ways so you can say all sorts of odd things. Truth is education spending (1T) is more than direct military spending unless you include pensions and heathcare for military workers. It's also larger than social security. Sure in theory state and local spending are seperate but in practice a lot of state and local spending is tied to the federal government.
- ubernostrum 13y ago
  Obviously the coasts have a lot more population centers, which affects the average distance. But sometime swing over to Google Maps and start zooming in on a state in the center of the country, but stay away from the larger cities. You'll find a lot of places with pretty regular grids of roads, just spaced out more than they would be in a city (about a mile apart is pretty common). And if you think about what that land is used for, you'll probably be able to work out why they're there :)
205guy 13y ago
And related to roads is the concept of McSparseness, and be sure to follow the update links for a fun adventure: http://www.datapointed.net/2009/09/distance-to-nearest-mcdonalds/ http://www.datapointed.net/2009/09/distance-to-nearest-mcdon...
ToastyMallows 13y ago
For that link all I get is "The specified URL cannot be found." Mirror?

refurb 13y ago

Thanks for posting that link, very interesting! Two comments: 1. I lean towards the idea that the government wastes a lot of money on stupid things. This however, is pretty dam neat. 2. I'm surprised that most of the US (60%?) is purple/blue which would suggest most of the land in the US has a road within 0.2 to 0.5 km? That's really surprising. I guess if you threw in logging roads and any type of path that could support vehicle traffic it makes sense.

dmm 13y ago
It's worth taking a look at the federal budget in detail sometime. Politicians love to argue and make a big deal about relatively small outlays, in comparison Social security + medicare/medicaid = 48% of spending, with military you have 66%. Non-military discretionary is only 17% which includes all of the department of the interior, including the USGS.
- Retric 13y ago
  The US government spends money in odd ways so you can say all sorts of odd things. Truth is education spending (1T) is more than direct military spending unless you include pensions and heathcare for military workers. It's also larger than social security. Sure in theory state and local spending are seperate but in practice a lot of state and local spending is tied to the federal government.
ubernostrum 13y ago
Obviously the coasts have a lot more population centers, which affects the average distance. But sometime swing over to Google Maps and start zooming in on a state in the center of the country, but stay away from the larger cities. You'll find a lot of places with pretty regular grids of roads, just spaced out more than they would be in a city (about a mile apart is pretty common). And if you think about what that land is used for, you'll probably be able to work out why they're there :)

205guy 13y ago

And related to roads is the concept of McSparseness, and be sure to follow the update links for a fun adventure: http://www.datapointed.net/2009/09/distance-to-nearest-mcdonalds/ http://www.datapointed.net/2009/09/distance-to-nearest-mcdon...

ToastyMallows 13y ago

For that link all I get is "The specified URL cannot be found." Mirror?