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Comment by ZeroGravitas | Hacker News Reader

The more interesting question is if they provide greater value to the taxpayer than they cost.

If you live in any first world city (aka not the US), you know that's the case.

I realize you're trying to be snarky, but it's worth pointing out that the original definition of "First World" was the set of countries economically/politically aligned with the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World

I love that the second world is implicitly the soviet countries, but it's disappeared from common use.

Even better, a lot of those countries in central Europe went ahead and leapfrogged the "first world" in terms of infrastructure and digital services.

First world is literally defined as aligning with the US. I have to guess you've never been to NYC, Chicago, San Fran, LA, etc if you want to snarkily dismiss them as "not first world"

Everywhere in the US outside of the borough of Manhattan has fairly awful public transit options. Feel free to sub in "developed country" to make the joke work better.

Is public transit the only measure of a developed city?

Perhaps public transit fulfills a different role in a country where car ownership is aspirational and currently at < 10% vs a country where car ownership is the norm and >90%

Los Angeles and Manhattan are still in the same country? The quality of public transport is related to density, public money and proper policies not the % of owned cars.

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