I don't think HSR is the future, personally. It's too centralized and inflexible, compared to flying. Any metro can plop an airport down and get some cheap routes out, and as planes get cheaper and maybe electrify, you can scale up and down routes and capacity by deploying more planes. Even laying a single HSR line is a multi billion dollar endeavor, and still doesn't solve the vast majority of actual routes. Just look at the airport departure board at any airport -- even small ones -- direct to a dozen cities hundreds or even thousands of miles away. That's never going to be achievable with rail without laying down tens of thousands of miles of rail.