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Comment by davidmurphy | Hacker News Reader

Important point. Europe is so far ahead of U.S.

Important point. A lot of people dislike living in cities, and they have a choice in the US. I would say the US is so far ahead of Europe in that regard.

Density matters.

Nothing to do with density. Europe has vast tracts of mountainous areas in which there are only a handful of villages with a few hundred people each and fast trains pass through all these zones.

Absolutely! And they are usually very walkable and bike-able. I know because I happen to live in one of these mountainous area.

Yeah, now overlay that on Texas to see the scale.

Fast trains dont run the whole width and breadth of Europe either. There are certain routes on the most populated regions. Moreover, population argument does not make sense especially because the fast trains dont ferry passengers to random stops on the road. They run in between two major cities or population centers where most of the passengers board and disembark from. The same can easily be done in the US in any region.

If the US built public transport and changed zoning laws it'd get density.

In the US density is a choice. I choose not to live in a city.

In Europe, density is not a choice, they have to live on top of each other.

And if you don't have good public transportation or zoning laws that's due to your local government.

> In Europe, density is not a choice, they have to live on top of each other.

That is not true at all.

this isn’t a europe vs u. s. issue. many cities in asia have lots of rail services. this is about high density cities vs medium/low density.

And also so far behind the US.

It depends what you're looking for.

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