Among all the other problems: lack of imagination.

This especially comes up in discussions with those who do not live in the dense, Tier-1 cities of the USA.

The ability to imagine and envision what a dense, urban city serviced by public transit, connected to outlying communities via regional rail, in a way that is reliable, timely, and convenient is hard to come by if all you have ever experienced is the average sized, suburban sprawl in the USA. One example: I was talking to a transplant to Los Angeles, and they objected to removing some parking in favor of more transit stations because "where would all the customers park?" To which I responded, "there will be even more customers just walking in because of the nearby transit station." To which they accused me of outlandishness.