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Mass transit.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill
by r------ on Sat Jun 21st, 2008 at 01:49:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]
How much of it? From those threads:
Drew has linked to maps by the NYT on the impact of oil prices by county. The county that spends the highest fraction of its income on gas is Wilcox County, Alabama. Wikipedia has the census data on Wilcox County: 13 thousand people on 2500 square kilometres. The County seat is a town of 2250 and maybe one other town in the county has more than 500 people. Google maps satellite pictures show a mosaic of shades of green and ochre indicating it's divided up into farms. I'm guessing maybe up to 1/2 of the population of the county lives in the towns and he rest live on farms, with houses a kilometre away from each other in some areas?


When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Jun 21st, 2008 at 01:54:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]
A lot. The US is easily 50 years behind most of the rest of the OECD. Not that anyone in the US noticed.

In France, you can get from anywhere to anywhere by some combination of bus, train, subway, tram or ferry.

In the US, this is simply not true. And not just for very rural places like you mention, but damn near every urban/suburban/exurban area as well.

Incidentally, if you all were looking for exhibit  a in what the resident German conservative, Martin, was calling Salon Socialism, this is it.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

by r------ on Sat Jun 21st, 2008 at 03:09:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I've found the Northeast to be much better than France, at least those parts which I'm most familiar with. That's especially true for rail which is virtually non existent outside the major intercity lines, but even if you take buses into account. I've gotten to even small towns in the exurbs and beyond by rail and bus in the Northeast. In France I've had to rely on parents and friends with cars or hitchhiking. I don't drive so I tend to be rather aware to this sort of stuff.
by MarekNYC on Sat Jun 21st, 2008 at 03:22:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]
It actually often is possible, but the information is very badly organised ; as a result even the locals don't know about it (more so for the locals since in rural areas they always have a car). And you might end up in the school bus. Two buses a day happen quite often.

And France is of a rather low density compared even to the NorthEast of the US.

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères

by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Sat Jun 21st, 2008 at 09:08:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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