What an absurd thing to claim. You do know that the US is significantly larger than the entire continent of Europe, right? We’ve got national parks larger than some European countries.
That’s simply not a fair assessment. Have you ever seen America? Sedona, Estes Park, Mackinac Island, Grand Prismatic Spring, Ponce De Leon Springs, etc., etc.
Likewise, and I really disagree. Sure urban and suburban areas are like that, but so much more of the country is rural. If you only traveled to cities in 40/50 states I’m sure that’s the impression you might get. But surely some of those states were in the West, and you can’t deny that once you pass the sprawl it’s open range. Same here in Maine minus the open. After Portland communities are very localized, same in New Hampshire, same in Vermont, same in Upstate New York. Now, Maine and Vermont both have anti billboard legislation so that has a big effect but regardless, once you’re off the highway, outside of the East Coast megalopolis, things get real sparce real quick. I would argue that semi remote quasi wilderness is significantly more common in the US by population/land area than all but a few similarly sized countries, like Russia, Canada, and Australia.
Edit: let’s call “semi remote quasi wilderness” anything 5 miles or more from road access.
“Everywhere” is a figure of speech. It does not mean that literally every square inch is covered in this urban blight, just that it is so widely dispersed and pervasive that just about everyone has to suffer it.
We have a little bit of every terrain. You forget how MASSIVE this country is. One common thing Europeans have difficulty grasping is how varied and vast this land is. I hear every now and again Europeans say they’ll start the day in NYC, then drive to Disney World by night, and then drive to California the next day.
WRONG!
Not gonna happen. The trip from NYC to Orlando would be AT LEAST 12 hours alone. If not longer. And the drive from Orlando to California would be measured in days, not hours.
You think this whole country is one massive condensed urban deadlock? If that were true, we would have population in the hundreds of billions. For reference, all of earth has about 8 billion total.
I’ve road tripped through most of America. This is definitely in the majority of places near a freeway. Yeah, there’s a boatload of other stuff too, but if you were to pick a town right off a freeway, it’s very likely it’d look like this
So you took a tour of freeways, and conclude that’s what the whole US looks like? I don’t think anyone’s arguing there aren’t a huge number of places like the above, but those places make up a minuscule percentage of the whole US. It’d be like driving the Autobahn and concluding the whole of Europe looks like that.
Mate the argument isn’t that the entire US looks like this. I’ve been to all the US’s national parks, and a boatload of of state parks. I’ve lived in a small farming town with more cows than people. However, in terms of where the majority of people actually live in the US, this kind of road is very close by. I can’t find the numbers on what percentage live within a few miles of a freeway, but I’d guess it’s a majority. ~24% of people live within 500m of road that handles an average of 25,000 cars per day. Sure, in terms of space, the freeways are small, but people live near freeways. I’d argue that the sort of street in that picture is within 5-10 miles of pretty much everyone in the US.
Mate the argument isn’t that the entire US looks like this.
But it’s damn near everywhere in the US and it’s ugly as sin.
That is exactly the argument that was made. Population density has never come into this. Also the basis that nearly everyone lives within 5-10 miles of a scene like that is a (simplistically, because we’re talking about structures on a line) 10-20 mile stretch without that kind of development (so definitionally not the whole US) and a claim you have nothing on which to base it except that 1/4 of people in the country live in the big cities - which is not news.
Depends on your definition of “damn near everywhere” I guess. I don’t see that as a declaration that “almost every single place in the US looks like this” I saw it more as “there are places all over the US that look like this”.
so definitionally not the whole US
I think it’s pretty silly to hear someone say something is everywhere and assume that someone meant that the entire US is covered by only this exact type of road.
a claim you have nothing on which to base it except that 1/4 of people in the country live in the big cities
Actually, that’s just near major roads. 80% of the US population live in cities or urban areas. Considering that these stroads are a standard feature of US urbanization, and can even be found near smaller towns, it would suggest that the vast majority of people in the US live near this type of road. I don’t have actual numbers because no one is collecting this data. But by presenting data that provides some level of tangential evidence, we can start to form a rough picture of the data we’re interested in.
Depends on your definition of “damn near everywhere” I guess.
Well I suppose that’s fair. It would be nice to have an understanding of that ambiguity extended towards my own comments, but sure. For example here:
I think it’s pretty silly to hear someone say something is everywhere and assume that someone meant that the entire US is covered by only this exact type of road.
Which isn’t even what I’m doing.
I think there are some real issues with the assumptions here - you’re trying to claim that these kinds of development are common, something I’ve already said I agree with. But population density has never come into this until you brought it up, and that urban areas contain the majority of the population hasn’t been contested either. Your own initial claim was narrow in scope (though I would still very much argue they’re misinformed), but they were made in support of an absurd claim and that’s primarily what’s being discussed.
Incidentally while the prior claim was never “most people live within ten miles of a development or developed road like this” this is a claim you could absolutely support by just going to the collected data and doing the analysis yourself (ideally before the trump admin takes it all down…) using (I recommend) QGIS (another GIS modeling tool will work too, just never ever arc. Fuck arc, and especially fuck that sexist POS Jack Dangermond). This isn’t hard, it’s on the level of a freshman GIS assignment, and I wholeheartedly encourage you to learn about it because GIS is extremely cool and important! (Helpfully there are plenty of people that have already done analysis on questions extremely similar to or identical to this which you can use as examples).
I will also very happily help you with this if you would like to DM me, I have a GIS course coming up and this will make an excellent introductory assignment so it would be very useful to run through it before developing it into actual coursework.
(Side note: If 80% of the population lives within an urban area, why does only 25% of the population live within 1/2km of a high-density road? It’s not a gotcha I promise, it’s just that the difference in definitional scope between the wikipedia page and your first claim about 25% of the population is really stark and it’s a great example of why you can’t simply conflate two datasets and draw conclusions from the results - there does need to be some effort expended on ensuring that the data does indeed say what you mean it to say)
But it’s damn near everywhere in the US and it’s ugly as sin.
What an absurd thing to claim. You do know that the US is significantly larger than the entire continent of Europe, right? We’ve got national parks larger than some European countries.
That’s simply not a fair assessment. Have you ever seen America? Sedona, Estes Park, Mackinac Island, Grand Prismatic Spring, Ponce De Leon Springs, etc., etc.
It absolutely isn’t and all that comment shows is ignorance about rural America
I’ve been to about 40 outta 50 states. It’s damn near EVERYWHERE.
Likewise, and I really disagree. Sure urban and suburban areas are like that, but so much more of the country is rural. If you only traveled to cities in 40/50 states I’m sure that’s the impression you might get. But surely some of those states were in the West, and you can’t deny that once you pass the sprawl it’s open range. Same here in Maine minus the open. After Portland communities are very localized, same in New Hampshire, same in Vermont, same in Upstate New York. Now, Maine and Vermont both have anti billboard legislation so that has a big effect but regardless, once you’re off the highway, outside of the East Coast megalopolis, things get real sparce real quick. I would argue that semi remote quasi wilderness is significantly more common in the US by population/land area than all but a few similarly sized countries, like Russia, Canada, and Australia.
Edit: let’s call “semi remote quasi wilderness” anything 5 miles or more from road access.
“Everywhere” is a figure of speech. It does not mean that literally every square inch is covered in this urban blight, just that it is so widely dispersed and pervasive that just about everyone has to suffer it.
Everywhere has rural areas and farmland. That’s not unique to America.
Built up areas however tend to be car-centric, billboard clad hellscapes in America in a far larger proportion than most of the rest of the world.
It absolutely is NOT.
I’d say the majority of America is farmland.
We have a little bit of every terrain. You forget how MASSIVE this country is. One common thing Europeans have difficulty grasping is how varied and vast this land is. I hear every now and again Europeans say they’ll start the day in NYC, then drive to Disney World by night, and then drive to California the next day.
WRONG!
Not gonna happen. The trip from NYC to Orlando would be AT LEAST 12 hours alone. If not longer. And the drive from Orlando to California would be measured in days, not hours.
You think this whole country is one massive condensed urban deadlock? If that were true, we would have population in the hundreds of billions. For reference, all of earth has about 8 billion total.
I’ve road tripped through most of America. This is definitely in the majority of places near a freeway. Yeah, there’s a boatload of other stuff too, but if you were to pick a town right off a freeway, it’s very likely it’d look like this
So you took a tour of freeways, and conclude that’s what the whole US looks like? I don’t think anyone’s arguing there aren’t a huge number of places like the above, but those places make up a minuscule percentage of the whole US. It’d be like driving the Autobahn and concluding the whole of Europe looks like that.
Mate the argument isn’t that the entire US looks like this. I’ve been to all the US’s national parks, and a boatload of of state parks. I’ve lived in a small farming town with more cows than people. However, in terms of where the majority of people actually live in the US, this kind of road is very close by. I can’t find the numbers on what percentage live within a few miles of a freeway, but I’d guess it’s a majority. ~24% of people live within 500m of road that handles an average of 25,000 cars per day. Sure, in terms of space, the freeways are small, but people live near freeways. I’d argue that the sort of street in that picture is within 5-10 miles of pretty much everyone in the US.
That is exactly the argument that was made. Population density has never come into this. Also the basis that nearly everyone lives within 5-10 miles of a scene like that is a (simplistically, because we’re talking about structures on a line) 10-20 mile stretch without that kind of development (so definitionally not the whole US) and a claim you have nothing on which to base it except that 1/4 of people in the country live in the big cities - which is not news.
Depends on your definition of “damn near everywhere” I guess. I don’t see that as a declaration that “almost every single place in the US looks like this” I saw it more as “there are places all over the US that look like this”.
I think it’s pretty silly to hear someone say something is everywhere and assume that someone meant that the entire US is covered by only this exact type of road.
Actually, that’s just near major roads. 80% of the US population live in cities or urban areas. Considering that these stroads are a standard feature of US urbanization, and can even be found near smaller towns, it would suggest that the vast majority of people in the US live near this type of road. I don’t have actual numbers because no one is collecting this data. But by presenting data that provides some level of tangential evidence, we can start to form a rough picture of the data we’re interested in.
Well I suppose that’s fair. It would be nice to have an understanding of that ambiguity extended towards my own comments, but sure. For example here:
Which isn’t even what I’m doing.
I think there are some real issues with the assumptions here - you’re trying to claim that these kinds of development are common, something I’ve already said I agree with. But population density has never come into this until you brought it up, and that urban areas contain the majority of the population hasn’t been contested either. Your own initial claim was narrow in scope (though I would still very much argue they’re misinformed), but they were made in support of an absurd claim and that’s primarily what’s being discussed.
Incidentally while the prior claim was never “most people live within ten miles of a development or developed road like this” this is a claim you could absolutely support by just going to the collected data and doing the analysis yourself (ideally before the trump admin takes it all down…) using (I recommend) QGIS (another GIS modeling tool will work too, just never ever arc. Fuck arc, and especially fuck that sexist POS Jack Dangermond). This isn’t hard, it’s on the level of a freshman GIS assignment, and I wholeheartedly encourage you to learn about it because GIS is extremely cool and important! (Helpfully there are plenty of people that have already done analysis on questions extremely similar to or identical to this which you can use as examples).
I will also very happily help you with this if you would like to DM me, I have a GIS course coming up and this will make an excellent introductory assignment so it would be very useful to run through it before developing it into actual coursework.
(Side note: If 80% of the population lives within an urban area, why does only 25% of the population live within 1/2km of a high-density road? It’s not a gotcha I promise, it’s just that the difference in definitional scope between the wikipedia page and your first claim about 25% of the population is really stark and it’s a great example of why you can’t simply conflate two datasets and draw conclusions from the results - there does need to be some effort expended on ensuring that the data does indeed say what you mean it to say)