Subway/metro system in Chengdu versus Toronto in 2010 versus 2024. Like the hare and tortoise, Western countries are stagnant, while China keeps advancing.

9 comments

1. LOL, now do a chart showing how many Chinese were killed during construction

2. comical amount of assumptions coming from a miniscule amount of data.

3. Toronto’s subway was built in 1954. You want to compare what Chendu looked like in 1954?

4. I have witnessed the spectacular development of metro systems in China, and without a doubt, China is leading the world in this area. In comparison, public transportation in the U.S. and other Western countries is lagging behind. However, I wonder—or am not entirely sure—whether highly developed public transportation would expedite economic centralization. It may cause cities to grow faster, attract more people, and make them increasingly crowded. People often migrate to cities from rural areas in search of jobs, which drives up real estate prices. Cities then expand into metropolises or even megalopolises. Many Asian countries have megalopolises, whereas cities in Western countries tend to be relatively smaller. In those large cities, condominiums are common, while single-family homes are more typical in the U.S.

   I would invest in China because I believe no other country can match its efficiency in infrastructure development. But I would still choose to live in the U.S.

5. When you don’t have a democracy where an inevitable disagree on different ways to manage a project occur, and have conscripted labor; it’s a lot easier to get massive projects done.

   Stalin knew that Hitler was eventually going to turn his sights toward Russia and he rapidly industrialized. He managed to convert the Russian empire from a mostly agrarian economy into an industrial one in a few years. Millions died, but he did it.

6. This a china>west sub?

7. While yes this is rather developed, it’s because its one of the main vectors china was using right uptil recently to push it’s economy forward. A lot of the currently built routes on chinese soil are apparently not even considered profitable these days (ie built in remote locations etc.).
   On the other hand you have an american city which was built for Cars specifically and nothing more. It’s akin to comparing 2 completely different things.
   A more fair comparison would be Europe and China’s railway systems which could be considered roughly equals

8. Wow, I’m glad the west will wait to build this with robots and drones instead of slave labor like china did.

9. My favourite distopyian dictatorship.