[fleitz]

It's also much less diverse than America.

[adamnemecek]

How's that relevant?

[larsiusprime]

The more opinions there are from different people the harder it is to reach consensus?

[adamnemecek]

Are we talking about ideological diversity or ethnical diversity?

[larsiusprime]

I'm talking about the former, the latter i guess is at least somewhat correlated with differing opinions too. Reaaly its the vast difference in size that matters -- USA has SO many differing constituencies with differing needs and wants and opinions. Norway is a municipal government by comparison.

[SCAQTony]

I agree: I believe if you look at average incomes, rapid transit, and geography within a given state or city, you would definitely see different needs.

The average income in San Francisco, which has very good rapid transit solutions is $83k. The average income in Lancaster, Ca (a city at the edge of the Mojave) has an average household income of $51k. Busses are its rapid transit du jour. People need cars there, cheap cars, and they drive far each day.

Alabama, Kentucky, New Mexico, could the cities therein afford an electric car?

[adamnemecek]

How do you measure ideological diversity?

Also how do different parts of the US have different needs?

[larsiusprime]

I don't mean to offend, but is this a serious question?

Ideological diversity can be measured by simply conducting public opinion polls on a range of public policy issues (social, economic, foreign, domestic, etc etc). This is a pretty well established science. Add in the distribution of said opinions -- a lot of different opinions in about the same mix everywhere is much different from large concentrated enclaves in different geographic regions (ie the Big Sort[1]).

As for different needs, before we even get into ideology simple geography dictates a lot already. California has a lot of forest fires, Louisiana and Texas have a lot of floods, New England has a lot of snow.

Then you get into urban vs. rural -- America has some of the most vast expanses of rural land and many of the world's biggest cities. Urban areas have very different needs from rural ones.

THEN you get into the differing needs of the peoples themselves which is affected by a million different variables. Education levels. Income levels. Health. Languages spoken in different regions. Populations with many recent immigrants have differing legal and social needs from populations of ninth generation native-born citizens. And on and on and on.

[1] http://www.thebigsort.com/home.php

[badsock]

It's dog whistle for "Norway doesn't have black people"

[fleitz]

No, it's dog whistle for Norway is full of Norwegians.

https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&es... Ethnic groups. Norwegian 94.4% (includes Sami, about 60,000), other European 3.6%, other 2% (2007 estimate)

Of whom 80% belong to one religious denomination

Religions. Church of Norway (Evangelical Lutheran - official) 82.1%, other Christian 3.9%, Muslim 2.3%, Roman Catholic 1.8%, other 2.4%, unspecified 7.5% (2011 est.)

Not even a mix of 'white people', not even Baptists and Methodists, just Norwegian Lutherans.