[psychedelic]

This article fails to mention another reason; cities in Finland are built in such a way that going to the library is feasible. I've lived in both Finland and the U.S., and commuting in Finland is much easier. Commuting in U.S. cities takes a lot more energy, and the thought of it is often painful, so people just don't go in the first place. At least where I live...

[quadrangle]

The poor planning and sprawl in the U.S. will be our downfall, it's totally awful and tragic, and commuting to a library is just a tiny symptom. If you want to understand and engage with this topic, I suggest https://www.strongtowns.org especially the core "growth ponzi scheme" series as a start.

[jryle70]

Below is Seinäjoki main library as mentioned above:

https://www.google.com/maps/search/library/@62.785737,22.838...

Can you elaborate how it's easier to get there than says one in Fairfax, a dense suburb of DC in Northern Virginia?

https://www.google.com/maps/place/City+of+Fairfax+Regional+L...

[psychedelic]

I've never visited Seinäjoki nor Fairfax, so no, not really. But I can elaborate on why I said what I said...

Overall Finnish cities tend to be built up instead of out. I've lived in Jyväskylä, Tampere, and Kuopio, and each of these had reliable bus systems and minimal traffic compared to any U.S. city I've lived in. Finnish cities also tend to include a decently robust bike/walk path within cities while here in the U.S. we mostly limit ourselves to sidewalks.

The U.S. is huge, and the states are diverse, so I'm sure my experience is anecdotal, but my observation have lived in Colorado, Louisiana, Maryland, and the aforementioned cities is that Finnish municipal planning is approached much differently than any other U.S. city I have ever lived in or visited.

That it just my experience. This site will let you play around with some stats, though I have no idea how accurate they are: https://web.archive.org/web/20140309232920/http://data.world...

Note that most Finnish vehicles use diesel fuel. There is a different category for that if you choose to explore the site. But you can see that overall automobile usage is much higher in the U.S., and we have built an infrastructure that supports it (built out).