[jazzyjackson]

People like to dismiss this by pointing to the shiny parts of America, but every city in the world has good and bad neighborhoods. The surprising thing about corrupt countries is the wealth inequality -- the political class is full of grifters who pocket the contracting fees and the citizens who are supposed to be recipients of government services are wondering why the highway has been under construction for the last 5 years. Or the bullet train in California. Billions of dollars are disappearing with barely a track bed to show for it. I'll quote this NYT piece.

"“Approximately two dozen other countries have found H.S.R. feasible, including Uzbekistan,” she said, referring to high-speed rail. “And there is no reason it can’t be done here.”"

The government collects and spends trillions of dollars, and most of that is wealth transfer to contractors, much less value reaches the ground, where much of the country is dotted with emptied out farm towns and improvised shelters. If you don't believe America looks the way some see it, take a cross country train, you go through everybody's back yard that way.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-07-28/californ...

[DuskStar]

Funnily enough, the biggest obstacle to HSR in the US is all the restrictions we've put in place to protect people from corrupt or otherwise authoritarian officials. Uzbekistan doesn't have to worry about environmental impact reports or people complaining that the rail line will hurt their property values...