[sandworm101]

Authoritarian regimes traditionally touted public transit. From "he made the trains run on time", the German autobahn (which actually predated a certain party) to the lavish halls of the Soviet subway stations, to China's highspeed rail networks, public transit is just a thing that strongmen like to do. And absolute power certainly helps when you want to plow a road/rail/bridge through a neighborhood.

I watched an in-flight documentary about the architecture of soviet rural bus stops. Each one of them looked like it cost most than the neighborhoods they serviced.

[chvid]

I just find this crazy - you can have good public infrastructure without be authoritarian.

[grumpy-de-sre]

But you cannot have good public infrastructure without a strong state (strength on its own isn't authoritarianism).

A lot of western governments are rather weak, I swear baumols cost disease and spiraling social/retirement/debt spending has crippled their ability to provide for the public.

[astrange]

In the US, it's mostly because the urban planning field was extremely embarrassed about "urban renewal" (rightly so) and switched to a new ideology that just completely forbids ever doing anything in case it's bad for anyone.

It's also partly because they read The Population Bomb in the 70s and literally decided to ban housing/transit in order to stop people from having kids.

[dmurray]

Switzerland has a weak federal government. The cantons are smaller than US states, but have more autonomy, and a lot of matters are decided by direct democracy. Yet they still seem to have good public infrastructure.

[grumpy-de-sre]

I mean the obvious is that Switzerland is rich, and money is power.

But it's true that public infrastructure is more dependent on local rather than federal governments. I think the best example of weak local governments has to be the UK [1].

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0DKsMJl6Z8

[sandworm101]

Of course. Plenty of countries do. It is not that one requires the other. It is that when authoritarians came to power in the last century, many of them initiated lavish public transport projects.

[zorked]

Famously authoritarian Switzerland...

[aylmao]

Famously authoritarian pre-1950s USA [1]...

[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-31/why-is-am...

[powerapple]

I guess where you come from definitely determine how you think: the bus stops look better than neighborhoods does not offend me, it actually shows collectively you can have something better than on your own, which makes a lot sense to me XD

[grumpy-de-sre]

Public transport is in a lot of ways an aggregate expression of state power. It takes a lot of state capabilities to be able to execute public transport well.

[pastage]

"Not every authorian regime" cars are just as authorian see Gulf states. I have a hard time seeing anything less opressing than a 2 tonne hunk of steel that you need to bring along everywhere.

It is such a tiresome trope, with people gushing over cars. We do not live in 1950 anymore.