[threethirtytwo]

A Chinese person who was here in the US as a foreign student once commented to me that he was so surprised that the United States was like the country side. He didn’t realize how rural the country was.

This was at UCLA which is in LA which is the second biggest city in the US.

[phainopepla2]

West LA isn't like a Chinese city, but no one in their right mind would call UCLA rural

[testing22321]

When friends visited NYC and we drove around a bit they said “it’s like everything is half finished”

[cucumber3732842]

Did he ask about all the bricked up windows in London?

You get what you incentivize.

[titanomachy]

Is that just because of the scaffolding on everything? IIRC that's due to some legal or tax bullshit.

[HerbManic]

I get the same thing here is Australia. There is a lot of space with little going on.

I mean we have the Nullarbor plain. The name literally means 'No Trees', and it is very fitting.

If you ever end up there... I hope you don't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullarbor_Plain

[klodolph]

People are also surprised how rural much of China is.

[jimbob45]

https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/origin.png

Posting the map in case anyone hasn’t seen it.

[10xDev]

Russia, US, Australia, Canada are all like this. Probably many more. The world is a very small place when you look at where most people actually live.

[monocasa]

To be fair, six percent is still 84 million people.

[leereeves]

Presumably referring to population density? People like the low density in California.