Economics Explained is Misled about Induced Demand

[@alanthefisher]

If you'd like to learn more specifically about Induced Demand, CityNerd also has a video on it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/sJKYZ3tod6yUo7M

[@yeoldeseawitch]

3:15 Well, unless you're Chesapeake & Ohio and bought a certain class of 2-6-6-6 not knowing that Lima fucked up the weight specifications, and now all your crews are pissed because they believe they were getting scammed out of thousands of dollars because their pay is dictated by how much the adhesive weight on the driving wheels is. Superpower locomotives in that case became the bane of the C&O's existence. Just thought I'd mention that.

[@firefox5926]

13:15 ok ok i see you i hear you but.. what if.. wait for it .. what if we get rid of the buildings and the people and just put more highway in......lol

[@ianjames8140]

But I thought Elon musk said induced demand was fake

[@rogink]

I don't think you have correctly explained 'induced demand'. I don't know about other countries but there always needs to be an economic case made for a new road in the UK. In theory this is a good thing as it needs to show e.g. reduced journey time - or more likely - less congestion. But in reality it usually means extra development next to the road. This is where I understand 'induced demand' comes in. There are more opportunities for more trips so 'demand' increases directly as a result of the new road. I am a regular viewer of EE but I agree this was a poor video. However, you contradict yourself talking about the Chinese high speed train network. You point out the poor accessibility of the new stations, but still seem to think the network provides a benefit. Perhaps it has provided an economic boost during construction, but not in operation. On the point about railways not being profitable, I think it was only the early investors at the beginning of the UK rail network who made a profit. Those who got in as it was booming never saw their money back!

[@prosopro3146]

I think the problem with you is that you are trying to say that the US is much worse than china while his video does not say that the US is better than China,you are critising something he didnt even talk about in the first place

[@temprd]

Simple solution to getting rid of the bottleneck. Just get rid of all the places to live and work, and just have roads.

[@brianleeper5737]

Just stop building houses. But it's a lot easier to get a new road stopped than it is a new housing development (property rights and all), so it should come as no surprise that areas built in the last, say, 40 years are traffic nightmares.

[@jpe1]

Wasn’t that a Heinlein short story? “The Roads Must Roll” or something close to that, I remember reading it in English class some time in the late 1980’s. The story describes giant moving sidewalks that go 100mph, between cities like San Diego and Reno (when the story was written, Vegas wasn’t much of anything) and there are shops, restaurants, businesses, and residential buildings on the moving road, endlessly shuttling back and forth between the termination cities.

[@vuesch]

Sounds like american urban developement in a nutshell

[@overbeb]

Snowpiercer but with cars instead of a train.

[@BeautifulEarthJa]

That happened in an episode of Dr Who...

[@CZpersi]

European here - regarding your note about train stations being built on the periphery, it could be argued that many train stations were built on a periphery (or at least the so-called "internal periphery") at the time of their construction. However, their presence led to increase of land value. The city shifted moved towards them and swallowed them.

[@ianhomerpura8937]

This is also what happened in most Asian countries like Japan. Most of the main railway stations there were built during the massive expansions from the 1880s onwards. They then proceeded to plan new communities around the railway stations. They still do so today, like in the reconstruction of towns destroyed in the 2011 tsunami, i.e. Yamamoto, Fukushima along the JR East Jōban Line.

[@MarioFanGamer659]

I'd say if the amount of terminus stations are a thing, I'm sure that the developers did try to get as close to the city centre. However while simpler to build, they provide less optimal traffic flow (unless a train is indeed terminating there) than through stations which are more difficult to build (especially in a build-up area as they require tunnelling which was out of question back in the day).

[@Jay_Johnson]

This is one of the reasons we should be building new cities from scratch. I live in the UK and one the housing crisis is one of he biggest issues right now. The main issue is local people/councils preventing new affordable developments as 1. they are cheap so will receive little in tax and 2. local people don't want the disruption a new development will bring but also more strain on local public services. Building new cities necessitates building new public services but also allows for proper city planning where stations can be placed within the city centre.

[@Eliastion]

@@Jay_Johnson "Building new cities" isn't a good idea, however. Or, at the very least - it's an incredibly difficult thing to do. Cities generally don't appear because someone decided to build them - they pop up because there is a need for them. Cities don't typically exist to house people, they exist to house people close to SOMETHING. Historically they were communication and trade nodes, then around some localized industries (especially "localized by default" like mining). To create a new city from scratch, you need to start with its purpose. You need some industry that the city will grow around. As it establishes itself, other industries and services will hopefully spring up naturally, diversifying the city's focus (single-industry cities are EXTREMELY vulnerable to changes in economy), but you need that starting point - and building up large-scale industry in the middle of nowhere, without workforce readily available, is a monumental task that takes huge investment and can fail spectacularly if you get anything wrong. There are examples of cities that were more or less "just built". But they were typically the response to some pressing need, where founding a city was less a result of wanting to build a new city and more - a need to place somewhere a new SOMETHING that needed a city, so as you put that something (say, a new port because your changed borders after a war meant that you lacked a good port), the city was built along with it to support it, a bit of a side-effect, really. There are exceptions to that, but they're rare and far between for a reason. I'd say that any money invested into creation of new cities - unless you already have something they'd be built around - would be better spent on improving the existing ones.

[@DAOzz83]

While I get your point, my understanding is that all major European cities still have at least one good train station with intercity trains within reasonable walking distance of the historic city center. One of the Chinese cities in the video has its high-speed-rail link 8 kilometers from the center, which sounds like a little much.

[@petrfedor1851]

"But I like driving my car" That you should advocate for robust public transport so roads don´t turn into slugfest twice a day

[@Arkiasis]

And the same people who say that nonetheless have health issues and high blood pressure from commuting to work via car. You'll be lots of singing to mentally distract yourself from spending 2 hours a day being apart of traffic commuting to work. Driving is draining on you. Hence why you need to take a break every 1.5-2 hours. If you're on a train you can pull out your phone, take a nap and do whatever and you're still moving. You're not having to mentally stay alert constantly. I love my car too but I wish I didn't have to use it to commute to work daily. Because also guess what. Using your car less means it gets less miles and less wear a tear and it'll LAST LONGER and when you do drive it's cause you WANT to and not cause you HAVE to.

[@HydratedBeans]

For real. Sports car drivers should be horny for trains. It means less mini vans rear ending our cars.

[@Zalis116]

The problem comes when personal-vehicle travel lanes get taken away in favor of transit, and the "switching away from driving" behavior predicted by urbanist models doesn't materialize. If you take a 4-lane street, and give 2 lanes of it to a handful of cyclists and buses with 2-4 passengers on them, that's only making traffic congestion worse. Because at least in places like the US, most who can afford it are willing to accept the inconveniences of driving as a tradeoff to avoid the unpleasant and dangerous conditions on public transport.

[@falsum2701]

I mean, gun enthusiasts also like shooting their guns. But that's not generally considered to be a very good argument against gun control.

[@petrfedor1851]

@@Zalis116 Sure, if political decision is half assed by politicians that had no idea what they are doing it´s bad. That´s why I used word robust in my coment. Plenty of US cities public transport system barely even deserve to be called that.

[@OnnieKoski]

I miss taking the train to work. It was so cheap (in Japan) that it was taken for granted that your job pays for commuting and you could just read, watch KZbin or sleep. Last time I fell asleep in my car I died. I’m a ghost now.

[@theseabear4777]

I really liked your comment, but your likes is currently at 69……

[@tibbygaycat]

That's so true

[@tibbygaycat]

Imm a train and can confirm

[@FirstnameLastname-sb3hj]

try not to die again, i hear the recovery process is a bitch to go through

[@siewheilou399]

269 likes now.

[@1Cirmag]

The public trans needing to be profit argument is such a bad economics argument. Public transit is used in economics courses as a perfect example of positive externalities, that and bees. Whenever someone says that rail should be internally profitable, it's a clear sign they stopped their economics course at like intro to macro.

[@davidsixtwo]

And highways are almost never profitable. Total costs are never factored in.

[@Frostbiker]

We don't charge people to use most of roads because we understand that they provide value to society and the added friction of charging at the point of use would be detrimental. Public transport is far more economically beneficial, but we expect it to pay for itself at the point of use? It makes no sense. It is like having to pay the police or the firefighters when you need their help.

[@arianheight750]

The way I like to think about it is that public transport *can make loads of profit-if we try to tie the value produced to money flow by, let's say, forcing every company who uses the roads to pay a tax to the local public transport for every person that takes the public transport, since it is creating value by keeping ppl off the roads and by proxy clearing traffic jams. In this way, public transport will probs make profit, it's just that it's not realistic to do this, companies would not want this and the system is a bit convoluted.

[@BeautifulEarthJa]

Same with education and health. These are public goods. By definition they can never be provided effectively by the market.

[@bachpham6862]

The only problem with externalities is that it is so hard to convert into dollars. That is why when finance, mba people look at public infrastructure, their brains melts and can only complain that it is not being profitable.

[@Yoxs]

I think this still misses one of the biggest points, PARKING. Cars take up so much space. And when the little places people want to go to are surrounded by huge places filled with empty concrete, things are just further away than if you just put it neatly together. So far away, in fact, that now its too far to walk, and too far to bike, so you need a car. So more cars means more parking, more parking means more distance, more distance makes cars necessary. Literaly induced demand

[@corshwik9354]

There are a few areas I have seen, mostly islands, where cars are banned and it is wild how close together everything suddenly is.

[@Thinginator]

Part of that can also be blamed on the American insistence on buying huge trucks and SUVs instead of small cars. Other countries have plenty of small car options, and compact parking spaces to accommodate them. You need a lot less land for a Japanese Kei car than for a full size dualy pickup truck with nothing in the bed and one passenger. A lot of Kei cars are small enough to fit in the truck bed…

[@altrag]

@@Thinginator That's only half the problem - literally. Half of "way too much" is still well in the "too much" range. Taking a train requires exactly zero parking. Of course we'll always need _some_ parking and _some_ car infrastructure - you can't exactly bring materials for a massive construction project on the city's LRT line. Its the "daily commute to work" driving that's really the problem. Its a huge amount of people who aren't carrying more than a briefcase, all individually taking one vehicle at a time into the city in the morning and out again in the evening. And worse, they're all doing so at around the same time turning a 15-20min route into a 60-90min road rage incident waiting to happen. Its really a "when all you have is a hammer" issue. Nobody's saying hammers aren't good or useful, but if you're trying to bang in a screw you're doing it wrong. There's a better tool for that. Unfortunately we've had 100 years of the fossil fuel industry doing everything in their power to hide the screwdrivers, and the wrenches and every other tool they can find and insisting hammers are all we've got to work with.

[@twlentwo]

@@corshwik9354 you dont even need to ban them. Not letting breindead people buy pickups that are twice the size of a european car is a good start.

[@antiussentiment]

Fabulous point. I look at pictures of US sports stadiums and shudder at the traffic jamb you'd be in. Our new 60 000 seat stadium has zero public parking.. But catching a bus or train to arrive or leave is super easy.

[@weevilsnitz]

"The US Interstate system is not even close to making a profit but no-one questions its usefulness at all" I think a big part of that is most people using it personally nearly daily. It's easy for someone to question the usefulness of something they don't interact with.

[@tymandude1510]

I also think this is partially because capital owners see immense benefit from it which results in them be far far more accepted among the general population because it's been allowed to be normalized.

[@SineN0mine3]

This is the reason why people in other countries promote mass transit. Once people have good public transport they quickly come to understand the benefits and even if they don't use it every day or for their whole commute they begin to view it in the same way as we view roads. The benefits they provide are obvious enough that you don't need to measure them to the cent. Having said that, people do measure the economic effects of public transport and it more than pays for itself once you consider all the work that doesn't get done when people can't work and shop wherever they need to.

[@SerunaXI]

The Interstate system also serves a function for the government directly, wasn't built to make money, it was built to mobilize armies.

[@Nevir202]

@@SineN0mine3 No such thing really as "good" public transit, there is only less bad. Disagree? I assume you make your supermarket visits by bus? Oh, you don't go to a supermarket? Okay, you've admitted that public transport is bad enough that you were willing to pay extra for your groceries rather than use it.

[@jetjavelin7593]

Look like someone never live in place where essential service are in walking or cycling distance.

[@Haganu]

As a car enthusiast, there's nothing worse than having to deal with the entire country I live in use the same stretches of road that I am using. A car should be optional and fun, not mandatory and boring.

[@chocolateneko9912]

"A car should be optional and fun, not mandatory and boring" exactly Brother. Been saying that for ages. ❤️☦️

[@Eric_X]

Just drunk drive, ez

[@AileTheAlien]

I would love nothing more than to be out of your way, walking, biking, or on mass transit. 😥

[@TremereTT]

I think the best solution would be three things...at least in Europe. 1. payment for getting on and of trains needs to be a hidden thing a ubiquitous part of the infrastructure, maybe paying via Bluetooth on the phone. no stupid tarif option traps...allways the best ones are selected at the end of the month . 2. we need Eurotunnel like adfitions to every trainstation...scaled appropriately ....off course. so that cars and trucks can simply park at a parkingspace and when the train leaves the station your car and the parkingspace leaves with it...and that's also how you get off the train seamlessly. 3. This road-on-the-train waggons need electric charging infrastructure for EVs and EVs should only be build with light, cheap, low capacity batteries as they will mostly only do the city traffic . this would also make Electric trucks viable , they will only deliver from station to the business.

[@noxzet]

@@TremereTT I have no clue what you're solving. Firstly, you'd be bringing in insane amount of cars into a city that can only have limited roads... just like the video talking about the final destination bottleneck. Highways are slow because of cars getting off to their destinations. Now you're bringing all of that into a single station and exit road? Traffic in cities is the biggest problem we're trying to solve, this is just trying to teleport them in. Second, you are now basically carrying cars behind each other on a railway instead of highway lanes? The problem with cars is that they're inefficient with space and putting them on a railway wagon doesn't magically compact them - they are still occupying the same space. Imagine a train that can carry a 1000 humans - that's 1 average metro set! Now imagine how a train that carries 1000 cars would need to look. That's right, a 1000 cars long (or 500 cars if you wanna be generous and make it double-deck, but that's still a 3km train!). And the train would take forever to load and unload all of that.

[@ichijofestival2576]

"Public infrastructure does not have to make a profit." I wish I could carry this around and slap people with it.

[@KingBobXVI]

Also a point of note in the energy "debate", especially when it comes to nuclear... Like yeah, ok, public clean energy projects are expensive, but what's more important: some few private individuals making a profit, or not everyone dying in a climate apocalypse?

[@familiasosa6379]

it is all good as long as that infrastructure is actually useful and well kept with our taxes

[@Xeonerable]

"The public sector should aim to break even and isn't supposed to be profitable like the private sector is" Right-wing capitalists: **dumb confused tucker carlson faces**

[@maly2ts408]

It has been proven , widen or build more roads only creates more traffic . Wake up America there is life beyond 4 wheels if people want to travel they should have the facility

[@tommyshanks4198]

Of course public infrastructure makes profits. Their ability to provide a return on investment, usually measured in Gdp growth, is why one project will be chosen over another. Cities will plow $$$$ into sewers, for example, cause not doing so will crater their property tax base in the long run.

[@Fabrosixdx]

You see Alan, Urban planners of the 60s knew how to reduce induced demand at the city level. That is why they bulldozed city blocks for parking and stroad widening. Now that there are less places to go, demand to drive to a city will be less.

[@موسى_7]

It also means less economic activity and growth. Of course, you may be joking, but your joke is true.

[@shraka]

LOL. Reduce induced demand by designing a City nobody wants to go to!

[@ichijofestival2576]

That joke is so dark, its home was probably bulldozed in the 60's to make room for a highway. 😅😖

[@moosesandmeese969]

Which leads to more development around the highways that can't be accessed even by walking, and that induces further demand for driving

[@jetplume]

Urbanists are so smart and correct that they dismantle their own ideas in their comment sections and don't even realise it.

[@AlexanderSkinnerVids]

The names on the “places people want to go” map has me in tears

[@SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

“Leftist infighting arena” was my favorite!

[@haruhisuzumiya6650]

@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet bike mafia is great

[@Nota-Skaven]

state sponsored cat cafe 😳

[@dfwrailvideos]

Conrail Shared Assets 😳

[@BeautifulEarthJa]

@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet now I wanna go *pout

[@MrMarinus18]

It is important to remember that a lot of European and American train stations were also build outside the city. However overtime the city grew up around the train station. If you watch old movies of the US west you can see that a lot of train stations were build out in the middle of nowhere. This was not a mistake, the train companies sold the land around their train stations at very high prices to recoup the cost of the railroads.

[@Pushing_Pixels]

Sydney Australia, where I live, grew up around a local train network. What used to be small towns became suburbs as the city sprawled outwards and those towns themselves expanded from their train stations, until the whole mess merged into one big city. There are multiple business districts based around major railway stations, as well as the "central" business district, which is actually much closer to the eastern edge of the metropolis than the centre. The city is barely planned at all, it just semi-randomly happened that way.

[@chinguunerdenebadrakh7022]

Japan and Hong Kong's public transportation make pretty nice profits. Where do the profits come from? From renting out places inside and near the stations.

[@MrMarinus18]

@@chinguunerdenebadrakh7022 Indeed but that only does work if you have it well regulated. Otherwise they will pull all kinds of tricks to cut the line or make unproductive use of the land.

[@hedgehog3180]

Tbf they were outside the city by like a few hundred meters, not km. It was still basically within walking distance. But of course usually it was the case that the added economic activity from the train station quickly lead to them becoming the city center, it probably won't happen as quickly in China but over time many of these cities will grow to include the high speed rail stations, especially since it's beneficial to have businesses near them.

[@DanielBrotherston]

I saw that video and yeah, it was really frustrating. I gotta say though, I had a totally different issue with it than you do.... The problem with building stroads and highways is not that you will still be chokepointed at the same local roads into the city. It's that in addition to roads, we build suburbs and suburban malls and Walmarts, and office parks. These places do match the traffic capacity of the highways (at MASSIVE environmental cost of course) but THAT is what induces the demand. Or to put it more succinctly, transit isn't the black box that every transpo planner, and apparently some economists treat it as. It is inexorably linked with land use. They are...in fact...the same coin. Transportation and land use cannot be unlinked and viewed in isolation, no matter how much city planners, engineers, and economists want them to be. When you build car transportation, you get car oriented land uses.

[@bellairefondren7389]

I would argue that both car oriented lane use and the choke points that occur with freeways are both issues.

[@gustaveliasson5395]

Ugh! Another stupid thing to put on the list of why everything sucks.

[@DanielBrotherston]

​@@bellairefondren7389 I mean, sure...but congestion from choke points isn't something which destroys the planet's biosphere, in fact, if that was the ONLY problem, we'd have a much better healthier place today.

[@jarivuorinen3878]

I agree with both the author of the video and you. It's the problem that really "capitalistic" society does not exist, there are always boundaries, subdities and whatever. There are people who vote and want things in their way, it's allright and right and no problem. You get cars, and car users want the peace of travelling alone but then end up driving long distances and getting stuck in congestion. People will move and build further and further away from services because now you'll have this network of roads that you can use. This is basically the situation that most people find themselves in western countries. Pushing for transit isn't very popular politically because people are living sparsely and transit doesn't really serve most people outside the city centre and most dense neighbourhoods. What voters and everyday people don't usually think is the subdities they receive, because that is not actually money they themselves see used for their everyday life. Keeping things as they are is beneficial to them, because that way they don't have to change their lifestyle, not for worse and not for the better. Just vote in a politician who promises some road maintenance for your crappy neighbourhood road and modernizing "nearby" highway and everything is alright. Can't really blame them but it's kind of a viscious cycle that has led to this situation.

[@bellairefondren7389]

@@DanielBrotherston I feel like these problems are interconnected. Since freeways encourage car oriented environmentally hazardous development and choke point congestion. It is freeways destroying the biosphere yeah.

[@JustaGuy_Gaming]

One of the major issues with most Transit Plans is the people in charge of them never rode a bus or train in their lives. Their whole goal is to just "Fix traffic" so they can drive around easier.

[@SilverMe2004]

Well that's great but this rebuttal was to an economics video not a transit video!

[@JustaGuy_Gaming]

@@SilverMe2004 Uh considering how often they brought up trains and other things are you sure? Induced demand is mostly about transit....

[@SilverMe2004]

@@JustaGuy_Gaming and that is probably why an economist felt the need to pull it apart because it is not real economics. But hey if you watched EE Video you could have answered that yourself.

[@nomercynodragonforyou9688]

@@SilverMe2004 In relation to transit, dumby

[@mormonjesus9581]

No one wants to drive, its too damn dangerous and a massive waste of money.

[@jakestar121]

never mess with the rail fan/urban planning community lmaoo

[@jakeroper1096]

This content creator makes me thankful we live in a capitalist state. This guy is Cringe.

[@rear5118]

For real, I never thought there was city planning drama 😭

[@andyc9902]

Lmao

[@andyc9902]

​@@rear5118there are a lot. Look up not just bikes and cgp gray too.

[@ianhomerpura8937]

@@jakeroper1096 and yet hypercapitalist Asian countries like Japan, Singapore, and HK manage to have way better transit networks than all of North America hahahaha

[@electrified0]

The crazy thing is that - even looking at it selfishly as someone who "loves to drive" - he should still want more trains. More trains means reducing traffic and increasing parking availably for you as a driver. It literally benefits everyone.

[@SilverMe2004]

No the crazy thing is that - it was an economics video. -he had no opinon on trains- ! Sorry just got to the end of his video and you know what? he thinks trains are good!

[@flakgun153]

Not if no one wants to use the train. Which then transit enthusiast will exclaim: "Well that's because you didn't throw enough money at it! Duh! You should just throw all the taxpayer money at it until it's worth using!"

[@jelly.212]

@@flakgun153 Believe me ppl will use the trains if there are too many cars on the road

[@jelly.212]

@@flakgun153 And also it's much cheaper to use a tram instead of maintaining a car

[@thastayapongsak4422]

​@@flakgun153 contrary to your belief, most people will prefer to use the train when it's cheaper, more reliable, and more comfortable than cars.

[@thelegend_doggo1062]

The things that annoyed me most about EEs ‘disclaimer’ is that he described public transportation as simply being overcrowded, B.O scented boxes, but that in itself is an argument for better funded public transportation, because it would reduce overcrowding and provide a better service to the public. And yeah, public transportation isn’t a business, ITS A SERVICE!

[@Junebug89]

The best part about this argument is that EE can't even point to induced demand as a reason not to buy into that because of his refusal to accept it lmao (For real, induced demand actually exists to some extent for public transport as well, but if PT really is that bad in a particular location, then it will definitely be improved by further investment in it).

[@SharienGaming]

@@Junebug89 yeah induced demand applies to public transport as well... but public transport scales orders of magnitude better than individual car traffic... so with public transport you can actually improve capacity enough that you outscale the induced demand without bulldozing the place people actually needed to get to

[@TheSuperappelflap]

@@SharienGaming my issue with the induced demand argument is that the people using it as an argument against investing in infrastructure always seem to forget that, if more throughput = more demand, it also equals more economic activity, which is the entire point. the extra people using the infrastructure wont just be doing it to have a cup of tea at their inlaws, they will be making and spending money, and spend less time commuting to do so.

[@Jimraynor45]

If all it took was more funding to solve a problem, we would have far less problems. You can't fixed induced demand or crowded public transportation with just more funds. Not everyone wants to sit in a cramped train or bus.

[@SharienGaming]

@@TheSuperappelflap i guess its often presented wrong... the problem with induced demand is that when you get congestions...then scaling up roads is completely futile, because it is always massively outpaced by the induced demand... roads just scale really really badly to satisfy growing transportation needs... so when the infrastructure investment goes to roads, its literally making the problem worse and adds further problems down the line those investments need to go into projects that actually help, like mixed developments, which shorten trip distances and public mass transit systems that actually scale up well

[@chickenheart3612]

Automotive engineering student take here: If we get people to stop driving cars, automotive manufacturers can produce more enjoyable cars for the people who want to drive a car because they personally enjoy doing it. It's an absolute win.

[@trashrabbit69]

Absolutely. In fact you can see it with how countries approach urban planning and street design now. I always wondered why the Dutch of all people have lots of sports cars and fun enthusiast vehicles to thrash around whilst their neighbors are more content and interested in their fun-barren Opel Grandlands and Qashqais. Now I know! Not having to drive everywhere for each little thing gives a lot more room to actually enjoy the experience.

[@jjjiljjjj]

Yeah but they wouldn't be able to have their infrastructure subsidised. So they can go drive on paid circuits. Which is where every racing enthusiast should be in anyway.

[@Nota-Skaven]

Car fans, consider if all those other drivers were using alternative transportation so you could have an open road sincerely, a walking enjoyer

[@TheCobCAP]

seeing bladed angel and other car guys be super pro public transit was the wildest thing but it makes so much sense. less people who don't want to drive on the road = more fun to drive

[@denelson83]

The problem is, if we get people to stop driving cars, Big Oil will make less money, and if Big Oil makes less money, it will go to war with society to recover those lost profits.

[@calebr7199]

I always thought the "but people want to drive" argument so silly because it just assumes everyone loves cars and driving. I actually hate to drive, I would rather have the option of quick and efficient public transit. Yet these people who make this argument want to force me to drive! They want to not expand access to public transit like busses or trains and force me to drive everywhere. What about my choice and opinion?

[@Joesolo13]

Any time an argument for extreme expense is "but I wanna", its moronic. Many sailors loved their trade, we didn't subsidize sailing to keep it around

[@PColumbus73]

About 80% of the time driving is simply a chore. It's not necessarily something you enjoy doing, but you have to in order to accomplish other tasks, whether it's going to work, or the store, or for actual fun things. If people "want to drive", then they must also "want to use soap" or "want to use a mop" as well, right?

[@HessianHunter]

They should want to make it such that people who hate driving, like me, don't have to do it, so the only people who do drive are highly engaged motorists.

[@Eins3467]

Driving cars is only cool on games. I don't want to be that person in a drivers seat during heavy traffic. Trains ftw.

[@danbobway5656]

Exactly and adding trains and public transport doesn't even take their ability to drive....they are just selfish and morons. You would think they would want more people off the road so they can actually drive instead of sitting in traffic....

[@arsenelupin123]

Like StrongTowns pointed out, there is an inherent tension between fluid traffic and economic activity. When you go a place people want to be, cars cannot move fast by definition, because all of them need to stop and exit somewhere. And that's without even accounting for the fact that people and developers will change their habits to rely more on cars, which will force everyone to use the damn things.

[@SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

I live in fear of the day that I get something wrong in one of my train videos and Alan Fisher comes after me 😂

[@vaga4239]

The Boogie man comes knocking when you get your choo choo wrong

[@GenericUrbanism]

I doubt that’s going to happen. Your urbanism takes are not carbrained.

[@thespanishinquisition4078]

You should be. Let that fear guide you. Be the man Alan Fisher knows you can be. Do not disapoint him.

[@SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

@@thespanishinquisition4078 this is a way better mindset. Definitely gonna try to adopt it!

[@Luredreier]

​@@thespanishinquisition4078Fear based motivation. Usually not the best approach out there. But yeah, trying to do better is definitely a good idea.

[@freyhebert5947]

I live in Hawaii, in Honolulu. In my city the government has recently made it illegal to use crosswalks downtown between the hours of 630am-830pm, Monday through Friday. I don’t know the extent of this policy, but I do know it’s in practice directly next to the state library, State Capitol, and one of the old Hawaiian Monarch’s Mansions (now a tourist trap) This isn’t that related to the current discussion, but the people watching this channel are the people most likely to care about news like this, so here I am. Perhaps the reasoning was that almost everyone who doesn’t drive is homeless or otherwise just as impoverished (NOT an exaggeration)

[@brigidia8218]

incredible

[@Purplesquigglystripe]

What kind of drugs are the local government on

[@giannis_m]

This is absolutely insane as a european. It just boggles the mind.

[@AverytheCubanAmerican]

@@Purplesquigglystripe The kind that makes them think closing their new HART at 7 PM is a good idea.

[@een_schildpad]

What in the actual heck... that seems so dystopian; like straight out of Ray Bradbury's "The Pedestrian" where anyone out walking was automatically assumed to be up to no good.

[@NoFlexZoner]

Thank you for taking on that channel, this is not even close to being the only time they've pulled one like this.

[@beetleshlimp]

what other examples do you have?

[@TheRetardle]

@@beetleshlimp, There's another notorious video where he claims the Netherlands was the most unequal country in the world. It was completely dissected by the channel 'Money & Macro'.

[@danbobway5656]

​@A B it wouldn't surprise me

[@laurencefraser]

@A B You do get situations where it is safe to ignore it due to it being a side effect of good things (everything is improving for everyone, just more so for the rich, for example), but most of the time, of course, that's not the case (far more commonly, increased in equallity is tied to a situation where while things are improving in Some areas, over all they're getting worse, but in ways that mostly affect the poor, while for the rich either do see actual improvement, or at least get to watch their numbers go up while the day to day remains basically the same). So, as is often true of such things, he probably started from something that was situationally valid, and then generallised it to situations where it was not applicable on the basis that that better fit his world view. It is a common failing among people who are overly attached to specific ideologies, regardless of alignment, and similar things can happen due to a combination of personal experience and lack of research and/or awareness.

[@nashunson469]

Japan also built high-speed railway stations away from city centers in a similar fashion to China today. Examples include Shin-Osaka, Shin-Kobe, and Shin-Yokohama. All of these stations were built in a period where the surrounding area isn't as urbanized and yet today they are the opposite.

[@heilmadon]

None of those though are really big though shin osaka is outscaled by Umeda, Kobe's city center is more sannomiya.

[@nashunson469]

@@heilmadon The point is that they're high-speed rail stations built outside of the traditional city centers, not that they are smaller than the train stations inside said centers.

[@heilmadon]

@@nashunson469 But the urbanization wasnt due to those trains and more likely due to urban expansion, people dont use the shinkansen for work

[@extrapolate]

@@nashunson469if there are stops in the city center in those cities as the other user claims (let alone the main one), why would it matter that there’s another station in the outskirts? The problem with Chinese cities is that the high speed rail stations are far from the places people want to get to for the most part

[@AB-wf8ek]

​@@extrapolate ​Have you ever watched Field of Dreams? If you build it, they will come. I'm sure the Chinese government was also hoping that the urban areas would soon grow around the train stations, which is still a possibility.

[@ristekostadinov2820]

The thing about airlines being cheaper than rail is mostly because of oil subsidies, if subsidies switch the other way around it will be a different case. If we agree that pollution puts a lot of burden on the healthcare system, isn't it reasonable to shift resources into less polluting modes of transport?

[@SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

Actually I’m working on a video about this very topic where I dive into the California HSR business plan and calculate their costs in comparison to airlines and cars. While your points are definitely correct, I actually found that I didn’t even need to go that far in order to prove that HSR is less expensive. In reality, the cost for an HSR company to move us from LA to SF will have no trouble being lower than using airplanes or cars. This was when I assumed that everyone who lived in a county with a man HSR stop took a trip 4 times a year. If I cut this down to 2 times a year then the HSR was still cheaper than airplanes but more expensive than cars. Now, whether or not ticket prices will actually reflect that lower cost remains to be seen!

[@bubba842]

People never factor in the externalities. Even things like road traffic accidents factor into it and drive up the cost of everyday living. That's not even mentioning the healthcare costs and road infrastructure costs that all come out of our pockets.

[@MalawisLilleKanal]

This depends greatly on distance. When the distance becomes long enough, even high-speed train becomes to slow. We need Planes, Trains and Automobiles. All for different reasons and with different ideal use-scenarios.

[@Love2Cruise]

Also, airlines don't own the air spaces they fly in. Railroads need to own the land to lay their tracks on, most of them own their depots, yards, & stations, too. Airports, at least in the US, are built with public funds (local, state & Federal). Airlines may build a maintenance hangar or two at their hub airports, but many things at the airport, from security to facilities maintenance, are paid by tax payers.

[@francescoaiazzone]

@@MalawisLilleKanal that's what people never seem to get. All means of transportation have their own purpose and they can only coexist in an interconnected system.

[@DS.J]

Regarding Chinese HSR and "stations far from city centres" it is important to note that in virtually all cases of newly built stations like Shanghai Hongqiao, Wuhan, Hangzhou , Nanning East and many others, parallel area development projects were kicked off in order to densify those areas and make them actual parts of the city with density similar or even exceeding that of city centres in some cases. Also, local rapid transit connections in virtually all cases are already present or will be present in the near future as metro and other rapid transit systems are being constructed. While this is still not as good as having a big station bang in the centre but it is good enough and it seems to be the most effective model of HSR development in a country like China. It is worth noting that building stations on the mainline railway without going into the city allows non-stopping trains to pass at maximum speed while stopping trains don't need to make a detour either. Also, there are some pretty solid exceptions to that, such as Shenzhen Futian station or even Beijing South which despite being a new station, was actually built fairly close to the city centre with good metro connections. In some cases (Beijing West, Shanghai railway station) existing stations were utilized and fitted to accommodate limited HSR (G and D trains) services. So it's not that clear cut and not entirely accurate to say that Chinese newly built HSR services only use stations outside city centres. It seems they did the best that could be done in such circumstances.

[@alanthefisher]

Yeah there are more nuances to the entire system, so eventually I need to do an entire video on the Chinese system in general because there wasn't enough time in this video to go on about it.

[@bocbinsgames6745]

@@alanthefisher Yes, that would be very welcome

[@emiliopenayo4738]

​@@alanthefisherI'll simp for that video

[@yashagrawal88]

Good points. High speed railway is inherently very expensive and also harmful for the environment. While governments should subsidize public transport, it has to be able to do it, which is often not possible with high speed railways. Public transport is a need, high speed railways are not.

[@DS.J]

@@alanthefisher It would be amazing if you did an elaborate video on Chinese HSR, so really looking forward to it!

[@brentsnocomgaming7813]

I LOVE cars and I love driving. And I would LOVE there to be more public transit because then people that have trouble driving wouldn't be on the road, and there'd be less traffic so I could enjoy driving more without getting stuck in traffic.

[@MrOiram46]

Not to mention people who don’t want to drive wouldn’t be driving (pun intended) the demand for certain types of vehicles like mid-sized SUVs and crossovers, and instead we can have a more diverse array of vehicles and colors to buy, unlike the sea of boring whites and grays we have now.

[@bubbledoubletrouble]

4:43 This is something that only someone who has never had the misfortune of flying in China would say. Civilian air transport plays second fiddle to the military, and large swathes of airspace is just plain off-limits. Also, half of the year (or at least it feels that way) the most popular corridors suffer from intense storms. These two combine to make hours-long delays commonplace.

[@موسى_7]

So true!

[@lzh4950]

Heard that mainland China has TFRs more regularly than the USA too (for VIPs) which further reduce the amount of civilian airspace available

[@hedgehog3180]

Chinese air travel also has a pretty terrible safety reputation and the fleets are often old or outdated because it's difficult to import new western planes and non-Chinese companies can't operate routes in China. One of the ways the PRC has tried to address this is by attempting to encourage the growth of a domestic aerospace giant that can compete with Boeing and Airbus but so far it hasn't yielded much-

[@citrusjuicebox]

As a car enthusiast, I can guarantee that anyone who uses "I like driving" as an excuse to build more freeways is definitely not a car enthusiast and doesn't like driving. They just think they do. Freeways ruin driving. For everyone. They're not fast, they're not efficient, they're not safe, and they're just flat-out boring.

[@benharris7358]

I love driving. My highway commute to and from work each day puts me to sleep to the point that its dangerous, and im lucky because there is rarely traffic at the times I use it

[@rus0004]

It's not so much "I like driving", as much as "I like the privacy and convenience of driving", is what he meant.

[@erikmnelson77]

This. I love driving. I never want to have to drive to work ever again, or need to drive during a normal weekday. Driving should be for edge cases, not routine transportation.

[@sulphurous2656]

This

[@ChadwickMann]

Alan took that quote very out of context

[@Man2quilla]

There's a reason in my Intro to Transportation Planning class we first learned about induced demand theoretically instead of by using a paper with statistics. We work out the three types of people who weren't using the road that now would with the additional capacity. You can't just quantify the amount of traffic that will be generated by a new lane of traffic using a generalized formula from a paper, it's pretty specific to the area your working with.

[@ЦзинКэ-ы5х]

Also, I suppose Japanese rail stations weren't built in the city centers (because, obviously, there was something other built in the center). It was built on the outskirts. And then, the city has moved closer to them. Some exceptions to the rules exists, of course.

[@ststst981]

Yea EEs mentality ignores the entirety of human history where we built AROUND transportation hubs. No one ever thought to build a river through a city, the river naturally draws people to build around it

[@Snitsie]

@@ststst981 Aren't canals just cityrivers

[@_Ekaros]

@@Snitsie Unless you are doing flood management you don't demolish existing city to build canals. And if buildings are already there canals are just strengthening the sides.

[@anon2427]

@@ststst981 dude never heard of Venice or Amsterdam

[@savage7882]

@@ststst981 Uh, EE didn't make that point. Alan did.

[@inevespace]

As someone who live in China I want to mention that train stations "far from center" are actually deeply in center of cities. Because cities are much larger than it shown in the video with Wuhan. First, actually you have station the center, the old station. Not all fast trains can go to old stations and capacity of old stations is low. So they build new station with high capacity not in "center-center" but like on the edge of downtown. In any case it is usually 3 times faster to arrive to a new train station than to airport. And time to commute to new station and old are about the same. And somehow comparing position with main density of subway is not obvious. For some reason, not so much people in Chinese subway. At lest in comparison with Moscow, Guangzhou Beijing, Shanghai have much less people in metro and everything slow AF.

[@lzh4950]

Read that this problem is more common for smaller cities e.g. _GuangMing_ inbetween _Shenzhen_ & _Guangzhou_ (so that the HSR line between the 2 cities could be straighter I heard). As for _Guangzhou_ S station its a whopping 17km SW of downtown _Guangzhou_ , in the _Panyu_ district (which I heard has plans to be turned into a satellite town, hopefully driven by _Guangzhou_ S), about as far as some airports are from the downtown of cities that they serve e.g. Singapore's Changi Airport. To be fair, _shin-Hakodate-Hokuto_ station is as far frm downtown _Hakodate_ too (in this case because the HSR line runs a straighter routing inland while _Hakodate_ is located on the coast). Japan & Taiwan/ROC have the challenge of its HSR trains being of wider gauge than most other trains, so they can't share tracks in some cities' downtown, which also may not have space for additional HSR tracks, so their HSR stations end up being further out from downtown

[@alexmason5521]

Shanghai has one of the largest riderships in the world

[@Alltoc]

I watched the Economics Explained video this week and I gotta say that I hate it when economists use absurdly simple models and try to explain everything with that without even thinking about how reality could be more complicated. Also there was a lot of Strawman arguments and just generel lack of depth in the argument, but I guess the urbanist community is used to that by now

[@psychic_beth]

"I hate it when economists use absurdly simple models and try to explain everything with that without even thinking about how reality could be more complicated." As an actual economist (not a pop KZbin economist), I agree, we don't like Economics Explained either.

[@cheef825]

​@@psychic_beth honestly this is true for anything academic on KZbin... I'm an IR student and channels like Caspian Report are just dreadful lmao

[@psychic_beth]

@@cheef825 Yeah pretty much. the only IR-related channel that doesn't bore the shit out of me is James Ker-Lindsay and he at least is an actual academic

[@l00k69]

​@@cheef825 I have the same feeling about Real Life Lore

[@sweetmyth2537]

Is the video down I can’t find it

[@burmy1774]

EE made a video about how the dutch economy was "the most unequal on Earth", and an actual dutch economist made a video response debunking everything EE said in his video as either false information or half-truths.

[@SherrifOfNottingham]

his grasp on economics is really weak, it's pretty sad.

[@sonicboy678]

I can't even...

[@bentrig9128]

It's so frustrating seeing a channel get so much visibility when it so routinely screws up basic facts.

[@HTV-2_Hypersonic_Glide_Vehicle]

Yep, money and macro is the guy that debunked him

[@DaveUnknown]

I should really get into the art of decent video editing and picking good stock images, that seems to get you surprisingly far in KZbin

[@Superbouncybubble]

I really appreciate the Economics Explained channel, I learn a lot from the response videos it generates

[@Jablicek]

You can use them to find a liberalist standpoint and contrast that with one that acknowledges that people have a right to live. Some of his takes are pretty Malthusian.

[@beburs]

most of his information is ideological libertarian narrative fantasies as " facts ". you can tell he has no credibility when he claimed that the Russia’s pre 90s economy was worse than modern russia despite the Russia being the world's largest manufacturer in terms of volume of goods at the time and the world bank and cia placing their gdp at 2.7 trillion compared to 5 trillion us gdp in 1991. now russia isn't even 10% of america's gdp

[@altrag]

@@Jablicek Its kind of his schtick. He'll even sometimes explicitly mention that he's looking at things in terms of pure economics and intentionally ignoring any humanitarian, environmental or other concerns. Can argue whether that's a good or bad approach to take, but its the one he's chosen nonetheless. Infrastructure specifically is a bit of a weird one whenever he digs into it though, as most infrastructure does not provide a direct return on investment, so its always "bad" when you take a pure economics view and constrain it to just the project itself. Infrastructure is a foundation for building other economic activity. This video (Adam's) kind of almost brings that point up but even he kind of hedged the idea a bit. Of course that doesn't mean you can't build truly bad/pointless infrastructure, but many of the best - such as the US' interstate highway system - can only measure RoI in terms of indirect improvements in economic activity across other sectors (better delivery times, greater capacity for transporting goods, people, power, whatever, etc). Infrastructure is a foundation of an economy. Yeah its not the exciting pretty part you like to show off, but if it starts cracking and you don't deal with it, the whole house will fall down around you sooner or later.

[@GhengisJohn]

I despise how it's such a popular channel, personally. He'll make a video where he misunderstood a study to say the opposite of what it actually says and then because the video has umpteen million views and the responses get a tenth if they're lucky you will hear his bad takes repeated adinfintum as talking points going forward, rearing their heads again and again in random corners of the internet. Has he ever pulled a video because somebody explained to him he was wrong btw? I can't say I keep track of all his activity so I'm genuinely curious.

[@massimo4307]

​@@GhengisJohn How do you know he's wrong and that you aren't?

[@tauIrrydah]

Some states in Australia are re-nationalizing things, such as Victoria re-nationalizing its power grid after decades of privatisation drove up prices and they didn't want to end up like the UK.

[@chodoboy]

Privatisation did not raise electricity prices, there's no evidence of this. Price rises in privatised and public electrical infrastructure as been roughly equal. In saying that our system is hardly privatised when the governments have massively regulated it and forced set pricing. It's the worst example of privatisation you could use.

[@kjdunne8683]

"There are two types of people who study economics: Those who take everything at face value... and _those who go outside."_ Truer words have never been spoken, my lord.

[@rapsody230]

There are two ACTUAL types of people who study economics: people who share sources and studies and people who don't. the first are at list open about what they talk about the latter are to be mistrusted by default.

[@a-r]

@@rapsody230 You're right! Which is why Alan thankfully provided sources proving his claims

[@cpufreak101]

​@@rapsody230 I mean, to share something you inherently have to go outside lmao

[@Paul_Ernst]

sadly, the same delineation applies to KZbin viewers.

[@phuturephunk]

Dude, I love how you've become the transit clap back guy for all these big explainer channels when they stray into perilous territories.

[@Joesolo13]

@@jakeroper1096 Capitalize properly and use punctuation if you're going to insult people.

[@ChristianRRL]

Simultaneously insulting someone randomly on the internet without offering any context ❤️

[@danbobway5656]

​@@jakeroper1096 ironically you are proof of why he's right, you can't even explain what you think hes wrong about. You just jump straight to "no u stupid not me!"

[@beburs]

this channel claimed russia had a worse economy before the 90s despite the world bank stating it had an economy of 2.7 trillion in 1991 while america had 5 trillion...now russia isn't even 10% of america's gdp. this guy is always in perilous territory because of libertarian myths 😂

[@ChemySh]

Not just "outsider channels", Alan also roasts other channels in the urban planning community. I discovered this channel from his old video summing up most famous urban planning channels with 5-second-roasts and found it pretty spot on, all in good fun ofc.

[@kirkrotger9208]

Regarding Chinese stations being outside the city center, that's actually pretty common in Japan as well, with many cities, including Osaka, having their stations several miles from the densest parts of the city. In the North of Japan, in particular, stations are frequently completely detached from local population centers.

[@randomguy-tg7ok]

After all, isn't that what a metro system is for?

[@BagerGman]

For what your saying, airports here are like that, for example Narita being called Tokyo but nowhere near. For the high speed rail, you are pretty much in the city, outside of Hokkaido’s link to the high speed rail network that puts you a couple of hours away from Sapporo. Having lived in China also, Beijing has a near central station and a station pretty far out. Traveling to Shanghai a lot, same thing of a station near the city or way away near the airport. I’m not getting on the Chinese high speed, but they are generally further from the city than in Japan.

[@MarioFanGamer659]

In the context of HSR, France and Spain are other examples with out of city stations, though in their case, if a train terminates at a city, it drives to the city proper (which has logistical reasons among others) (Spain also has the excuse for using separate gauges between HSR and regular mainline and requires gauge switching trains) and other cities get merely bypasses and trains go directly to them if they make a stop there. Good examples which largely avoid out of city stations are Italy and Germany since such stations in these countries can be counted on one hand. Of course, I only now realised you were speaking of Japan in general and not the Shinkansen network (though there are some stations which are located fairly outside the main station).

[@mfaizsyahmi]

Tokyo is, indeed, exception to the norm. There used to be 4 separate railway termini (Shinbashi, Ueno, Manseibashi, and Ryogoku) which the government decide to link up to meet at the doorstep of the Imperial Palace, exactly where Tokyo Station is now. Imperial Japan did not have a problem with evicting the people and businesses along the path, because the tennō wills it.

[@lobsypobsy]

It's much better to have a HSR station 10km from the centre of a city than to have an airport 40km from that same city's centre.

[@calitaliarepublic6753]

Locating high speed rail stations outside of city centers isn't such a bad thing. China is still rapidly urbanizing, so new cities tend to grow around high speed rail stations and old cities branch out to reach them. The same thing happened in Japan. For example, Yokohama and Osaka are the second and third largest cities in Japan, and both have stations on the Tokaido Shinkansen. However, their Shinkansen stations are about 3 miles from their respective city centers. Urban areas have grown around the Shinkansen stations, and they are connected to downtown by subway lines. This sort of gap between a high speed rail station and the city center is a minor inconvenience that only adds a few minutes to a journey of several hours, and it's practically nothing compared to the long commute from an airport on the outskirts of a city.

[@ChasmChaos]

Exactly what I was thinking. It's less than 10 kms. Easily coverable by buses/subways. In contrast, the concept of "union station" in North America is super annoying! Hub-and-spoke transit systems are better than no transit but are still suboptimal.

[@cherrypopscile3385]

"But I love to drive!!" That's great. I'm so glad your preferred method of transit is an option. I can't. I want the option to take a train.

[@betula2137]

Exactly

[@denelson83]

And the automakers and Big Oil reply: "Just shut up and drive."

[@JohnFromAccounting]

Even car enthusiasts don't like big highways and traffic. They like winding roads in the middle of nowhere.

[@SilverMe2004]

I think the issue here is that in Australia EE does have the option of taking the train. so its a lot less PT vs cars

[@betula2137]

@@SilverMe2004 and the air of that was that he seemed ignorant of the dependence on cars that has been pushed across most of Australia, and you have to be in a good location, which a lot of people can't because of zoning

[@SimGunther]

Economics Explained confidently explains economics poorly. We know most of the time that demand outpaces supply, which is why you have extensive spending catching up to demand only to not have a smart way or care to actually do good ethical business even in good times. That's probably why JP Morgan has so many assets now. They waited until failure before the govt gave them FCR's assets through auction.

[@electric7487]

_"The problem with the world is that the intelligent people [have too many] doubts, while the stupid ones [have too much] confidence."_ - Charles Bukowski

[@VoidCael]

​@Zaydan Alfariz the smart capitalist lies to the working and middle classes so they can horde as much money at the top. Public transit is thus seen as a drain to the "smart capitalist".

[@bellairefondren7389]

He also really undermines his economic arguments by saying “idc about the economics I just love driving lol”

[@jerredhamann5646]

Also if ur a producer u often will want to underproduce by a bit for no other reason than underproduction loses far less money than overproduction and due to prices being driven up may be the most profitable

[@scpatl4now]

@@electric7487 Man, that one sentence explains the the world we live in

[@TheEclecticDyslexic]

The thing about the Chinese high speed rail systems not going through city centers... If I was feeling charitable I would say they are banking on those areas becoming new city centers. Which might actually happen with the right zoning and enough time elapsed.

[@denelson83]

The thing is, those areas are already built up.

[@adam4n1um]

Yes, this has already started to happen. There's a photo that circulated a number of years ago of a train station "in the middle of nowhere" in China, it was overgrown with plants and there was no infrastructure around it, and many people used it to smear Chinese planning. If you look up that same location today it is busy and within the city they built around it.

[@WMDistraction]

I’ve used the Chinese high speed rail system a few times to go to a few different places, and it’s really not nearly as inconvenient as he’s pointing out. 6-10km isn’t far AT ALL because you could take a taxi, public bike/scooter share, a bus, or the metro to connect wherever you’re going. Plus, the way most cities in China are designed - not to mention the primary benefit to most people is to conveniently and cheaply visit family - you’re probably not going to the city center anyway. And as someone who’s a big fan of public transit, I still take issue with his analysis as it’s full of whataboutism. Like… just cuz the US’s investment in banks was objectively a bad idea doesn’t mean $900 billion in rail, most of which doesn’t get used, is an objectively great idea. China is the king of wasteful spending on vanity projects. Even on the major routes (ShanghaiBeijing, ShanghaiChengdu), the vast, vast majority of stations are practically vacant, and the stations aren’t super tiny, either. Every 15-30 minutes, this thing is stopping for a very small handful of people along an 6ish hour route from Shanghai to Beijing. That’s maintenance and raw resources put to use on stuff that is benefiting a minimal amount of people, and that’s to say nothing of the rail that goes to even much less densely populated areas. What he’s missing is that population centers in China are DENSE AF. If you were to drive through China (as I have, for thousands of kilometers), it would be long, loong stretches of almost literally nothing followed by much shorter stretches of very suddenly everything. If we’re going to talk about cultural differences, the way Chinese society self-organizes around extant population centers is a MASSIVE one that should have influenced rail design/allocation but didn’t, really. Don’t get me wrong: I would much rather China spend $900 billion on rail than the US spend $700 billion on banks, but the comparison is fundamentally useless if we’re talking about the effectiveness of China’s rail project. It is overall very convenient and useful, but as with many infrastructure projects, there is a major, secondary purpose of boosting GDP figures, so lots of that money goes toward infrastructure that will only get used sparingly while either a) costing a relative fortune to operate and maintain; or b) slowly degrade until it breaks down and is forgotten about.

[@denelson83]

@@adam4n1um "If you build it, they will come."

[@kitsunin4690]

I have seen this happen in Taiwan. In fact I live within walking distance of an HSR station, which was built about 15 minutes (by slow train) from the nearest downtown.10 years ago, there was nothing around here. Now it is practically a downtown of its own and still growing constantly.

[@terrance888]

I think him calling out his own bias is actually a good thing, and even though it affects his credibility, such call outs should be something we should encourage.

[@seamusmuldrew5623]

True, but maybe not as poorly executed as his was

[@bradnotbrad]

I have friends ask me if I like economics explained videos or if I think they are accurate. It’s too tough to re explain all the concepts I see poorly explained in the videos I’ve seen but Alan does an excellent job here.

[@ibfreely8952]

Economics explained is the type of channel which sounds smart, but every time it touches upon a topic you know a little about, it's garbage. And then you realize it's all garbage, you just don't know enough about the rest of their content to easily figure it out.

[@rapsody230]

Meh, its poorly explained, he does not quote any studies or sources, just this fact alone is worthy of being sceptic of the guy. EE might be wrong about the enitre thing for what i know, but he quotes actual experts and studies when talking about things, you can go read them and have an actual opinion. this Alan guy source is " I am right and others are wrong", it makes me distrust him even if he makes sense.

[@rapsody230]

@@Feroce Thank you, if i find time I will give it a go

[@a-r]

@@rapsody230 Is there anything specific you're looking for a study/source for? I could help

[@Inaf1987]

I remember this guys take on why Hot countries are poorer than the rich, it was very, shall we say, 19th century-ish.

[@personzorz]

All of academic economics is very 19th century, It's been frozen there

[@ristekostadinov2820]

@elfrjz and economic planning

[@XMysticHerox]

@@personzorz Not totally. Behavioral economics is becoming more and more popular and is something I would actually call a scientific field. But yes neoclassics is a (nonsense) ideology masquerading as scientific theory.

[@kwtr1609]

Cold countries kill of much of the bacteria during winter, making it generally easier to build up a civilizied society. Without modern medicine and infrastructur most of the US would be literally unliveable.

[@penguinpingu3807]

I am not surprised.

[@petep]

You see, Alan, we just need 4 lane roads all throughout cities. Spoiler: North American planners already did this and it sucks.

[@TheHappybunny671]

Except it’s a lot more than 4 unfortunately 😔

[@azuarc]

@@christianyobel117 Cities Skylines lets you build six-lane roads. If you set them to one-way, you get the feel of a six-lane highway.

[@limon16025]

@@azuarc 6 lane roads still have the problem of bottlenecks. We should build 7 lane roads instead, which are sure to fix that issue.

[@tafisher4495]

Great comment-look at route 81 that goes through Syracuse, NY. It really ruined the town.

[@tempest_dawn]

@@azuarc oh i see you've visited salt lake (where they did that, right down the historic district, it's hell)

[@peiyuwhu]

Well, as a Chinese very familiar with the two cities Zhengzhou and Wuhan, I think there is a little mistake about the high speed rail station in these two cites. For these two cities they all have more than one train station, however these stations are key hubs for multiple railroads, which has been already over crowded with regular passenger trains by that time. According to the prediction with the expansion of the high-speed rail network these old train stations can't service both regular trains and all the high speed trains. Meanwhile the old stations are in the center part(for Station in Zhengzhou) or major populated areas(for Stations in Wuhan)，which is almost impossible to expand and modified the old stations. Thus the new high speed train stations built by the Ministry of Railways are relocated in the city outskirts and the old station remain serving the regular passenger train and some high speed trains. Meanwhile the bus line and metros are built to connect these new train stations and the city by the local city governments. And soon after the operation of the high speed railroads the local metro lines, the city outskirts along the metro line and around the new stations becomes populated area. This is similar to what has happened in cities along the Tōkaidō Shinkansen after this line is put into operation.

[@jOoomOooo]

i died at "your commute? you are a youtuber" but I love cars turbo nerd about them I have 2002 wrx but I take the bus ( campus shuttle) to work most every day. I love public transit even though in my case they play the radio with annoying ass commercials and then one of the drivers literally uses the gas pedal like a pwm controller to go a specific speed

[@aryanram02]

same, im from india. i own a porsche 911 and an old honda civic that i work on and an octavia for city tasks now and then. i absolutely love cars buttt, im a HUGE cycling nerd. i love cycling equally or even more than cars. i commute via cycle and metro or train depending on my mood. i love simple joys of getting onto a city bus and chilling instead of metro sometimes thats why i love living in bangalore. idk why ppl are either extreme cars or extreme cyclists why no one finds a balance.

[@jOoomOooo]

@@aryanram02 i love biking too, but I havent biked anywhere since I moved to suburban apartment complex, second floor no where to store my bike on ground level. and even then its literally so dangerous with 0 side walks for miles or dedicated bike paths for miles

[@igotes]

Good point about the commute. It was so tedious driving that same route every day, getting stuck in traffic and so on. Now I don't own a car, I find driving much more enjoyable, since I only do it occasionally. (I'm one of the lucky bed to computer workers)

[@legouniverse8976]

Just one more lane bro, c'mon, ONE LANE MOREEEEE. I'll get to sell more F-150s🤑🤑🤑

[@ProfessorSnitch]

Economics Explained supported the NFT bullshit when it was going on, and even started his own line of NFTs. So he cannot possibly have even a passing understanding of economics.

[@adm_ackbar4899]

I started being able commute to work through the train because I can walk there now. And it’s been life changing be able to sit back and relax and not have to think about driving. Even on the days when the train is overcrowded with sports fans it’s still better than driving.

[@lucaswatson1913]

Where do you live? I've recently had the exact opposite, where I was dependent on extremely expensive, unreliable and time consuming public transport here in the UK and now have recently learnt to drive and got a car and the freedom has changed my life. I'm in the UK

[@Santisima_Trinidad]

I'm lucky enough to qualify for free transport here in Ireland, and yeah, being able to take a train or bus is so so so much nicer than anything else. And sure, sometimes a train or bus is unreliable, and it's an hour late. But nobody can honestly look me in the eyes and say they haven't had at least 1 instance of being late for something or having to find other arragements to get somewhere because a car broke down, or just crashed.

[@SilverMe2004]

And is that enough reason to build more PT?

[@thastayapongsak4422]

​@@SilverMe2004 more than enough of which already needed to build more roads.

[@katsdraws]

I moved to a bigger city that has a train system, and I’ve compared my commute vis train vs car, and the one downside people try to say I have taking the train is it’s slower than taking the car. I travel 20 miles to work. Takes 45 minutes by train. Takes almost 2 hours by car because of traffic.

[@GZXC993]

You know you're off to a bad start when the first info-graphic says, "Economics is not a complicated subject" coming from a channel called Economics Explained lol

[@McToaster-o1k]

To paraphrase old joke about cavalry officers: "There once was a economist who was so detached from reality that other economists noticed."

[@robertcartwright4374]

Ooo, that's good!

[@BobSaint]

I'm dumb, should the joke point to a certain individual?

[@Thim22Z7]

Idk where I read this specifically anymore, but I think it had something to do with rational choice theory in IR. Anway, I read a quote which (pretty much came down to): The economist was so pre-occupied with showing his fancy models and graphs that he forgot how little they offered in content

[@jonathanstensberg]

For the “fix traffic” set, car-dependency is their utopia. Everything you hate about it, they love. The only thing that really gets in the way of their utopia is traffic. Loans and insurance payments and gas prices and parking fees are all prices worth paying for utopia, but traffic ruins utopia. That’s why they’re obsessed with fixing it. It’s the one great flaw in their perfect little world.

[@shraka]

I'd like to fix traffic by getting everyone off the road who doesn't REALLY want to be there. Cars are self defeating - you can't have a sustainable city that relies on car transport. Roads should primarily be for delivery vehicles.

[@scotcoon1186]

The one thing that would help with congestion, no one wants, because it means a family might not stop in town and buy lunch. Build a good working bypass, or express lanes to the other side of town, that are open to ALL traffic (think Cleveland, i271) so that through traffic doesn't have to get caught up with local traffic's mess. Ask Breezewood how it's working out 40 years later, forcing all traffic following i70 to go through town.

[@Targetshopper4000]

Some economists will tell you not to get a heart transplant because a funeral is cheaper. I saw his video before this one and it's wild to me that other disciplines don't explicitly teach students to look at the entire picture when discussing issues like this.

[@ErikratKhandnalie]

@@We4zier I mean, you don't even really value productivity except to the extent that it is measured in profits. Generally speaking, nationalizing an industry is great for productivity in terms of making a product or service widely available, but you'll never hear an orthodox economist advocate for it. The most productive periods of economic growth throughout human history have been characterized by nationalization and heavy market restrictions. And yet, orthodox economists never advocate for either of those things. And heterodox economists basically all get laughed at for suggesting that maybe profit motive and markets aren't the best way to manage most aspects of the economy. And also, what about heart transplants when you're old? You're past your working years, all you have left is maybe another decade to watch your grandkids grow up. Economics really doesn't factor that human element into the equation, which is what the OP meant by failing to see the big picture.

[@josephmother2659]

@@We4zier economists like anyone else are susceptible to following trends and not thinking about the bigger picture critically, and therefore can become convinced that short term profits are of utmost importance due to the usual suspects: greed and self-absorbance. Not exactly bad or dumb people, simply misled

[@massimo4307]

@@ErikratKhandnalie Most economists I think of advocate for markets on the basis of people voluntarily trading shouldn't be restricted for your subjective value judgment. Which is true. You think X is bad, and market A does X. But no one in A thinks X is bad, so why should you get to impose your values on the people in A?

[@jsegovia]

"Some economists will tell you not to get a heart transplant because a funeral is cheaper." Are these economists in the room with us?

[@We4zier]

@@ErikratKhandnalie I’m not planning on going into an internet spat. Which may seem sketchy, but, oh well. Being taught opportunity cost didn’t seem to stick for me. The counter to most of your claims is a general. It depends. But as a whole, you have an exceptionally skewed view on who economists are, what you exclaim do not align with what I know, what I was taught, and what I find under the current economic consensus. And the biggest claim (growth happens from nationalization) I find interesting but needs more info and has things to scrutinize. First off, profit is a terrible measurement of product output and is treated as amateurish, both by me and our faculty. Economic growth characterized by central planning answer just depends, while there are many similarities and differences, and I’d love too explain them, what do the various East Asian & Asian Tiger miracles, and various NATO European booms, Brazil, and the Soviet Union, if you can think of any others please tell, keeping post WW2, all have in common. Nothing, some nationalized sectors, most didn’t and had a liberal market policy, some were already wealthy some were quite poor, some needed foreign investment / exports, others didn’t. The top 3 fastest countries in gdp growth of the latter half of the twentieth (Japan, Brazil, and the Soviets) had little in common with each other. In general, market liberation and denationalization of sectors was the policy of most countries for their economic booms, however there are examples against this (cough cough, soviets and others), and numerous examples of countries which prove that market liberalization ain’t a silver bullet. There’s a reason economic history and developmental economics is a study you know. Sometimes orthodox economists do advocate for market restrictions and nationalization, sometimes we don’t, there’s plenty of grey area and which and what times are disputed. But overall, nationalization and market restrictions can, emphasis on can, have measurably good economic impacts. With asterisks attached to it. Seriously who is this economist you speak off? Because I’ve never met them, I was never taught by them, and they’re like 80 years out of date. I’d love to debate them and show how most studies half a century ago proved them wrong. And even then, in the 40s-50s, it was less that that was the prevailing wisdom, and more that data was hard to come by, there was no parity in beliefs of experiments, and our science standards were quite low like most social sciences at the time. Also you say we don’t take into account the human element; yet behavioral economics (and many though not all, undergrads take psychology classes) is a requirement graduating. Hell literally all classes I went to go into the human aspect, because we study humans, we’re a social science. The reason most models don’t work is because “humans are a strange bunch” quote from one of my professors that I found cute. Also, not definition of productivity. Productivity is output per unit of input, not availability or profit of product. Marxist economists are considered heterodox as well, I’d love to see you argue that they believe profits = godhood as well. Put bluntly, this comment borders on dehumanization and does not at all understand what it is criticizing. This is not what economists are taught. And actually is pretty upsetting frankly speaking. The fact that many like this willfully tribalistic, bigoted spreading of misinformation sucks. I’d happily go into every issue I have with the discipline of economics, and believe me, there are many, however, these aren’t it chief.

[@flygonbreloom]

As an Australian, THANK YOU. This was bothering the hell out of me since that video launched, and I just knew you'd make a reply video sooner or later. Also RIP AN, the entire story behind that is just a really sad mess. The 90s took an absolute hammer to Australian freight. It doesn't help I'm in Victoria, where the privatisation of V/Line on the isolated broad gauge network just destroyed much of the rail freight activities inside the state.

[@betula2137]

Adding my "as an Australian" because I feel more responsible somehow 😅

[@yeahnar1684]

you probably voted for dictator dan too, im also Australian and public transport is sucks and every time the government tries to fix it they just waste billions of dollars and do nothing.

[@mulad]

The land taken up by on- and off-ramps is such a huge problem, and I'm glad you were able to visualize some of that. A station with transfers between two lines can be pretty small and have buildings right next to it. A freeway interchange can really only allow cars to switch from one roadway to another, so there needs to be a whole separate layer of nearby diamond interchanges or similar if anyone actually wants to get off the highway there

[@eriknervik9003]

Yeah but it allows suburban development, which allows average working people to own nice houses and not work in filthy tenements

[@flatmarssociety1169]

@@eriknervik9003 You do realize that's part of the issue that - in a larger scope - is being addressed? Tenements don't have to be filthy, nor does it have to be only for the poor. If noise is the issue building code can be changed, if space is an issue more options can be built, if people are the issue they need to be provided with any necessary care. The whole point of improving transit and urbanism movement is to give people the freedom to make choices in their lives from where they live (what you pointed out) to getting places without a car being the only viable option.

[@K3end0]

​​@@eriknervik9003 i live in a great house in the suburbs. I am 5 minutes from a train station and less than 1 from a bus stop. Stop being a skill issue, i am lucky to live where I am in spite of cars, not because of it. I'm gunna hate moving, since I genuinely would need to fight to live in a place as good as what I've got now

[@alanmichael5619]

@@eriknervik9003 a freeway interchange isn't a prerequisite for a suburb.

[@no-lifenoah7861]

​@@eriknervik9003 "filthy tenements" bro what the hell do you mean

[@ChrisGlenski]

As someone who has done a lot of travel in China, Thank you understanding the real issue with traveling by train- the stressful subway shuffle from downtown to the station. I will say Tianjin station is right downtown in a lovely park to sit as you wait to switch trains.

[@ChrisGlenski]

5:33

[@gabrielmassicotte-rochon9543]

I find that most of the time the people who make the argument of "but I like to drive" actually never ever lived in a place where you don't need to drive. once you have a taste of that you soon realise that cars are a burden they don't make you free. They say this because they take public transportation once in a while when they go as a tourist somewhere else and riding the train is a stressful experience because they are not use to it and in an environment they don't know...

[@12pentaborane]

What EE was getting at was the comfort of a car is far superior to that of a train or bus. To be frank, in college I'd do a 9 hour drive back to my parents over a 1.5 (ultimately 3, due to security and boarding) hour flight back home because I'd rather deal with the issues on the road then deal with the nuisances of flying.

[@gabrielmassicotte-rochon9543]

@@12pentaborane I think it shows you never actually took great public transit. In Europe you could have taken a comfortable train to your destination making it faster in a very quiet and peaceful environment. Driving only feels comfortable but it's not really it's tiring. You can't take a nap and drive, you are always on alert for something.

[@drtyhay]

@@gabrielmassicotte-rochon9543 flying was also ruined in the US when the TSA was introduced (proven to be a waste of taxpayer money, and just likes to F with some people for no real reason)

[@HyperVectra]

@@gabrielmassicotte-rochon9543 Like Paddington Station to Oxford for 30 Euro? Oh and takes 10 minutes longer than driving. It's so busy and you can only get tickets on the day

[@rupertneverton3887]

​@@HyperVectra exactly. If it were better, you wouldn't need schills like these lot trying to convince you to try it. And I swear, they're all the same people who try to get you to choke down soy based 'meat' because "it tastes even better than real meat!" If that were true, I'd already be eating it.

[@pebbleamongthestones820]

As shown by this channel and so many others, Economics Explained is simply an excessive amount of generalizations, speculations, and incorrect info spoken over stock footage. Thank you for keeping the record straight!

[@Eins3467]

I've been seeing urbanism channels on my recommendations lately and if EE starts appearing I'll be clicking do not recommend this channel.

[@keith5615]

EE is bad economics

[@jasperism27]

Every few months they release a badly researched video and has everyone comment on how wrong it is (e.g. printing money and hyperinflation). It drives search metrics and it is best to simply ignore/block these clickbait channels.

[@CalebOfKartin]

When you said Australia no longer has nationalised rail networks my brain immediately fluttered to Transperth because that's a nationalised train system and its actually pretty decent

[@Aoderic]

Transperth is nice, but it's not intercity rail.

[@DeepSeaLugia]

One of my favourites, they introduced a larger fee zoning system so people living nowhere won’t be charged as much as before

[@CalebOfKartin]

@@DeepSeaLugia yeah I live in Perth so I actually appreciate the fact it's cheaper now

[@TheTeremaster]

@@Aoderic Intercity rail is mostly pointless in Aus tho. We're very centralised so there's no reason anyone would need to regularly commute between cities

[@Aoderic]

@@TheTeremaster I wouldn't' say it's pointless, a line from Sidney to Melbourne makes a lot of sense, It can be faster than flying. Intercity from Perth and Adelaide, would' be worth the cost, and Brisbane is borderline worth it.

[@johngaltline9933]

I find that pretty much everyone talking about this topic only ever considers local users. The interstate system's biggest flaw is that it's super convenient for local use, often being the best way to get somewhere quickly, when it is inherently designed for long distance travel. It works really well when the exits are 5+ miles apart, not so well when there is one every city block without enough ramp space for the volume of traffic being served.

[@philbert006]

Most people do not understand, including the people designing traffic systems apparently, that the interstate system wasn't designed for the convenience of the American people. It was designed for rapid transportation and deployment of military assets at the beginning of the cold war and sold to the American public by omitting this fact and telling them how great it would be for them to enjoy the country. In reality, they were tricked into paying for something and their use of it was not even a consideration. Sure, it does ok at what we want it to. After 60 years of modifying it and being endlessly frustrated. But it will never be great.

[@FrederickJenny]

Just wanted to say that I like your nationalize shirt. You have truly helped me expand my understanding of urbanism and solidified my love for trains even more. As a person in Salt Lake City which could be such a great place to have trains I am commenting on as many public forums to get them to expand UTA and not expand I-15 and I-80.

[@ElliotZealGaming]

You can buy that nationalize shirt of his website

[@twentysixbit]

HELL YEA! EXPAND THE TRAINS TO TOOELE ALREADY

[@longzeng]

The more I've watched Economics Explained over the years, the more I've understood how superficial and barely informative so many of his videos are.

[@olenickel6013]

If only that were their biggest sins. They have this video - it's still up - where they argue that the Netherlands is the most inequal country in the world. The methodology is soooo outright wrong, arriving at their conclusion by comparing datasets that were gathered with wildly different methods. Putting up such a poorly made argument is one thing, keeping it up after it's been picked apart by people with more insight is just grifting.

[@longzeng]

@@olenickel6013 Totally. I unsubscribed from them long ago but occasionally check and see if their content has gotten better. It has not.

[@rapsody230]

@@olenickel6013 your english comprehension must be abysmal if you watched that video and ended up thinking EE claimed that the title was reality.

[@olenickel6013]

@@rapsody230 Look, if you use hyperbole to illustrate a point that's based on flawed evidence and a shitty methodology, you can't defend the point against criticism by claiming it's just hyperbole. EE not just failed to make their point in that video (their point being the Netherlands prove redistributionist policies do nothing to lower wealth inequality) they did so in spectacular fashion, making really fundamental mistakes when working with statistical data.

[@ScramJett]

@@olenickel6013 I saw that vid. It had me literally screaming at my computer screen (and I think @NotJustBikes said he was screaming at his also).

[@JonOsterman59]

As a physicist that has worked in finance I wanna say, us scientists don't want anything to do with economists; they keep modelling things like it's the 18th century, just adding more complications to the wrong models in a desperate attempt to make them work. There is a minority that has worked in introducing better mathematics but it's not the mainstream for sure.

[@zandaroos553]

I think the main problem is that the two main dominant schools in Econ are Keynesians and Chicago Neoclassicists, and while the Chicagos have good models but bad assumptions the Keynesians have good assumptions but horrendously oversimplistic models. There was an attempt to build out microfoundations on a Keynesian framework but the models became so unmanageable that modifications of heuristic models was chosen as “close enough” instead. Idk maybe one day everyone’s data will become open source and we can make the first credible microfoundations model.

[@HelloOnepiece]

Sadly, econometrics has smaller wiggle room to test their theories, you cant just cause an economic crisis everytime you want to test your theory

[@andrewscott7728]

@@HelloOnepiece AI simulations will save us. Right before the AI kills us for being a danger to ourselves.

[@keith5615]

No we don’t. Applied micro is a really alien field mostly devoid of classical theory. Most Econ is based on mid 60s research by folks like Becker and Arrow. Macro is delusional though. So be a good scientist and actually gather data about the state of the world before you conjecture about it.

[@keith5615]

This was true in 80s macro.

[@234Fritz]

Small note: if i am not mistaken that example of an "overcrowded, BO centered metal box" during the "Big Disclaimer Time..." at around 15:00 is the U-Bahn in Vienna, Austria - I would definitely look for a different city if I would want to argue against public transport

[@j.a.1721]

Oh you might be right. Also how funny that the example before is a traffic jam haha. Sure, like that is more comfortable... I just commented elsewhere that whenever I go to Vienna there is absolutely no question for me, I take the train. The comfort is just so much higher just having to hop on a train and then maybe using the subway inside the city, as it is so fast and easy. While driving there always seemed like it would be quite overwhelming for me. Especially when I then have to look for parking. On the train I can even sleep if I want to, try doing that while driving a car....

[@gnu1232]

I like that you stress the key issues: Capacity and Bottlenecks. If you don’t focus on Capacity and only on the presence of induced demand, people will tune out, because all forms of transportation expansion obviously cause induced demand.

[@froggy0162]

You’ve no idea how bad the neoliberals are here in Australia… Right up there with the US and UK in Murdoch led destruction of public assets… Its been a pretty horrific couple of decades 😢

[@JohnFromAccounting]

Murdoch is not a politician.

[@froggy0162]

@@JohnFromAccounting No shit. He just owns a lot of them - much more effective!

[@bellairefondren7389]

Anglosphere has a big neolib infestation.

[@The_Jazziest_Coffee]

@@froggy0162 so much more effective why fight the politics when you just own them lmfao

[@DeepSeaLugia]

@@JohnFromAccounting have you not seen his media portfolio? It may not be him as the CEO but he owns it all

[@burakster]

A gentle reminder that EE once published a video titled "Do we really want affordable housing?" and the conclusion was "we shouldn't, because it hurts capitalism". I live in Australia and that was the last straw for me, I clicked on "Don't recommend channel". Now my KZbin feed is so much better.

[@roxanneconner7185]

I am still subscribed to EE, but the more videos that come out with conclusions like that (and a 'history of economic thought' video that just flat out ignores every non-capitalist thinker) the less I trust it as an educational channel and the more I think of it as 'keeping abreast of what some people think' sort of thing.

[@evancombs5159]

I think you completely misunderstood that video.

[@catprog]

If I recall correctly the 'we' was the Australia economy not the Australian people

[@madskittls]

EE made a couple good videos explaining the major sectors of various countries’ economies, but even their macroeconomic videos are bad. Money and Macro is much better.

[@cyberdrace]

​@@roxanneconner7185that's like complaining that a video about the history of religion flat out ignores Mormonism. What you crudely label as "capitalism" is in fact the entirety of serious economic theory and science.

[@danieldunstan]

I think the induced demand discussion both videos cover doesnt actually explore induced demand. Youd need to explore cost of travel (time, money, technology), latent demand for travel, and redistribution from other modes. Building a highway usually lowers the barriers to driving, some trips may be redistributed from the local network but many trips that would otherwise be avoided or by other modes are suddenly induced by enabling the trip to be viable. Even if some bottlenecks remain or are exacerbated, as long as the overall trip is now at a lower cost to the traveller than other modes and unavoidable, you have induced a new trip in that mode.

[@clopec]

This! I didn't really follow Alan's response on this. Essentially induced demand, when it comes to transportation, means shifts in behavior caused by increased capacity, i.e. some of that latent demand resulting in new trips, longer trips, mode shifts, or shifts in when the trip takes place. And then there are the long-term induced land-use effects (i.e sprawl) too. All of these may lead to a situation where congestion increases despite an increase in roadway capacity. Obviously, the increase in capacity needs to A) be in a place where the is latent demand and B) be in a place where that added capacity can be utilized i.e. removing bottlenecks. I think the take-home messages of induced demand are: --If it fits in your travel time budget you can always choose a location slightly further away for your daily activities. in urbanized areas where there is "endless" latent demand this will result in a lot more travel if travel times are improved (applies to every feasible mode, although road capacity is the most problematic). -- The "one more lane will fix it" -mentality is flawed, since the "promised" reduced congestion is never delivered. From a utilitarian transport economics perspective, it can be a good thing that you can choose a shopping destination 3 more miles away, or move to an exurb, but it is unlikely that highway expansion would have public support if voters would know that they have to pay, but are not getting any of the promised benefits.

[@hedgehog3180]

I also find it questionable that taking traffic off smaller roads is necessarily a good thing, the argument seems to be mainly about noise but the noise of any road vehicle is highly dependent on it's speed. Cars on smaller roads travel slower and thus make less noise, at best you aren't removing noise pollution, you're just moving it somewhere else and sound barriers can only do so much, at worse you're creating more noise pollution. Then there's also the fact that emissions rise exponentially with speed so a car traveling faster will be less energy efficient and produce more emissions than it'd do traveling the same distance at a slower speed, so highways also inevitably increase emissions. Lastly there's the danger, slower cars are less dangerous and drivers on smaller roads that are more difficult to drive on will be more alert than those on highways, plus congestion causes road rage, danger will only really be reduced if the high way is effectively removing cars from other parts of the city but of course if it's heading into one it isn't doing that, it is increasing the amount of them. Small roads are on their own a pretty effective method of traffic control and calming and very often will be much safer for other road users, reducing their use doesn't seem like a good idea inherently. The only circumstance where it seems like an open and shut case would be rural roads.

[@photoniccannon2117]

Yea, I think that many situations where see see induced demand filling up new roadways is actually a case of latent/pent-up demand for transportation. If took a four lane interstate in the middle of an undeveloped rural area and upgraded it to eight lanes, extra traffic wouldn't come just because the roadway got wider. What really happens in big cities is that we far underestimate the actual demand that exists for that roadway. If we take a four lane highway that is badly congested and upgrade it to eight lanes, more people (who might have just avoided traveling entirely, or would have taken local streets instead) will now hit that highway, congesting it all over again. The real problem is that the actual demand is so far above the supply that even widening the roadway can't satisfy it unless we widen it enough to meet the actual demand for that route. In many cases, there seems to be a great deal of pent up demand for freeways, especially since they are often the fastest and simplest routes when they aren't congested.

[@poshbo]

Even the locations of Chinese high speed train stations are not always problematic; some (like Shenzhen Station and Guangzhou East Station) are near the city centre. Even those farther away from the city centre always have a metro link so they're still highly accessible. Some (like Shanghai Hongqiao) are located right next to an international airport to facilitate transfers between flights and trains (some European airports like Paris Charles de Gaulle also have this). And Chinese train stations need to be massive since they handle huge numbers of people migrating every year for the Spring Festival, so it's sometimes difficult to build them very close to the city centre regardless of cost.

[@PeterLiuIsBeast]

He's ignored that like other cities, Wuhan has multiple high speed rail stations. Along with what looks to be Hankou station highlighted in the video, there are 2 on the regions to the south bank of the Yangtze call Wuhan station and Wuchang station. IIRC these later two are stations are situated on different paths of the Beijing to Guangzhou line.

[@andersonisowo9603]

Isn't EE one of the many channels that pretends to be 'Just some guy' when in reality it's a cutout for a koch-koch style Libertarian think tank?

[@1draigon]

this is why economics unexplained exists. if your channel is wrong so much you have an explicit enemy channel something is going wrong

[@keith5615]

Economics explained gives economists migraines since we have to tell people that their unsubstantiated conjectures are not economically reasoned.

[@TechGroupF430i]

Kinda like when CinemaSins was met with CinemaWins, or how Th3Birdman responds to the "Everything Wrong With" series with his own series "Everything Wrong With CinemaSins".

[@1draigon]

@@TechGroupF430i cinemawins is just much nicer to listen to IMO Although I although listen to some purely RANT channels like MauLer

[@JimmyMon666]

@@TechGroupF430i One is a joke channel anyways, and not to be taken seriously.

[@crazydrifter13]

Can't find the channel economics unexplained

[@Ernesto_Da_Faneda]

That's called roasting at its finest. Great job. I'd like to add one more argument in favour of trains and the likes over cars and highways: flexibility. Let's say we double the capacity of a highway bridge to reduce rush hour congestion. The infrastructures we built (and their impact) will always be there, used at capacity during rush hour and then mostly underused during the rest of the day, taking up a ton of space. Railways and such have the ability to increase frequency to meet peak demand without necessarily having to build more rails.

[@lllordllloyd]

I live in Australia, in Sydney (like Econ man) most of my life and in Tasmania now. Our public transit was largely broken by neoocons (as you guessed). In Tasmania I HAVE to drive 45 minutes to work. A train track links my home and work, but it only handles very slow, old freight trains. I too love driving, but I HATE my commute to work. My destination city has an obvious and growing traffic problem which is not easily geographically surmountable. Aslo, Sydney has some of the most expensive and unavoidable toll roads in the world. Because those companies, which pay no tax, own the members of parliament and the parties.

[@suzyocean7392]

Same, as someone who's lived/travelled extensively through Europe/China and currently lives in Sydney, our public transport system is a JOKE compared to other countries. It's so inefficient and expensive, the only reason people rate it highly is because they've never experienced anything better and are too broke to travel.

[@ltandrepants]

car=autonomy=success=freedom=modern=comfort this is , unfortunately, why there is a stigma to public transit

[@iraklimgeladze5223]

But you can have a car and drive it around but you don't need to have car to get same job everyone is going

[@Lilybun]

The freedom to pay a subscription to oil companies to keep using your autonomy cubicle. Commuting with a car in traffic is the pinnacle of a "wagie cage"

[@googylon]

Ultimate freedom that most North Americans don’t want to hear is freedom of choice. I am free to choose how I want to commute or go to stores.

[@frankschultz4288]

Public transportation would be dope if there weren't undesirables on the bus/train

[@Eins3467]

It's just marketing bulls***. We don't have suburbs here so we don't need a car 😂

[@MaheerKibria]

I used to be one of those people that were I like to drive. Then I moved to Tokyo. Now that i am back in the US. I hate my commute wish we had good public transit. In every metric having public transit was better. Health: I lost 80 lbs and was walking 5 miles a day. Freedom: I could go wherever I wanted without having to worry about parking or whether it was safe to leave my car and if i needed a car I could just rent one. Commute: Instead of losing an hour of my day to dealing with traffic and hating every minute, I can play some games or watch videos, work on my laptop. Shopping: In order to deal with the fact that most shoppers do not have a car they have very affordable fast and efficient delivery services. Food waste: Because the stores were walking distance I would buy less food because I know i can just run down to the store and buy what I need so I don't have to plan out my week and buy a couple days groceries and then if plans change I don't have to worry about food going bad in the fridge. Free time: I don't have to worry about getting the oil changed or the tires rotated or balanced or getting the emissions checked. If I ever have kids I would rather raise them in Tokyo than here in the US and that's before the other issues like gun violence since I wouldn't have to drive them everywhere. Like cars are basically soul sucking metal boxes that make me want to kill myself except on weekends and even on weekend the can be if I need to head to the city instead of out into the countryside.

[@brianschulz7833]

The funniest part of the EE video was how it claimed “the only complications in economics are ideology” before vehemently defending the prevailing ideological status quo as fact because “car good”

[@samiraperi467]

Speaking of bailing out banks, Finland did that in the 90s. Except here we made the banks pay back. What a crazy idea, right? (Your model city seems to have a state sponsored cat cafe. I wish to learn more.)

[@robertcartwright4374]

But if the banks don't have to pay back their bailouts, doesn't that mean their investors don't get as rich?

[@SCh1m3ra]

I only ever went to the leftist infighting arena, didn't know we had an overpriced hipster bar literally on the same street.

[@func8211]

The US banks did pay back there loans. Did you not know that?

[@func8211]

@@robertcartwright4374 They did pay it back.

[@robertcartwright4374]

@@func8211 No I didn't.

[@TMThesaurus]

Also, hasn't China's HSR network had a huge impact on domestic air travel?

[@erozionzeall6371]

It's had a huge impact on the domestic tourism as well. The May Day holiday this week here has been massive for the economy

[@bubba842]

Yes, it has taken many flights out of the air. Which is better for the environment. But EE dosent care about that, more profits to oil companies makes the guy happy.

[@grahamturner2640]

@@bubba842 especially since so much of China’s airspace is controlled by the military, making existing flights have worse on-time performance. I think with China’s big 3 airlines, on-time performance is on par with that of the big 3 New York City airports.

[@horizonoftheeast]

It does. Some short-to-mid length mainline flights are eliminated after HSR commenced operation, and almost no airlines in China run short haul flights and small planes like what SkyWest or other connector airlines do. They start with 737-level mainline planes

[@TimurTripp2]

I liked the bit at the end about wanting to drive vs. needing to drive. 100% agreed. Driving isn’t inherently bad when it’s optional (for e.g. mountain trails, longer road trips), but people’s homes and places of work should have other options.

[@shapshooter7769]

But that doesn't satisfy the suburbanites - cheap housing and accessible workplace commute.

[@k31than]

Some (most?) people in the US be like, "Don't take away my gas stove!", "Don't take away my meat!", "Don't take away my gun!", and "Don't take away my car!" Because they only think about themselves while not considering how what they want could negatively affect other people around them. It's always "my rights, my rights, my rights! I don't give a s-- if it inconvenience you or even harm you! It's still my rights! My [persona] freedom and religious beliefs trump over your safety and your health!""

[@IntoTheOrdinary]

I'm terrified of ever getting destroyed by one of your videos. But I would welcome it after having overcome from the groinal painage. 👍 Keep 'em coming.

[@TheSharkasmCrew]

Terrified? Don't be. He doesn't really raise many substantial counter points in these kind of videos, he's more preoccupied with derisive mocking and distracting non sequiturs, which might entertain some but shouldn't change the mind of anyone that's really listening. Example of the latter in this video: - EE talks about the debt burden of the chinese high speed rail project, and that it's not great - Alan talks about the poorly placed stations, which sure enough also seems to be a problem for them - "See, THATs the main flaw, not any monetary issues." without giving a single argument as to why there are no monetary issues 😂who let this man cook Example of the former: entirety of the video.

[@OzixiThrill]

@@TheSharkasmCrew Except Alan starts by pointing out that the Chinese were using that money on a public works project developing infrastructure (even though it had it's flaws) the same way that the US was using their 700 billion to just pay the banks that have fucked up so hard that the economy almost collapsed so they can do it all over again. Which one was the smarter way to incur more debt? But I guess hyper-focusing is an issue with you? Or do you just simply think that enabling gambling addicts to cause economic issues with their stupid bets again is somehow a smarter play than literally anything, including setting said money on fire? In either case, the arument for why the money spent on the project was not as big a deal as people make it out to be was presented. You stating that there was no argument is pretty clear evidence of who was "really listening"; That being not you, in case the insinuation wasn't blatant enough.

[@TheSharkasmCrew]

@@OzixiThrill timestamp me to when that argument was laid out and I'll gladly re-watch 😊 thanks. The arguments should be made in the video, not the comment section. If that's the point he wanted to make he would have made it. I stand by my points, most certainly about the fact that Alan (when making videos like this but also more generally) plays heavily into derisive commentary which isn't helpful for a constructive dialogue at all. Quit simping and use your brain.

[@TheSharkasmCrew]

@@OzixiThrill Listened to that section again, parts of it form a good counter-argument, but parts of it are also non-sequitur arguments (EE never said bailing out banks was a good use of public money, and never said debt incurred that way is more justified than debt incurred by the chinese rail system.) And even still, the section is riddled with cringe sarcasm and wiser-than-thou haughtiness.

[@OzixiThrill]

@@TheSharkasmCrew I guess you've found the part I was referring to on your own, so I'll disregard your first comment. With that bit out of the way, to actually explain why it's at least a mildly relevant point trying to illustrate how it was at least a somewhat efficient use of money, rather than a straight up non-sequitur. EE's case was that the 900 bn$ spent on the railroad project by China was a colossal waste of money. Alan's counterpoint to this was that rather than being a waste of money, it was primarily an economic stimulus meant to revitalize the economy (as large-scale government contracts have the potential to do) and contrasted this with the recovery attempts by the US during the same recession - 700 bn$ to bail out the very people who fucked things to begin with. He also added to that that infrastructure projects are rarely directly profitable, yet often are beneficial economically in indirect ways. These two parts combined contextualize the money spent less as money wasted and more as the economic stimulus it was. In either case, depending on EE's position on the 2008 bailout (something I don't feel like finding out, as it would likely take several hours for only a mildly relevant point), the comparison is either an aptly placed heavy counter or a weak tu coque. PS - As for your preference on presentation style, I can't really say anything on it. Some people like the snark, some don't; And it's definitely not my place to dictate to you what styles you should enjoy.

[@deehalvard5156]

🤔 hmmm, I see, very good explanation. So, the solution is to get rid of these “places people want to go” to get rid of the bottlenecks. 😂

[@robertcartwright4374]

And the great thing is, we can get rid of places people want to go to by widening roads, thus simultaneously increasing capacity while reducing demand! Equilibrium, here we come.

[@thatcarguy1UZ]

I absolutely agree with you 100%. I do have to admit that I also love driving, much like our Aussie friend. But you know what? I would also love to not have to drive everywhere or every day. I would love to commute to my office by bike (except on days with bad weather... I am not that hard-core). I would also love to be able to take the train/trolley to other locations I commonly work at when not in the office, or when the weather is not conducive to me cycling to work. I would love to only have to drive to the grocery store once/twice per week and use transit or bicycle for most other local transportation needs.

[@bunkie2100]

The "Places People Want to Go" whiteboard really made my day! "Leftist Infighting Arena", indeed. I can see it now: "Next week it's the People's Front of Judea facing off against the Judean People's Front! Don't miss it!"

[@dasemicolon627]

Another point is that induced demand isn’t instant. The building that comes with a new road being built or expanded takes time to generate traffic

[@poetgooner]

At 4:28 it's probably a bit unfair to compare building HSR to remote areas and building railroads to remote areas. The former doesn't make economic sense because there wouldn't be effective demand for it. The latter makes sense because it can carry freight which opens up economic opportunities for those remote areas, such as delivery agricultural and industrial goods.

[@AverytheCubanAmerican]

Love how the power of the algorithm is randomly like "Hey, wanna watch the BBC shut down their analogue channels?" like it does at 0:02 and of course I'll say yes because my interests are all over the place. 😂 And Alan is the last I'd expect to see do donuts in a snowy parking lot but here we are and I am all for it. But that's not what this video is about. So that aside, I'm glad you set the record straight. Exactly, this same argument against HSR because it goes to rural places can be said about our Interstate Highway system. If we can build a highway system THAT big, then we have NO excuse not to build a national HSR system too! China has clearly shown that size doesn't matter. And while China Railway is in debt because of the expansion push, it's all worth it because it unifies the country and serves the people. Which is what rail is supposed to do! 5:32 That's only one of Wuhan's main rail stations, serving the east-west line between Shanghai and Chengdu, and it's already considered the closer of them to the city center. There's another station for the north-south line between Beijing and Guangzhou even further away, like 14 km northeast from the city center. And in China, a station outside the population center is not that bad. It can trigger demand for better rapid transit (like subway, light rail or even BRT) inside the city because the HSR station is on the outside, so it needs transport that act as a feeder, and most of the cases are heavy metro, but some in China also have light rail or BRT connection in addition to a subway line. Also, most of China Railway was built after the 50s and China was poor at that point so CR was much more focused on long distance passenger and freight transport (it's only in the last decade CR really started to be bothered with suburban commute)

[@CptKickons]

The brain dead car infatuation is quintessential Australia, especially Sydney

[@PeidosFTW]

15:20 this drawing broke me for some reason, the car brain virus is real

[@Mattman993]

I do love the “I don’t give a fuck no matter what you say, I’m thinking with my feelings”

[@sammysalter]

i didn't understand your response to the induced demand bit. as i understand it ee was saying "adding more lanes doesn't increase the number of cars, they are just correlated" and your response was "adding more lanes isn't an efficient way of transporting people because bottlenecks exist". While he did make an aside point about efficiency you were addressing I felt you were talking past each other on the specific point of induced demand. Do you agree it's not a thing, or was your point about efficiency meant to show more lanes cause more cars in some way i missed? Also i didn't mind him being positive about his feelings towards cars, he's not discrediting his video just to talk about how he feels, but i guess you are playing to the crowd here.

[@innocentsmith6091]

Welcome to every city planning youtube channel.

[@fyang1429]

Public infrastructure can make money - the now privatized rail companies in the densely populated Honshu actually are quite profitable and they partially subsidize the unprofitable rail companies elsewhere in Japan. A major economical problem of the Chinese HSR is that it's fare is too cheap so almost all routes operate unprofitably, to the degree that the interest of the debt became larger than the operating income (in a sense that may also be comparable to some insane American roads). While public infrastructure doesn't have to make money, it should not generate too much unnecessary loss, which is why cities now opt for BRT instead of subways when possible.

[@fyang1429]

Another problem is China didn't just build HSR, it also build roads - like 8 lane highways between small regional cities (imagine such things being built between Toledo and Fort Wayne). Such dual system are quite under capacity so I can't say they make pretty much any sense at all, even without the monetary concerns

[@ArchAangel21]

Alan: what you got there? EE man, holding a big check from ford: a smoothie …

[@Evergreen2219]

I miss when I lived in Barcelona for a semester and didn’t have to time going to class because if I missed the train, the next one would arrive in less than three minutes. Beautiful.

[@KSPRAYDAD]

Economists are 1/2 right, 50% of the time, always after the fact. I was taught this on the first day of my 4 year Econ Hons degree.