China approves $36B railway plan for Jing-Jin-Ji megacity

It still baffles me that there are over 100 cities that have more than 1 Mio citizens in China and I haven't heard of most of them. I wonder what their everyday life is about, what kind of subcultures exist, who are the people that are important for their local communities, what problems each city has. It can't be that each of those cities is just merely a copy of each other, although I understand that a lot of copy and pasting has been used in the planning of those cities. I also understand that the cultures in each city is not as heterogenous as western cities for a couple of reasons. But I still wonder: where will they go from there?

Every year I wonder if Americans will finally learn how to build some proper trains.<p>Not like hyperloop or self-driving fantasies, not fake trains like dedicated bus lanes or incompatible Airtrain type projects.<p>Just some normal fucking trains. Trains with steel wheels that go pretty fast, that run on a consistent schedule between center city downtown areas and airports and so on. Like the kind every European country figured out how to do properly like decades ago, and that northern Asia has completely leapfrogged us in by now as well.<p>Like I want to go somewhere, so I figure out where the nearest train is, get a ticket, get on the train, and go to the place. Why is this so fucking difficult?

It still baffles me how the United States is unable to do anything similar. Our projects are half the size and double the cost. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.latimes.com&#x2F;local&#x2F;california&#x2F;la-me-bullet-train-cost-final-20151025-story.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.latimes.com&#x2F;local&#x2F;california&#x2F;la-me-bullet-train-c...</a>

And at the same time they&#x27;re thinking about connecting Beijing and Shanghai via maglev train. [1] Could be hugely successful, the current line (5hr trip) is already at capacity and there&#x27;s a lot of air traffic.<p>Offering a 2.5hr drive between the 2 major cities should pay off financially.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scmp.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;china&#x2F;economy&#x2F;article&#x2F;2049785&#x2F;china-tries-catch-japan-maglev-train-can-exceed-600km&#x2F;h" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scmp.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;china&#x2F;economy&#x2F;article&#x2F;2049785&#x2F;china...</a>

$36,000,000,000 is such an unfathomable amount of money. I know it&#x27;s mostly done in debt&#x2F;etc, but jesus, taking a second to think about the <i>quantity</i> itself is mind bottling.<p>Edit: 36B, not 360B, but still damn -- that&#x27;s a lot of money.

This could be a infrastructure stimulus project that helps millions of construction worker (railway construction for the most part) stay employeed. And it will also help alleviate the pressure of highly populous capital metro: skyrocketing real estate market (due to supply-demand imbalance), traffic congestion, garbage processing, food&#x2F;water supply, all become a big headache when Beijing has to support 23 million people (probably more if you count those unregistered migration workers etc.)

Just spent 2 weeks in Japan using their incredible Shinkansen trains. Every single train was on time and they were so clean and comfortable with about a metre of leg room.