251–260 of 374 posts
I cant speak to all this, but as an American doing a lot of work in London, wow transportation is incredibly great. Shockingly impressive. Traveling to London, and getting around London, and doing a lot of meetings in a small trip, is easier than anywhere in the US now because of how beautifully their transit system works (despite occasional delays which can be expected.) The rollout of the Elizabeth Line from Heathr…
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Right as an American this reads like "American who's never been to large Asian cities like Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing etc..
I'm with you. Tokyo is incredible. It's the only large city I've ever been to where I left thinking, "I'd love to live there." Transportation in Japan is a whole other level compared to my experiences in Germany and Austria. I've never been to England, though, so can't make that comparison.
Tokyo is just on another level entirely.
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The Elizabeth Line, formerly known as Crossrail, is a lot more similar to the hundred year plan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossrail My dad was a tunnels engineer and worked on Crossrail feasibility studies at several points in his career across decades. London is is many ways one of the less impressive subway systems simply because much of it is so old, with small trains running in Victorian era tunnels. Not as…
To americans, London public transport feels amazing. To rest of Europe, its lets say OKish
Granted, English is widely spoken in London and that's factor for cross-pollination of talent between the US and the UK. It also has an easier visa situation than the US.
On top of that, salaries in tech in London are much lower than the US [3]. The cost of living in London is actually pretty awful.
London's biggest problem is that the UK is no longer in the EU. Long term I see this as a strategic problem because (IMHO) the EU is going to be incentivized and ultimately forced to make their own versions of key US tech companies in much the same way as China has. And the EU won't want that outside of EU jurisdiction. It defeats the point.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/14/nearly...
[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/06/how-london-b...
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Some bits about the service can be pretty astounding. I used to live near the Central line. The station near home was open air and the exit was at the very end of the platform, so I always wanted to make sure I entered the train from the correct end. Service on the Central line is frequent enough (24 trains per hour off-peak), that, if I hopped off the train from the wrong end, the time it took me to walk the length…
Hah, the joys of optimising your morning commute on the Underground. “If I stand here on the platform, then the door will open right in front of me, and I’ll be exactly at the exit of the next platform where I need to change…”
I am completely biased but I think London is one of the best places to live in the world, everything considered. There's a guy on Instagram who spins a wheel for a random country and goes to eat that cuisine somewhere in London. There are maybe 1 or 2 places in the world you can do that. It's an incredible feat of human diversity to pack hundreds of global cuisines into a 10 mile radius.
You can do that in any big international city. NYC, LA, SF, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, and I'm probably missing a lot of them. Way more than "1 or 2".
I live in a big continental European city that also has a start-up hub. The companies here are also small, creative, solving problems, but don't necessarily aim for an exit and growth at all costs, many of them want to create a sustainable business solving a need that people have. I think, to the economist, these are just SMEs and a start-up is about making money, an IPO, an exit, the unicorns. And of course London a…
Europe has plenty of cities that are great if your goal is "build something useful, make money, don't sell your soul," and those don’t show up in these charts
I cant speak to all this, but as an American doing a lot of work in London, wow transportation is incredibly great. Shockingly impressive. Traveling to London, and getting around London, and doing a lot of meetings in a small trip, is easier than anywhere in the US now because of how beautifully their transit system works (despite occasional delays which can be expected.) The rollout of the Elizabeth Line from Heathr…
The Elizabeth Line, formerly known as Crossrail, is a lot more similar to the hundred year plan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossrail My dad was a tunnels engineer and worked on Crossrail feasibility studies at several points in his career across decades. London is is many ways one of the less impressive subway systems simply because much of it is so old, with small trains running in Victorian era tunnels. Not as…
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Thanks, good to know! How are the trains across the country though?
Trains are not an efficient use of time for travel within the US. The US is huge. If you were take a 300mph (nearing 500kph) train (which would make it the fastest train in the world), it would be OVER an 8 hour trip from New York to LA. (Again, about 2500 miles or 4000k) Even in some of the densest areas, the trip times end up being pretty long due to distances: dc to New York? 600 kilometers or almost 400 miles.
Sprawling, low density, single use zoning, combined with parking minimums, have much more to do with it.
Here’s a video that explores the topic if you’re curious https://youtu.be/REni8Oi1QJQ
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Thanks, good to know! How are the trains across the country though?
Trains are not an efficient use of time for travel within the US. The US is huge. If you were take a 300mph (nearing 500kph) train (which would make it the fastest train in the world), it would be OVER an 8 hour trip from New York to LA. (Again, about 2500 miles or 4000k) Even in some of the densest areas, the trip times end up being pretty long due to distances: dc to New York? 600 kilometers or almost 400 miles.
Let's take a hypothetical scenario:
- 5 hours flight time (average for NY and LA), 2 hours on each side to get to and from the airport to the actual city. Total is 9 hours.
- 10 hours train time and 1 hour on each end (which is generous given the proximity of train stations to city centers), 12 hours.
The difference is not that much, and a train ride is so much less faff than a flight that it's not even funny. Little to no security theater, you don't get fondled by security agents, you don't have to stand hours in line with silly passport controls and luggage checkins/pickups. And the list goes on.
A good train infrastructure can be vastly more pleasant than a good air infrastructure. Where air wins out is intercontinental flights where trains are truly not an option anymore.