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Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

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Re: Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

#381

Post by anticodon »

47282847 wrote: post #247
anticodon wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Infrastructure is expensive. It costs lots of resources and human labor and intricate planning (most SE Asia cities are not looking like anything there was planned). Most countries on the planet simply cannot afford good infrastructure. I'm almost sure there's not even enough resources like energy and metals to create a good infrastructure in every country on Earth.

> I'm almost sure there's not even enough resources like energy and metals to create a good infrastructure in every country As better public transport infrastructure vastly reduces the number of cars, and centralizes the requirement for both material and energy, I doubt that is the case. Buses and trains need far less of both than the population-equivalent number of cars/motorcycles.

Infrastructure is not only cars/buses. It is also: roads (paved roads), electricity lines, water pipes, bus stops, traffic lights (you won't find many traffic lights in SEA countries), train stations, railroads, etc.

It's evident if you live for several months in almost any SEA city, that they lack even basic infrastructure. I'm sure it's not only matter of negligence, they simply cannot afford many things that people in developed countries see as granted.

Re: Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

#382

Post by 47282847 »

anticodon wrote: post #381
47282847 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm almost sure there's not even enough resources like energy and metals to create a good infrastructure in every country As better public transport infrastructure vastly reduces the number of cars, and centralizes the requirement for both material and energy, I doubt that is the case. Buses and trains need far less of both than the population-equivalent number of cars/motorcycles.

Infrastructure is not only cars/buses. It is also: roads (paved roads), electricity lines, water pipes, bus stops, traffic lights (you won't find many traffic lights in SEA countries), train stations, railroads, etc. It's evident if you live for several months in almost any SEA city, that they lack even basic infrastructure. I'm sure it's not only matter of negligence, they simply cannot afford many things that peopl…

I agree on the difficulty of distribution of resources, just not the idea of there being a lack of them. Maybe not relevant for any practical purposes.

Re: Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

#383

Post by silentguy »

rothos wrote: post #333

> The U.N.'s report highlighted what areas are expected to be the next megacities and surpass the 10 million mark, including: > [...] > - Hajipur, India. Estimated population of Hajipur in 2025 is 213k people. Not sure why it's on the list. Throws the rest of the article into question for me.

I have sent an email to the contacts listed in the press release regarding this. Let's see what they say.

I believe you are correct. They have made a mistake in the report. Hajipur is a small town near Patna, Bihar which is much bigger than it is.

Re: Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

#385

Post by apelapan »

tanjtanjtanj wrote: post #356
apelapan wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't feel that AQI in reasonably normal ranges corresponds at all to the subjective experience of how nice the air feels to breathe. The best breathing I've done was in Mumbai. Felt like a silk blanket both in the lungs and on the skin. I'm sure it would be bad for me if I stayed there a few decades, but it didnt feel bad at all when visiting.

Are you from Mumbai? or a place with notably bad AQI? Do you smoke? Mumbai is one of the most polluted cities on earth, many people report being unable to perform aerobic exercise or describe breathing the air as being similar to smoking.

I'm from a place with excellent AQI (semi-rural Sweden). I do not smoke. I usually don't mind when other people smoke, but I don't like how they smell just after finishing. :-)

I know that the Mumbai air is not healthy, but my subjective experience of it was very positive.

Re: Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

#386

Post by pezezin »

mc3301 wrote: post #358
pezezin wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Japan and this is something that I will never get used to. Yes, the people are quiet, but shops are ridiculously loud. Go to any supermarket and there are seven different jingles playing in parallel! Honestly, I don't understand how the employees don't go crazy.

I've known a few younger people who can't go into shops they used to do their part-time work (バイト) at, simply because the looped jingles did, in fact, drive them nuts.

That is sad, but kind of expected.

But seriously, why do the shops do that? Why does nobody complaint? Do Japanese people really like those jingles?

Re: Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

#387

Post by kafkaesque »

wraptile wrote: post #371
kafkaesque wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Learn how to avoid peak traffic hours." Most people living in Bangkok cannot do this. Also, a very high percent of the time, the Icon Siam area is extremely congested (even on weekends). Yes, you can avoid living in or going to that area, but there are also very few nice areas in Bangkok in general. Most don't have the luxury of the flexibility to avoid certain areas and/or certain peak travel times (which in BKK ar…

> "Learn how to avoid peak traffic hours." Most people living in Bangkok cannot do this you can absolutely do this. Once you learn how to live there and design your own routes with motorbike taxis, sky train etc you do save a lot of time. It's still quite bad but it's 20 minutes vs 2 hours sort of better.

Every time I tried taking a motorbike taxi, they charged me probably three times more than a local to just travel maybe 1km, not to mention Bangkok has one of the deadliest roads in the world, if not the deadliest. I have explored pretty much all of Bangkok and I don't think the MRT and BTS are as convenient as some people make it out to be. It is built as it is in any other city where it's very concentrated around the city centre but anything right outside of that is terrible.

Also, for two weeks in December you have the Red Cross festival. I challenge you to schedule your day every single day to avoid that mass of hell if you live anywhere in a 2km radius of that. Even if you call a tuktuk or a motorbike, they will absolutely NOT come to get you if they think there's too much traffic, or worse, they will tell you to get off somewhere where it's convenient for them.

Like a lot of foreigners, you seem to have built your life avoiding many things in Bangkok, which you can do in any city, but that's not the point. You are compensating for how poorly the city is built and how poorly the city is ran. A city is not appealing if you have to self-impose so many restrictions and find so many workarounds.

Re: Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

#388

Post by socalgal2 »

rester324 wrote: post #366
socalgal2 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tokyo isn't loud at all. Go 2-3 blocks from any major street and they are practically silent. > drunk people singing on the streets never seen this > bousouzoku gangs constantly revving their bikes in silent neighborhoods every night seen this maybe twice in 25 years > flight traffic noise do you live next to the airport? this is not a thing relatively to any other major city I've lived in > railroad noise of the tra…

Well, then it's clear you don't have enough experience to objectively judge the situation. I lived near 5 different stations in Tokyo in 10 years and all of those were how I described it. I also lived in Saitama and Kanagawa. It's the same there too. Maybe you should get more exerience first and live longer in Japan?

I lived in Japan 2x long than you. You just said you lived near stations so there you go. Of course it’s loud next to the station. Walk 3 minutes perpendicular to the station and it’s silent

Re: Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

#389

Post by throwaway2037 »

jacquesm wrote: post #378
Muromec wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How often are you listening to your own native language and you are confused by two words that sounds similar It confuses the hell out of me when non-natives misplace stress in Ukrainian and use wrong cases. It's that I want to gatekeep, but above certain rate of mistakes it's just difficult to follow what is being said.

We have the same in dutch, but, surprise twist: it is often the dutch that get it wrong. And indeed, it is confusing, but then again, it is just a bit of noise injected into the bitstream and easily worked around once you attune to that particular speaker. Note that for people not attuned to a language some differences that are clear as day to the natives are absolutely inaudible. The difference between 'kas' and 'ka…

Why is this downvoted? This is a nice addition to the conversation. I see the same with Cantonese speakers. If you ask native speakers from Hongkong, Macao, and Guangdong, all of them will say "the other sounds weird"... but they work it out. And all three groups are happy to listen to a foreigner speak Canto (yes, there are a few). All will probably say: "Weird accent, but I understand what they are saying." Plus, Canto language communities probably exist in over 50 countries in the world. All of them will have slight tonal differences.

Re: Jakarta is now the biggest city in the world

#390

Post by throwaway2037 »

tanjtanjtanj wrote: post #351
omaewabaka wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Japanese, I will mention that I've seen Japanese people correct each other on this, both in private and in public. Its because we might get the meaning by context, but if you pronounce it wrong, it sounds very strange in that context where its clearly wrong... To default to an assumption that this is due to racism / cultural gatekeeping says a whole lot about your world view and perception about Japanese people…

I mean there are widely spoken regional dialects that make no pitch distinction between the pronounciation of 橋 and 箸. You may get looked down on for not speaking the Queen's English (I mean standard Tokyo Japanese) but you are still speaking fully correct Japanese.

This is exactly why I say it is nothing but cultural/linguistic gatekeeping. Even natives between regions disagree on the "correct" way to pronouce these terms. This further proves to me how little Japanese varies throughout the country. It is freakishly regular for the size of Japan.

Consider a place like UK with four constituent countries: England, Wales, Scotland, and North Ireland (not to mention the channel islands and other oddities). They range of accents (without huge mountain ranges!) is wildly different. And the change in vocabulary for vernacular speech is far larger than the United States, which Google AI tells me is 40x larger(!).

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