That's an entirely separate issue, isn't it? In my country (New Zealand) there are no requirements to have auto insurance. If you don't have insurance and you hit a million-dollar car you're gonna be in an awkward situation, but that's a risk you're allowed to take.
Note that you _are_ legally required to pay your annual ACC levies, which fund no-fault cover for injuries. However that doesn't cover property damage.
Credit scores are universally hated but they make it possible to offer lower interest rates to more people. Without credit scores, fewer people would have access to credit.
Similarly, people often don't like it when insurers track and score their driving. However, this allows insurers to offer lower insurance fees to more people by _not_ offering lower insurance fees (or instead charging higher fees) to people that are driving in a risky manner. This does of course assume a competitive market for insurance but I think in most countries that's a reasonable assumption.
There's nothing fairer than user-pays, especially when users can choose to pay less by changing their behavior.
Mostly it's a consequence of population density. There's just not enough large cities close together.
I think it's probably also correct to say that New Zealand could sustain a larger passenger rail network if made the right investments. For example, Auckland <-> Hamilton <-> Tauranga could profitably support at least a few trains per day in each direction... _if_ it was electrified, with passing loops where needed, and with well-sited stations, and with the ability for trains to run into Britomart or at least Newmarket (both being stations close to central Auckland). However, there's a chicken and egg problem: unless you make investments like that, the service you can offer will be pretty crap and no one will want to ride your slow trains.
If each human body needs 0.2 acre of land to grow the food necessary for subsistence, what happens when the price of intelligence keeps dropping and one person's intelligence (even when directed towards the highest-value use!) is not enough to afford the use of that land? In other words, what happens when humans are no longer economically viable?
Jevon's Paradox means that the demand for intelligence will keep rising as the cost drops, so I can't help but expect a steady increase in the economic value of land _when used for AI_. It'll take a long time before it exceeds the economic value of land when used for human subsistence, but the growth curves are not pointing in encouraging directions.
I grew up in rural New Zealand, on a dairy farm. I agree that the needs of suburban and rural communities are very different from the needs of urban communities, but what confuses me is why Americans (and increasingly, Kiwis) need a vehicle the size of a Dodge Ram rather than one the size of a 1990 HiLux ute [1].
San Francisco owes its growth as a city to the fact that the Bay provides a connection between the Sierras (and their goldfields) and the Pacific Ocean.
Regarding Boston, the interesting thing is that it used to be connected to the Merrimack via the Middlesex Canal. My understanding is that this is silted up now (which you presumably already know) but it shows how many more connections we used to have.
I've watched this being built and it's been really cool seeing how well SolidJS works. I was initially dubious ("No one gets fired for picking React", right?) but it seems like it made for really easy development.
How hard would it be to add a choropleth view showing metrics such as 1-year 24-hour depth across the globe?
#/media/File:1990-1997_Toyota_Hilux_(LN106R)_DX_4-door_utility_(2007-09-28).jpg){kind=link}
Note that you _are_ legally required to pay your annual ACC levies, which fund no-fault cover for injuries. However that doesn't cover property damage.