When you look at a successful railroad like Tokyu or Odakyu, the first thing you notice is that it's permanently under construction
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When you build infrastructure that's designed to last too long, you can end up in a situation where nobody knows how to repair it when due
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There's a similar problem when infrastructure is built in a place which can't support its upkeep--
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You need your infrastructure to be replaceable, and you need the replacement to be scaled to the economy that relies on it
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Why did the Hokkaido Shinkansen's first segment connect Hakodate and Tokyo, instead of connecting somewhere to Sapporo?
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Because Tokyo can support a high speed line all the way to Hokkaido, but Sapporo can't (on its own) support one at all!
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If you're a small town--let's say Whately MA--and you have a limited-access highway running through town, is it bc of your town's economy?
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No, it's because your town is conveniently situated along a route that's anchored in a much larger economy (in this case, NYC)
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If such a highway weren't anchored to *any* such larger economy, it would still be paid for by the products of such a larger economy...
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...but as a money sink, never returning the value it's consuming. It's like a bad farm where determination to cultivate *all* the land...
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...despite the fact that some of it is, say, barren rock, ends up in ruin because the seed grain from productive patches was wasted on rocks
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