People who have never been to L.A. really have no idea how insanely huge it is. Driving to my apartment from the start of city (before you even get to L.A. county) and having the city just keep going and going and going for two hours and not because of traffic jams is something you have to experience to truly understand.

  • bstix@feddit.dk
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    3 days ago

    Taking the idea further, it is notable that the entire population of California is smaller than that of Tokyo.

    Tokyo is also unfathomable large, but the most astonishing thing is the amount of people. Tokyo has about 10 times the population of L.A. on an area of the same size. Of course there’s traffic jams too, but not as bad as in L.A., because the metro system is a lot more efficient than the highways. During rush hour each train carrying thousands of people depart from each station every 2-3 minutes. You have to see it to believe it.

    • Valmond@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Paris is quite insane too, smaller but with an insane number of inhabitants per square km. Their metro isn’t as clean but ut shuffles people around for sure, 650.000 passenger per day for metro number 13 for example. Or so it was when I lived there.

    • CitizenKong@lemmy.world
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      I was in Tokio last year and it’s really amazing. I have never seen such perfect efficiency and punctuality, and I’m German! A huge factor though is that all the people follow the rules and are mindful of everybody else. Nobody standing in the way, nobody pushing or shoving other people. Also, despite being a mindboggingly huge metropolis, there seem to be hardly any traffic jams. The world could learn a lot from Japan concerning transport.

      • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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        One of the big reasons we can’t have nice things in the US. High speed rail, for instance. There’s just plain old NIMBY, to start. Concern over property values. Then eminent domain. Then the lawyers drag it through courts over whatever argument because billable hours. We haven’t even looked at what expensive safeguards are necessary because every idiot will try to get around the rail crossing restrictions or do shit to the tracks thanks to “me first” and a complete lack of social responsibility like Japan displays in this context. Then every fool politician will try to starve it of funds because good public transportation costs money, and we can’t have evil taxes happening when you should buy a car or pay for an airline ticket. Hundreds of millions spent and we can’t even get started thanks to people just placing their wallets and special interests first.

      • EddoWagt@feddit.nl
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        2 days ago

        Even though Tokio is absolutely massive, it’s just a nice place to be. Not loud or overly crowded (apart from the tourist spots). Its clean and you feel safe. You also don’t feel like you’ll get scammed on every corner

      • groet@infosec.pub
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        2 days ago

        There is no reason to push and shove and stand in front of the door to get in before letting people out if there is a train every 3 min. Seen the same in Singapore. You arrive at the station, see your train is already there but you dont care. You dont run you dont rush because it doesn’t matter. You just take the next one

        • stormeuh@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          I’ve had the same experience in Copenhagen. Their metro is fully automated, and the schedule is published as “one train every x minutes during rush hour, every y minutes otherwise”, which is very nice. You just turn up at the station knowing you’ll only have to wait that many minutes. The automation takes it to the next level as well, because the trains run on this schedule through the night.

  • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    You know, this would be much more accurately captioned as a map of how a president could win with as little of the popular vote as possible. Lowest possible score is 21%.

    • doingthestuff@lemy.lol
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      3 days ago

      In a global warming world it’ll be prime real estate in a couple of generations though

      [slaps car] “this thing will hold so many… climate refugees!”

        • doingthestuff@lemy.lol
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          2 days ago

          If the Pacific gets warmer, it will eventually increase rainfall coming into the US west. Probably around the same time Wyoming becomes prime real estate.

          • Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 days ago

            Not a meteorologist but my understanding of the climate there, is that it is desert or close to it because of the topology. Very very windy where it isn’t mountains.

            And because I cannot try and know, this indicates it’s going in the wrong direction.

  • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Los Angeles County has a population of approximately 9.66 million residents, making it the most populous county in the United States.

    yawn No one cares. Especially Europe no longer cares about news from the divided states of southern northern america.

    • Texas_Hangover@sh.itjust.works
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      Here here! Fuck knows I don’t give two shits about Europe’s problems, yet for some reason, on an international forum, I keep hearing about it.

      • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Personally, I don’t care anymore because the DSA has turned full fascist, The only thing I care about is them not starting any more wars and for the decent people over there to somehow hopefully eventually win their country back from the MAGA maggots.

  • doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    LA does not have a bigger population than Georgia, and probably not Michigan and a few others. Map is bs.

    Still, a shitload of people in trouble rn

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      California, Texas, Florida , New York , Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio , Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan are the ten states that aren’t less populated than LA county, to save anyone else who’s curious from needing to look it up.

    • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Yeah it looks like NJ makes it in by the skin of its teeth and over that the top 10 most populous states all have more people in them than LA County — of which Michigan is one.

      • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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        Even that is capped though, so the smaller states are still vastly overrepresented. Living in LA means your vote is only represented at ~1/100th as much as the least populated areas. Because even the least populated areas still get a representative, but the populated areas are capped on how many they can have.

        • bluewing@lemm.ee
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          2 days ago

          But the power differential between large population states and small population states matters a lot. Ain’t much national news coverage of Vermont’s or North Dakota’s senators or representatives. But a California, Texas, New York, politician can get major news reporter’s ears in a heartbeat. Low population density state politicians either need some unique point to make or be batshit crazy to garner attention. And when was the last time a viable presidential candidate came from one of those low population states? Let alone actually achieved office? On the national stage, no one cares much about what happens in Montana or Minnesota.

          While I agree that California needs more members in the House, there is also a limit to just how much the House can expand before the whole thing becomes so unwieldy that it stops to function at all. Perhaps those large population states should be broken up into smaller population states to make a more manageable system of representation. But, I suspect California’s lack of representation per person will be be solved by the untenable living conditions they have created for themselves soon enough.

      • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Unfortunately no because in 1929 the House of Representatives got capped at 435. For example, a Congressman from California represented 494,709 people while one from New Hampshire represented 3,448 people in the year 2020.

        • blazeknave@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Maybe time for a Port of Oakland tea party but with… Oh wait… we don’t need imports from the rest of the country and should just stop paying taxes without representation or something

          • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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            I’m not an advocate of secession under normal circuimstances, what with the looming threat of WWIII if ever the power scale tipped against the USA, but it’s especially a bad idea when California is covered in fire.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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      3 days ago

      There are a lot of reasons to complain about L.A., but acting like Hollywood and L.A. are equivalents and Hollywood isn’t just a really shitty part of L.A. with a lot of tourists (so of course a lot of panhandlers will be there) is like acting like all of Las Vegas is just The Strip.

      Most of L.A. is not Hollywood. I lived in the Valley and you didn’t see what you’re seeing in that photo. The places you will see a huge number of homeless in L.A. are Hollywood, for the reason I already stated, Downtown because Skid Row is long-established and hospitals actually dump people there when they discharge them (when I lived in L.A., they dumped someone’s grandmother with advanced dementia there in a hospital gown) and Santa Monica and Venice on the beach because of both the tourists and the fact that sleeping on sand is a hell of a lot more comfortable than sleeping on concrete.

      Like I said, L.A. has a lot of problems, but calling L.A. a miserable dump based just on Hollywood is silly. Don’t base your opinion on a city on where the tourists go, it’s always going to be one of the worst parts of town.

      I lived most of my time in L.A. in North Hollywood. It has nothing to do with Hollywood proper. It’s in the Valley and there’s a mountain range between it and Hollywood. It was never like that when I lived there as it was gentrifying, and now it’s a hip arts district that you would have no real reason to see if you were a tourist.

      • Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 days ago

        Homeless: serious problem, been a problem. Heartless evil the way they’re treated now.

        Water supply: serious problem, been a problem. Los Angeles is the highest consumer of electricity in California, mainly because the energy is spent on treating and transporting water. Highly inefficient.

        Air pollution: serious problem, been a problem. Closely tied to…

        Traffic congestion: serious problem, been a problem.

        There has been major improvement in drug deaths. Actually quite good numbers there.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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          Okay, but your characterization as L.A. being full of panhandlers because of a photo of a bunch of people panhandling in a tourist area was not exactly an honest view of the city.

    • Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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      Maybe it was based off the 2020 census where it had a higher population, but even then it had less than Michigan, so idk where this is coming from.

  • vivavideri@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    NC has a higher pop than LA county.
    Wake county (NC) has a higher pop than MT.

    I lived near Orange for a while. The way the cities and towns have 0 gaps between them was nuts to me. It’s just… you cross the street.

    In MT you have 2 lane roads with several miles in between. The county I’m in now doesn’t touch the interstate. Wild.

    Also means the fires out here, as terrifying as they are to my hurricane-seasoned ass, are more likely to take out stuff in the middle of nowhere and a handful of houses, not entire swaths of suburbia.

  • scops@reddthat.com
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    3 days ago

    Which population numbers are you using for this graph? Census data for 2020 has LA county at 10.01 million and NC and Georgia at 10.45 and 10.73 million respectively. (for the second link, click on the Table 1 PDF. I didn’t want to link to a PDF directly). 2023 numbers seem to have LA county trending down while those states are trending up.

    It’s still a staggering visual to compare population densities. I just thought the claim was a bit suspect regarding my state.