I'm Impressed and Just a Little Scared -- China's City of 42 Million

I don't know whether I should be impressed, saddened, or just stay very very still and look away.  The Chinese have decided to create a beast.  By incorporating the 9 (quite large) cities of the Pearl River Delta, they will be making a megalopolis of 16,000 square miles -- 26 times bigger than the London metro area, and far and away the worlds largest city.   From Reuters:

"The idea is to merge all nine cities around the Pearl River Delta (under the aptly-named plan, “Turn The Pearl River Delta Into One”) and connect them via power and water, telecommunications networks and 29 new rail lines."

Now, while the 26 new high-speed rail lines are cool, and emblematic of China's commitment to come out on top of the race to modern transport, and the idea of dense urban living being modular (city centers linked by rail forming a network of urban cores) is on-track with most futurist visions for megalopolis living, the sheer SIZE of this project is terrifying.  If you ask me.

Russia invests in high-speed rail before their World Cup

In advance of their hosting the 2018 World Cup, Russia has announced bold plans to update it's rail between key cities.  Said Putin,

“[The tournament] will be a powerful incentive for the development of high speed rail services in the European part of Russia.”

He's promised a line that would connect all of the country’s host cities – Moscow, Kazan, Samara, and Ulyanovsk – by 2018.

Glance at a globe and you'll realize that this is no small feat . . . Even the "Eupopean part" of Russia, like the US, is quite a bit bigger than our quaint European examples of successful high-speed rail.  So while we rely on California and Florida to push us into this century, we'll be eating Russia's dust along with China's dust and that of the majority of developed nations.   It's not like we didn't try!  BILLIONS of dollars for rail projects have been rejected or returned to the federal gov't this YEAR!  I'm lookin at you Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois . . . .