Big countries vs. small countries

[Joker]

crack

Hehe. You said crack.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I don't know what kind of natural disasters Netherlands experiences. I just took a guess.

I recall the recent worst was a storm surge from a North Sea storm in 1953 that topped many of the dikes. It was rather extreme. 1,800+ deaths.

The experience of that event got the Dutch to bolster sea defense engineering even further.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

"Whole nation prepares" means a different thing here in the USA than it does elsewhere when you're talking about emergency/natural disaster response.

1. American society is a lot more mobile than in most other nations, so odds are higher here that you'll know someone in the affected region.
2. We have the luxury of distributing our aid depos everywhere, in little hubs. The Red Cross had one for the Gulf states in 2005...located in New Orleans (oops!)...now they distribute things a bit more widespread.
3. Volunteers come from all over the country to help. I have friends & family who are responders- Nat'l Guard, police, FEMA, charities, insurance investigators, etc.- and they'll be packing their bags the night before something hits so they can get to where they're needed ASAP. I know Texans who went to Alaska to help with the Valdez cleanup. I'm sure there are Alaskans returning the favor now.

 

[Morrus]

There is a saying that a major difference between Americans and Europeans is that Europeans think 200 miles is a long distance, while Americans think 200 years is a long time.

I've never believed that saying.

There will always be anecdotal exceptions, but the average person drives a similar to work and other regular destinations wherever he/she lives. Whatever the size of the country surrounding us, we tend to live in our own "bubble" of that country. Both geographically and temporally.

Around larger cities, the commuter belt will extend the distance people travel to work - craploads of people commute 80 miles to London from here in Southampton, and further afield, for example - but most people work, shop, and play in the town or city they live in.

Sure, people will be able to relate exceptions to that general rule, but my experience has been that people do things similarly most places in the Western world. Maybe in a larger country they might have familiy who live halfway across the country, but they tend to see those people infrequently enough that it doesn't really reflect their daily lives.

(Cue "I drive 9000 miles to work every day!" anecdotes! )

 

[Mark]

Poll: Traffic in the United States - ABC News

BBC NEWS | UK | UK commute 'longest in Europe'

 

[Piratecat]

Morrus, just about all of my friends in the UK consider it a major undertaking to drive from southern England to Scotland. It's only 400 miles from London to Edinborough, though, which I don't consider bad at all. How long would the drive from London to Edinborough take?

I think part of the problem is that American motorways are designed for lots of cars traveling quickly; there are far more secondary roads in the UK, and perhaps that makes the driving both more tiring and more time consuming. We see this in the US as well. It's a pain in the butt to drive up here in the northeast: aggressive drivers, congested roads. It's much faster and more relaxing to drive out in the American midwest and southwest.

Plus, of course, your gasoline is about double the cost of ours.

Regarding history, I remember doing a seminar near Bath England and walking past a working pub which had been established before Columbus set sail to America. That made my brain hurt a little.

 

[Umbran]

There will always be anecdotal exceptions, but the average person drives a similar to work and other regular destinations wherever he/she lives.

I'm not talking about daily commutes. Folks are generally going to want to keep their daily commutes down to an hour or less. But when considering other travel, I think it does come into play.

 

[Morrus]

Morrus, just about all of my friends in the UK consider it a major undertaking to drive from southern England to Scotland. It's only 400 miles from London to Edinborough, though, which I don't consider bad at all. How long would the drive from London to Edinborough take?
.

Sure. But you don't drive it as part of your daily routine (to get to work, to buy groceries, to drop the kids off at school - for those that have them). The daily "bubble" is probably similar in size, and the mind tends to think in terms of the daily bubble.

Occasional longer distance trips - you'd be more likely to drive them than I would due to the lack of long straight roads here, but we're not less likely to travel them. I don't consider it a major undertaking to catch a train or a plane.

Maybe it's better summarised as "we'd be willing to drive less far"; but that's not a function of country size, it's a function of traffic density, winding roads, and fuel prices (as you mentioned). I think I'm just as willing to travel 500 miles as you are; I'd just choose not to drive it. But a country's borders doesn't affect that - it's just an arbitrary line. If where you want to go is on the other side of it, you travel over it; nobody's constrained by a wall (well, not anymore, anyway).

Anyway, I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything; it's not like it matters. Just saying I don't subscribe to that school of thought, and I'm not convinced that most people do.

 

[SKyOdin]

Last year, I drove from my native Sacramento, California down to San Diego for a job interview. It took the better part of a day to drive down there. I have also had periods where I have driven from Sacramento to San Francisco as a daily commute, and that is a two hour drive, if traffic is good. I wouldn't do that for more than a few days at a time, but it is doable. Getting between any of the major urban centers in California takes time, but you eventually get used to it.

It is rather amazing how different the terrain and culture are across the length of a single state like California. I couldn't even imagine what it must be like driving across the length of the country.

 

[Jdvn1]

...leaking dikes?

Runaway windmills?