Comments by "Ralphie Raccoon" (@Croz89) on "The Netherlands is a Giant City" video.

  1. Consider that these countries cannot focus their infrastructure funding exclusively in these densely populated flat river valleys, and they usually have multiple flat river valleys separated by less ideal terrain. Imagine trying to tell your rural and low density suburban populations that you're slashing infrastructure funding for them and concentrating it into one or more high density city regions. It would clearly be politically untenable, any party trying such a thing would lose any support they had in those areas and would probably lose the next election. If the UK were to follow the Netherlands, whole swathes of the country, especially in Wales and Scotland, would have to be "sacrificed" in order to bring up infrastructure quality in London and the South East, maybe the West Midlands, the North West and Scottish Central Belt if they're lucky. Smaller cities too far away from larger ones would also have to be deprioritised.
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  2. Utrecht has a big university or two, so that could be considered the education sector.
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  3. One of the problems with the North West is the terrain around these cities is not like the Netherlands, as soon as you get out of the city you often get 300m+ hills which means connecting them is more difficult, and quite a lot of people live in these satellite towns around Manchester and Liverpool that are at different elevations. That makes it more difficult to build train lines, though in many cases they do exist thanks to the Victorian era railway boom they're usually not as high quality. Walking and Cycling is not as easy on often windy hilly paths even with e-bikes and the cool, wet climate doesn't help. Not to say things can't be improved, I personally think Manchester and Liverpool could do with better urban transit, even better than what many Dutch cities have, but the different environment means a copy paste job isn't going to work.
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