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Comment on Too bad we can't have good public transportation

Right now, the Chinese government has effective eminent domain powers which allows them to acquire property for which to build public infrastructure, both expressways and high-speed railways. That the Chinese people have no questions about the positives regarding HSTs, especially crunchtime during holidays where railway stations would be jampacked.

Why the US HST programs and passenger rail transport in general are at glacial pace is partly because of the usual car lobby, because of NIMBYs, because of cheap air transport, and some people now on online gambling instead of touching grass and tossing dice in Vegas.

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TassieTosser@aussie.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Doesnt the us also have those powers and didn’t they use them liberally in the construction of both the railways and interstates?

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- lechekaflan@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  That just changed completely, far cry when there was this Robert Moses had whole neighborhoods demolished for highways and rearranging whole cities. Now any sort of public infrastructure in the US does have to undergo scrutiny, whether it’s going to affect people or their mortgages or both.
  
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Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

Right now, the Chinese government has effective eminent domain powers which allows them to acquire property for which to build public infrastructure, both expressways and high-speed railways

I’ve heard people claim as much, but at the same time, Stuck Nail Houses exist, I’m not sure how to reconcile the two. I think it’s that their eminent domain is limited to property that was purchased after a certain point, so if it’s property your parents owned since the 80s, it’s literally easier for developers to route the highway around your home than win that lawsuit, but if they bought in like 2010, they can just give you a similar or better property, or the cash to buy one, and that’s that.

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- rustydomino@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  stuck nail houses 釘子戶 may apply in limited situations but there is no such thing as land ownership in China. When you purchase real estate in China you are buying the right to use the land for a period of time (I think it’s 80 years but don’t quote me on that number, I’m going off memory here) but the state owns the land. When the party wants to build something they are going to build it.
  
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- lechekaflan@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  There do exist stubborn nail houses but those are very rare occurrences in China where they do indeed fight to hold onto the land they consider their birthright property or believing to be much more valuable than their government tries to buy from them, the only few outbursts of dissent in a country that quashes dissent.
  
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