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.
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.