The US was developed by the railway system and the railway towns
Australia IMHO has never tried to tackle decentralization so we have some of the (geographically) largest cities in the world, which as time goes by become more and more expensive and in-efficient just due to their size
The ancient Greeks put a size limit on their cities and the only expansion allowed was a new city
In comparison we appear to penalize satellite cities, before air travel was de-regulated all carriers where compelled to include country towns in their package with the costs averaged so that to fly to a place in the bush was cheap , now they concentrate only of the eastern majors and on top of that the government has surrendered most of the country rail systems and put increased pressure on the poor roads
Therefore IMHO we don't need fast trains but some proper planning and proper transport first
There is far too much done for political reasons regardless of the consequences and cost, practicalities and future planning is non existent
The Magly system is fabulous but don't put the cart before the horse
