Well, that depends a lot on where you are. Here in Bangkok, Thailand, that would cost $5.86 with standard delivery, or $6.28 with priority delivery. Basically comes down to the fact that labor costs are much lower here (minimum wage is $10 a day); delivery is done via scooter, rather than car (lower fuel costs); population density is high (restaurants are close to customers).
> We found that Haitians paid about $560 million in today’s dollars. But that doesn’t nearly capture the true loss. If that money had simply stayed in the Haitian economy and grown at the nation’s actual pace over the last two centuries — rather than being shipped off to France, without any goods or services being provided in return — it would have added a staggering $21 billion to Haiti over time, even accounting for its notorious corruption and waste.
Strange that the hundred of millions of debt to France is considered by some as a reason of missed opportunities for the country, but no one take into account as "true loss" the money that was embezzled by the presidents and co not so long after:
It’s believed that Papa Doc pocketed $150 million during his presidency, which is a pittance compared to the $1.6 billion his son grabbed
That comes out to foreign debt consisting of something like 2-3% of GDP. In the US, in the present day, foreign debt is like 6% of GDP.
By contrast, for what it's worth, France's payment to Germany after the Franco-Prussian War was about 22% of GDP. Paid over 3 years, so the payments themselves would have constituted like 7% of GDP.
Germany imposed another massive financial penalty on France after defeat in June 1940, too. I don't have the exact figures on me, but it was a) stupendously large and b) accumulated daily and paid monthly.
Is it just me or is no one addressing the most obvious disadvantage of this plan? Building a city along a "line" is simply a terrible idea. As far as I can tell, every major city in the world is based around a downtown "core" with less dense areas radiating outward from it, except where geographical barriers prohibit this. The advantages of this model are so manifold that I can't even begin to enumerate them—everything from (relatively) short commute times to equidistant access to central services from every direction. I cannot think of a single advantage of having a city that is a straight line.
Major cities in the world were built before linear mass transport like trains were invented, often around a single building of importance like a castle, church, or factory.
I guess it simplifies transport a great deal? You can just stack everything up and send it back and forth at high speeds, sort of like a conveyor belt. I suppose the natural equivalent is shipping and settlement along rivers like the Nile in Egypt?
One of their claims is that you can travel end-to-end in 20 minutes. If that actually worked and was easy to use I think most of your advantages would not be super relevant.
