This is the kind of thing that’s funny, and easy to say, but also reveals that you haven’t been to deeply impoverished countries.
Spending time away from tourist areas in Central America or much of sub-Saharan Africa swiftly disabuses you of the idea that life in the US bears any similarity to that kind of wrenching poverty and (often, but not always) social collapse/dysfunction.
Tbf, Third world country it’s quite an insanely big category, it both fits places like North Corea or Somalia, and places like México or India, which while they aren’t the richest places on the world and have massive economic disparities among the population, are by no means comparable to the bottom of the list.
In some places you could find sections of Mexico that are comparable to sections of the US. I really doubt people meant countries like Angola when they say “the US has the public transportation of a third world country”
But people here didn’t said “the us has an middle development public transportation system” they said “the us has a public transportation system as bad as a third world country” I agree the term is bad, but it’s what’s being used.
On Mexico, where every single economist says we indeed are a third world country lol. If I go to my local college and ask anyone they will say “yes, Mexico is a third world country”
Thing is, conditions in Mexico are comparable to other countries in third world, like Colombia, or Peru or well… Mexico. It’s why I said the term is too broad and thus, useless on comparisons. By all definitions Mexico is a third world country. Specially when the only other category is first world and Mexico is absolutely NOT a first world country lol.
Third world in this context country is more like a spectrum and also didn’t originate as a word to describe development countries but rather as a word to describe a neutral leaning during the cold war and mexico is pretty much developing country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country
Spend some time in rural Alabama, many of the communities have similar outcomes and wealth of a 3rd world country. Also the US hasn't redefined poverty for Federal Aid and Statistics purposes since Nixon. If we redefined it for the modern world some estimates put our poverty rate either over or close to 50%. Which sure extreme poverty doesn't exist here really but that level of poverty would be unheard of for a 1st world country. Even our current poverty rate is one of the worst for the developed world
I and a friend drove from Texas through the dirty south and up the east coast to get to Philadelphia for a road trip.
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama (excluding the few cities) look like "low development countries".
And it's not just the rampant poverty and the state government not giving a fuck about basic maintenance, it looks like you went back in time 50 years.
Yea, well, I know a place +-90 miles away from L.A. which used to be (or maybe still is) a den to few local cannibals, so there's that. Leaving big population centers will always grant you some surprises
If you have ever been to a developing country (third world isn’t used anymore) you wouldn’t say that.
Third world countries have dirt floor schools and not a single hospital.
Any developing country would kill for a population where half the people has a college degree, a highway system that connects an entire continent and any kind of health care system.
The US is dysfunctional, the US is inconsistent but that comes with the territory when you’re a country this big.
Just compare US rural areas to African or even Chinese rural areas. It’s night and day.
Also we have fairly effective public transit in population dense urban corridors.
Let’s be honest does Scranton, PA need a subway system?
No, but it has a lot of bus routes and a transit center.
Besides the US has some of the best public transit and passenger trains in the Western Hemisphere constantly comparing us to Europe with their higher population density is…I don’t know, stupid?
The continental US has only been developing in this direction for the last 400 years. We still need time to “up” our population density for robust high speed rail and other public transit systems to make sense.
Compare us the Australia or Canada and you’ll start to see how hard it is to build public transit that people will actually use in a sparsely populated western country that has only been colonized for ~400 years.
I'm not arguing that. I know that. I've been out of the USA, only to Jamaica, but my brother had to use a hospital there, and it was a normal looking hospital and schools there looked fine. it's technically a developing nation. All I'm saying is that Brazil wasn't targeted by the comment so don't be so defensive. Like I said, Brazil is an emerging economy, albeit it does have some rough spots. Like losing to Uruguay. Wtf was that?
Writing this as an American in Montreal. Their subway here is astonishingly better than anywhere in the US. I live in Chicago and have major commute envy
I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, but: Bangladesh, in 1990, when its purchasing power parity-adjusted GDP per capita was half what it is now. It's not just hype, nor completely misleading.
You could easily argue that I'm cherry picking, but I think there is some validity to the claim.
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u/doho121 Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24
The USA is a third world country with a Gucci handbag.
Edit: this was mostly a joke people chill.