While I agree that comparing China to California in terms of large scale engineering works is comparing apples to oranges (guess which is which). I disagree (kind of) on the following:
> There are also a lot of rather substantial engineering issues that have to be overcome in California
Japan is a mountainous, earthquake prone country, and they seem to have figured it out. The biggest problem geography-wise is probably all the NIMBY complaints. To be fair, they are really loud trains that would kill property values, and the complaints are valid. I think thats where a lot of those lawsuits are coming from.
> There are also a lot of rather substantial engineering issues that have to be overcome in California
Japan is a mountainous, earthquake prone country, and they seem to have figured it out. The biggest problem geography-wise is probably all the NIMBY complaints. To be fair, they are really loud trains that would kill property values, and the complaints are valid. I think thats where a lot of those lawsuits are coming from.