> early British railroads cost $179,000 per mile to build

If that's in 1850 dollars, that's $7,434,833 in today's dollars. Incredibly cheap by today's standards. Today's railways have higher quality and standards of course.

Was posted just a few days ago -

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45869919

US has a culture of scaling. Having lived in London and many parts of the US, I could observe that Europe has economies of scope. And the US has economies of scale. A good example would be the Ford F150 and the Range Rover. One is highly reliable, built to capture the core value of a Utility vehicle, as cheaply, and as numerously as possible. The other tries to be the best possible version of an SUV. It’s not that the F150 is playing to the mass market. It’s just the maximum features, that doesn’t compromise scale. Many other examples like Southwest Airlines, McDonalds, manhattan’s skyline, Arm and Hammer, US highways, US Domestic Airports, Nike Vemeros, CVS, US Healthcare Triage and Emergency Services. It’s just less fancy, more accessible wealth creation.