“Just one example, Singapore airport has several dozen PC’s for use by passengers with free internet. What is the last time you saw such facility in a US airport?”
Agree with everything you said, except I have actually seen such as setup at the Mpls-St Paul International Terminal. They have dozens of free Ipads for anyone to use, and when I was there, hardly anyone was using any of them! I assumed you had to pay for them, till my daughter picked one up and started surfing the web with it. I later learned they were provided by the restaurant within the terminal — the Ipads can be used to order food delivered to each table. But they told me they only had like 3 of them in the whole country...
I guess I have not been through Minneapolis airport. So I have no doubt at all those iPads exist.
Singapore airport is big, with electric train connecting various sections. The PC’s were placed by the airport itself because they were not part of any restaurant or other private business. There were plenty of them in all sections, with nice large monitors. I really needed to email my ride in Seattle about my arrival time so came in very handy.
Even more impressive is the highway connecting the cruise terminal to the airport, a distance of 10-12 miles. Most of it is underground to bypass city traffic. My taxi flew through it at max posted speed. It was just after 9 am so had to be still rush hour. The entire tunnel, several miles long, is well lighted and modern looking. The last mile or two the highway comes out of the tunnel, and there were pretty flower trees on both sides of the highway.
The cruise terminal is the best I have seen, and I have seen many on my 25 or 26 cruises world wide. 1 in 6 citizens of Singapore is a millionaire, so it is the highest concentration of rich people per capita in the world. And all this progress was done in just a few decades starting with the post-British era.