Eh? That list isn't ordered, so it's not clear what you mean by 'first'. The nine cities on the list are Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, London, Paris, Madrid, New York, Tokyo, and Guangzhou. Six of those are in fully operational democracies, two are in incompletely democratic but non-brutal post-colonial city-states, and one is in China.

What's really not surprising, of course, is that over half of them are in cities built by the British!

Eh? When I said the first I mean like... the first; not in a ranking system but in a left-to-right top-to-down standard English reading way.

Yeah; if by the British you mean actually the Honk-kong government that is the creator of the MTRCL, the company that build the system during 1979 -which helped them to receive a little bit of land- and became a private company in the year 2000.

Most of them weren't created by the British; who creates the rail system is the one that matters, not who "creates the city".

And the fact that so few of them are in America despite being bigger than all the other countries in the list (maybe even combined) and that so many of them are in Asia should help emphasize my point a bit because cultural aspects are also in play

American: Government wants my land to build a subway? Jackpot! I better give it a high valuation to squish as much money from them as I can; they screw my with taxes now I will screw them!.

Asian: The Government wants my land to build the metro system and they even will give me money for it? It's such an honor to be able to serve my community and all our generations to come with my little property.

That last bit about Asians makes me wonder if you have ever met a real Chinese person. Talk about give them a hand and they take your arm!!! It is a bloody tough business culture.