(no subject)
Streets in Paris are long and wide so as to allow military to fire cannon balls at protesters. In the USA, suburbs were designed to prevent large gatherings of people: each person in their own home, no central meeting place that might facilitate organization among citizens. It's working. Since moving back to the United States my interactions with people has been extremely limited. I must fight against the design of antisocial infrastructure to form a band.
In her book, Somali author Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote about fleeing people who wanted to kill her. After a flight to the States, she hid out in all places, the town I grew up in, Andover, Massachusetts. There she described finding a barren wasteland devoid of human interaction. This is from a woman who'd grown up in Somalia, lived all over Europe. Pretty telling I think.
So I don't think I'm getting all wrapped up in my own narrow experience when I complain about living in this country. It is true that it is a big place where people can have diverse experiences, but it has some very fundamental and fatal flaws.