Travel Musings

Sometimes you read something and you just can't get it out of your head. Like this paragraph from an article in this past Sunday's Times Magazine:

The sheer number of projects under construction and the corresponding investment in civic infrastructure — entire networks of new subway systems, freeways and canals; gargantuan new airports and public parks — can give the impression that anything is possible in this new world. The scale of these undertakings recalls the early part of the last century in America, when the country was confidently pointed toward the future. But it would be unimaginable in an American city today, where, in the face of shrinking state and city budgets, expanding a single subway line can seem like a heroic act. “In America, I could never do work like I do here,” Steven Holl, a New York architect with several large projects in China, recently told me, referring to his latest complex in Beijing. “We’ve become too backward-looking. In China, they want to make everything look new. This is their moment in time. They want to make the 21st century their century. For some reason, our society wants to make everything old. I think we somehow lost our nerve.”

The thought that the United States has lost its collective nerve, just as the entire world is in full swing modernization, is astonishing.

But the line that really gets me is this one: "we've become too backward-looking." Something about that line resonates with me. Look around you. Everything in the US feels like a throw-back. Musically, we're stuck in an infinite loop of the 50's through the 80s. Time travel entertainment almost invariably goes backwards. Even "modern" entertainment shows like Battlestar Galactica has a grungy, weathered feel. The issues being debated in our government are mostly issues aimed at maintaining the structures and practices of the past. Mention how far behind the US is in technological penetration (net usage, wireless speed, mobile phone coverage/usage) and people look at you as if you're insane.

This is the United States, we seem to be saying, we're #1.

This is a post-World War II mentality. The Baby Boom generation, bless our little plaque-filled hearts, grew up in an era of cultural, economic, political and military ascendancy.  We've (my generational companions and I) always felt that we were the zenith of all things cultural.

"We can change the world, Re-arrange the world," Crosby, Stills and Nash told us. And, we did.

The problem may be that once we did, we seem to have thought we were done. Everything was supposed to stay in place, just where we put it. Just as the rest of the world, Asia in particular at the moment, is leapfrogging into the next era, we're busy debating whether or not we should provide our citizens with universal heath care (cleverly stigmatized as "socialized medicine"; how idiotic, ever hear anyone call it "socialized police protection" or "socialized highway construction"?), distracting ourselves from the kinds of challenges (like national debt, Social Security insolvency and biotechnology innovation) that will soon put us in a position we haven't experienced since the pre-World War I 20th century: behind.

Comments

[Bradley J.Wogsland]

I'll be happy to call it socialized police protection. In some parts of the country people don't even have a right to self defense, but instead must retreat first. Places with high gun ownership rates where people police themselves are safer. Look at Kennesaw, GA for example.

I'll also be happy to call it socialized highway construction. We were all hunky-dory about subsidizing the big 3 in Michigan to the detriment of the evil railroads, but the incredible inefficiency of people driving themselves everywhere has led us to our current energy woes.

[Kristin]

I hope they keep some of their cool old stuff when they build all this new. And that they learn from all the mistakes the US and Europe made constucting huge project-like housing.
I think the US likes to harken back to the good old days since we don't have realllly old stuff like the Great Wall. We cling to Revolutionary War and Colonial looks since that is our old times.
And with the green movement using old is new.
I did like to read they are incorporating parks into the design.
And hasn't every new look been fought against and you had to have real nerve to propose something fantastic in this country?

[Tom Guarriello]

Yes, Kristin, the new is always resisted but we've been in some kind of time warp that this article just highlighted for me. Retaining tradition while forging ahead courageously: that's the key to vibrant growth. Thanks!

[Tom Guarriello]

Brad, as someone who spends a great deal of time in Manhattan I must say widespread gun ownership does not make me feel safer. Why do police departments in all major urban centers oppose gun ownership? My brother was a NYC cop for 20 years and I can tell you that while he supported every hunter's right to a rifle or shotgun, the Saturday Night Specials didn't make him feel too comfortable at all.

You don't really want to regulate how many people can be in an auto, do you?

Thanks, as always Brad. You're a thought-provoking reader.

[connie sartain]

Your comments made me think of letting go of old emotional issues that hold us back, national ones, such as "the poor will always be with us, there will always be war, no woman or African American will be president." And of course one of my all time favorite, the organizational hierarchy.