I've long since lost any interest in travel, especially within the US, because any unique character that distinguished one part of the country is either gone, or horrible. The same stores, chains, and products are available everywhere, with maybe a handful of regional variations that have been getting smaller every year. Every city has the same kinds of daring cultural fusion restaurants, the same theaters I can't afford, and the same shitty pop-punk-folk anarchist music scene. Unless it doesn't, and there just isn't a local music scene. It's all completely homogenous now. Everyone watches the same TV shows, everyone works the same shitty jobs, everyone lives in either the same shitty little apartment, the same overpriced luxury yuppie box, or the same alienating and horrible suburban tract house.
I’ve long since lost any interest in travel, especially within the US, because any unique character that distinguished one part of the country is either gone, or horrible.
"Prestige cities" are a very real and ruinous phenomenon and they're found worldwide. The world's being made more bland every year by chasing techbro-approved glass and steel aesthetics.
I've long since lost any interest in travel, especially within the US, because any unique character that distinguished one part of the country is either gone, or horrible. The same stores, chains, and products are available everywhere, with maybe a handful of regional variations that have been getting smaller every year. Every city has the same kinds of daring cultural fusion restaurants, the same theaters I can't afford, and the same shitty pop-punk-folk anarchist music scene. Unless it doesn't, and there just isn't a local music scene. It's all completely homogenous now. Everyone watches the same TV shows, everyone works the same shitty jobs, everyone lives in either the same shitty little apartment, the same overpriced luxury yuppie box, or the same alienating and horrible suburban tract house.
"Prestige cities" are a very real and ruinous phenomenon and they're found worldwide. The world's being made more bland every year by chasing techbro-approved glass and steel aesthetics.