I’m back in the states for holidays but this time it was such a shock to realize everything looks so old, like from the airport to the convenience stores, malls, gas stations, etc. Why does everything look like it hasn’t changed from the 90s? And I was out just for a couple of months but things look newer and shinier in Panama and El Salvador compared to here. I cannot even imagine what some of you coming back from east Asia must feel. Did our country peak in the 90s and other countries are going through their renaissance? I love the convenience of the US where everything is open 24 hrs and you can get things delivered to your door basically overnight if you pay the price but I feel like we’re stuck with very old and boring infrastructure, makes me feel almost the same way I felt when I went to eastern Europe
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Because American infrastructure is crumbling to the ground, authorities are just deflecting waiting for their turn to funel public funds into their pockets through foreign invasions/“cultural” programs.
America needs leadership and it needs it now.
Did we peak in the 90s? More like the 50s. That’s when much of our infrastructure was built…
trillion dollars spent on the wars in iraq and afghanistan instead of local infrastructure
And also the billions sent for Ukraine and Israel.
God don’t remind me
yeah, I’ve noticed that too. It’s like the US is stuck in a time warp. It’s surprising to see how much newer things look in other countries. Maybe it’s time for some serious infrastructure upgrades in the US.
I love the convenience of the US where everything is open 24 hrs
Lolwut
Even in major east coast cities it’s a struggle to find anything open 24/7 outside of NYC
You answered your own question. Obviously the US peaked first. It doesn’t look like it changed since the 90s because it hasn’t.
They use their money on wars, not their own country or its people… simple as that.
Lol, how can people be so incorrect?
I think the US spends too much on Military, but it still was less than 12% of federal spending in 2022.
The 90s were a great time
Basically downhill since then. Just shows that nothing is static, everything changes. Maybe when we’re all old farts the US will be on top again, or maybe not. That’s why I value being mobile.
In the 90s they were designing buildings for low maintenance - older buildings need to get a lick of paint every few years but newer buildings get left for much longer - eventually someone has to decide whether to spend a large amount of money to refurbish a building that ain’t that pretty…
It doesn’t? You just are in a shitty area
OP hasn’t stepped out of the newest Asian megamall and thinks the entire continent is like that.
It’s because our Constitution is so old and government doesn’t serve the people anymore.
The simple answer is that the US is in decline.
It’s a slow decline, barely perceptible, but historians centuries from now will point to the country’s crumbling infrastructure, lawlessness, and profound social division at this time as emblematic of its inevitable downward spiral.
Ray Dalio has a fascinating (if long) video on YouTube that talks about empires and their rise and fall and in it he hypothesizes where the US is on its decline. Its early, but it is in decline
lawlessness? Crime has declined sharply from our ‘prime’ decades, the 80s and 90s. The problem isn’t that we don’t have enough police, the problem is an extreme wealth divide and a government that is uninterested in investing in the future.
Not really what you were getting at, but actually yes the US did peak in the 90s. It was the height of our global power and influence before 9/11 and the forever wars. We had high quality of life, and a political climate that was far less polarized.
This right here. This is so true.
It’s been a 20 year triple whammy of 9/11, the 2008 market crash, and then Covid coming along and deeply splintering society even more than it was.
The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.
Not a fair comparison. Are you referring to the US as a whole and comparing to another city?? Yea I agree with others you haven’t traveled much.