Broken record time -
Surely people see the straight line that is zoned car culture suburbia ---> American food culture. Drive in foodchains are a response to cars. Supermarkets & weekly out of town grocery runs are a result of cars. Americans have an oddly compartmentalized (because it somehow dissappears the second they step in Europe for vacation) dislike for density everywhere.
You fishmonger can't be colocated with your favorite restaurant, because no one randomly picks up fish on their way back home. One one makes fresh baguettes, because no one stops by bakeries to pick up fresh bread on the daily. When everything is out of the way, an organic culture of any kind struggles to develop.
There is a reason NY and SF have amazing food culture, and density has a lot to do with it.
I'll go one step further. (Rest of) America doesn't just have bad food culture. It has bad community culture of all sorts. Suburbia is literally characterized by being boring. Americans are perpetually scared of strangers and neighboring kidnappers.
The US had unfair stats. It has incredible nature and Americans are filthy rich. It's biggest cities have really interesting people and everything you can imagine, can be found in NYC.
But, that isn't the America people have built. Most Americans aren't in NYC. The nature comes for free and the money only serves to further highlight how little there is to spend on if you aren't in a couple of select cities.
Yes, it seems naive to point fingers at 1-repeat-offender for all of these problems. After, almost nothing is mono causal. But the 'almost' means that a select few things are indeed mono casual. I believe American 20th century urban planning decisions are 1 such offender.
Surely people see the straight line that is zoned car culture suburbia ---> American food culture. Drive in foodchains are a response to cars. Supermarkets & weekly out of town grocery runs are a result of cars. Americans have an oddly compartmentalized (because it somehow dissappears the second they step in Europe for vacation) dislike for density everywhere.
You fishmonger can't be colocated with your favorite restaurant, because no one randomly picks up fish on their way back home. One one makes fresh baguettes, because no one stops by bakeries to pick up fresh bread on the daily. When everything is out of the way, an organic culture of any kind struggles to develop.
There is a reason NY and SF have amazing food culture, and density has a lot to do with it.
I'll go one step further. (Rest of) America doesn't just have bad food culture. It has bad community culture of all sorts. Suburbia is literally characterized by being boring. Americans are perpetually scared of strangers and neighboring kidnappers.
The US had unfair stats. It has incredible nature and Americans are filthy rich. It's biggest cities have really interesting people and everything you can imagine, can be found in NYC.
But, that isn't the America people have built. Most Americans aren't in NYC. The nature comes for free and the money only serves to further highlight how little there is to spend on if you aren't in a couple of select cities.
Yes, it seems naive to point fingers at 1-repeat-offender for all of these problems. After, almost nothing is mono causal. But the 'almost' means that a select few things are indeed mono casual. I believe American 20th century urban planning decisions are 1 such offender.