Billions and billions of dollars have been spent on reviving the collapsed urban centers of America. Minor league baseball parks adorn forlorn cities in the Rust Belt. Even more desolate pedestrian malls mark failed efforts. St. Louis, Peoria, KC, Des Moines, Detroit, Providence, West Palm Beach and countless other towns have nocturnal populations numbering in the hundreds if not less and it is plainly clear that Americans just don’t like cities. In fact they fear them. TV and movies portray them as crime-ridden bastions of lawlessness, but they are more purgatories of wasted hope and the time has come to surrender them to nature.
In 2009 I was in Rockford Illinois.
6:30pm.
Not a single restaurant open. Not a gas station.
Only a Western Union.
The Same for St. Louis after midnight.
Adn I don’t see any revival on the way.
People are happy in the suburbs.
So let the cities burn.
Like the Huns torched Rome.
The skies will be red and then dark.
At least then we will see the stars.
Except in real cities like New York.
They will last for eternity.
They do not belong to the rich.