Has Suburbia Corrupted America?

Has America's affluence and comfort -- personified by the suburban dream -- left the country too weak to fight a war?

1 minute read

January 8, 2002, 6:00 AM PST

"If you fly over Scottsdale, Arizona, and look down at the vast brown desert, here and there you see little ribbons of green fairways, with country-club communities clustered around them like reeds around pondstile-roofed McMansions with mouse-pad lawns and little blue dots where the backyard spas are. Along the nearby roadways you can see massive two-tier malls. In the front tier are strings of chain restaurants that, if they merged, could form Chili's Olive Garden Outback Cantina, serving enough chicken wings to fill a canyon... America is perpetually on the brink of being corrupted by its own affluence--but only on the brink. We are less shallow than we appear..."

Thanks to Chris Steins

FULL STORY: On the Playing Fields of Suburbia

Sunday, January 6, 2002 in The Atlantic Monthly

Social / Demographics United States

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