"America the Beautiful?" I don't think so.

[NightTrain]

Today, while making deliveries, I had to detour through not one, not two, but three of Hartford's suburbs due to roadwork. As I drove, something occurred to me: if not for the "town line" signs, I never would've noticed that I wasn't in the same town the whole way!

That got me to thinking about the three times I had driven across the United States between 1995 and 1997, and of all the driving I've done here in the Northeast since then. And judging from what I've seen, I have to conclude that America is not beautiful at all; it's fucking ugly!

Sure, we have our beautiful areas, but I'm talking about the lion's share of this country's landscape. For every Grand Canyon or Yellowstone Park, we have tens of thousands of square miles of strip malls, housing tracts, freeways, chain stores, abandoned buildings, landfills, dumps, and towns that mirror each other. What the fuck is so beautiful about that?!

Believe me, I take no pleasure in saying this about my country. Though I'm a relatively young 38 years old, I can still remember when the American landscape was nowhere near as ugly as it is today. And frankly, it breaks my heart. :(

[bif]

1. Just be thankful you don't live in Detroit

You wanna talk ugly!

[sir_captain]

3. Detroit is pretty much a dump

I'll second that

[sir_captain]

2. To be fair

the industrialized NE is a pretty small portion of the country. In much less dense areas, there are still a lot of pristine and lovely things to see. The Pacific Northwest, for instance, is pretty gorgeous. And that's coming from a die-hard, lifelong NYer.

[bif]

5. Vermont is pretty.

One of my favorite states. I love the fact that outdoor boards are banned there. That's one thing that makes Detroit so ugly--billboards everywhere.

[Bridget Burke]

8. Much of the NE is beautiful.....

Away from the urban sprawl. New York State, for example, has some of the most beautiful countryside I've seen.

Of course, a poet can find beauty anywhere. Robinson Jeffers did, in "Natural Music"....

The old voice of the ocean, the bird-chatter of little rivers,
(Winter has given them gold for silver
To stain their water and bladed green for brown to line their banks)
From different throats intone one language.
So I believe if we were strong enough to listen without
Divisions of desire and terror
To the storm of the sick nations, the rage of the hunger smitten cities,
Those voices also would be found
Clean as a child's; or like some girl's breathing who dances alone
By the ocean-shore, dreaming of lovers.

[sir_captain]

9. Oh, I agree

that's why I said the *industrialized* NE.

I think NYC is beautiful, too. And yeah, some places are very beautiful upstate--the Hudson Valley, for instance.

[HalfManHalfBiscuit]

4. Get on an airplane

Pristine or barely-disturbed areas dwarf developed areas, especially in the west and south. By orders of magnitude.

Big cities will always suck, but the country is hardly in ruins (physically).

[DarkPhenyx]

6. First thing...

...get off the highways. Backroads are much better.

[izzie]

7. I would say it is a mix.

I have seen good and bad all over from Alaska to Maine. It is the same in Europe. I grew up in a spot that all came to see for being lovely and I could look out every window in the house and see the light houses and sea. Now the same place is wall to wall houses. No one can see a thing but another house. It may be the pop. When I grew up in the 30's and 40's their were half the people we have now.