> You can drink alcohol outside but in the US people would just be drunks everywhere and trash the place. And they trash the place without drinking.
Maybe if 95%+ of Americans weren’t indoctrinated since WWII with the concept of “a single family home and white picket fence” as the American Dream (and anything else is to be thought of as less than), Americans would grow up with a sense of and respect for shared space and environment. Instead we usually look at anything that is not our home/backyard/frontyard as “not ours” and thus “not important”. We see this in the lack of flagship public plazas/squares that you can usually find in even small European/South American/Asian towns, but also the continued shrinking of funding for libraries, neighborhood parks, etc.
If there’s no public realm in the first place, it’s no wonder most who grow up have no concept or respect for it. It’s a vicious cycle, and one many Americans (regardless of political affiliation) will insist is the “only” way, and actively fight anything else, since it’s all many know.