And yet if we look around, in any city or town in the US, it’s easy to see there’s still garbage needing to be picked up; old buildings falling apart; sidewalks and roads in need of repair; the need for more libraries and parks, more librarians, more teachers, more doctors, more first responders, more social workers, more… everything?

At best, the public realm meets, but almost never exceeds our, needs. Oftentimes it doesn’t even do that! Sure— if you’re fortunate enough, you can avoid the system altogether (private school, private healthcare, personal assistant to organize your DMV appointment, etc), but that just proves the point: what is there to be proud of?

There’s so much that needs to be done and yet we’re not doing any of it. Instead we’re mostly coasting on the infrastructure (imagine if building highways then took as long as high speed rail today), (what’s left of the) social safety net, and institutions we created in the 50s and 60s.

Why?