Uhh... ok. If you drive a few minutes past the horrifying automotive blight you arrive at... a shoulderless road going through an empty field. It's not a suburb, but it demonstrates the problem with car-centric development and sprawl. I grew up in a similar area a couple hours away, and it was a terrible place to be a kid. Yeah, I had some fun exploring the woods by my house until I got old enough to be bored by it, but that cost was that I never got to see other kids or go anywhere without having to bother my parents to arrange something and drive me somewhere. I always figured that suburban kids got to play with other kids all the time, but the impression I get is that this doesn't really happen. Suburbs are still car islands, and a kid has to be pretty lucky to have other kids their age they get along with in their general vicinity.

Instantly recognized is an interesting characterization for a place that has no distinct visual characteristics at all (which I think was your point). Although I tend to agree with most urbanist arguments, many people limit their animosity to critiques of the physical land use patterns, but stop short of being so critical towards the emptying of unique cultural capital a place might otherwise have if it weren't filled with only the blandest low-risk franchise investments like Starbucks, Dairy Queen, etc...

In Canada, most towns look 95% alike to this the one you linked, with the exception of a few franchises that don't cross the border. That means I can drop a street view pin in any "neighborhood" that was built in the last decade (often including many mixed-use or more contemporary building types), and more than likely find one giant super grocery, an Orange theory fitness, a Freshii, a Subway, a gas station, a bank, a Tim Hortons, a Starbucks, and at least one mega fucking big parking lot.

I rent a car when I want one for road trips, but after driving through innumerable small towns and cities, it's a sad feeling to visit and just know that... there's literally no good local offerings here, not anymore.

That place is awful.

If a truck driver stops for the night, but fancies a meal from the other side of the road there's no sidewalk, and no crossing. Just lots of "no pedestrians" signs.

How do you get from the Tesla Supercharger to McDonald's?