I’m back in the states for holidays but this time it was such a shock to realize everything looks so old, like from the airport to the convenience stores, malls, gas stations, etc. Why does everything look like it hasn’t changed from the 90s? And I was out just for a couple of months but things look newer and shinier in Panama and El Salvador compared to here. I cannot even imagine what some of you coming back from east Asia must feel. Did our country peak in the 90s and other countries are going through their renaissance? I love the convenience of the US where everything is open 24 hrs and you can get things delivered to your door basically overnight if you pay the price but I feel like we’re stuck with very old and boring infrastructure, makes me feel almost the same way I felt when I went to eastern Europe
Part of it is just that it is...old.
The US got to a lot of technological touch stones significantly before much of the world, when the technologies were newer.
Many places didn't do major infrastructure projects like an actually good international airport until much later, when there was better technologies.
It's not fully worth building a NEW airport instead of upgrading the existing one, and there are limits to what you can do.
It's not like other countries that were front runners in the industrial revolution looks sparkly and new.
SIN airport in Singapore is 41 years old.
LAX is 95.
A lot can be done with upkeep, but much of what makes SIN so nice compared to LAX was better planning, which they had a LOT more knowledge about city planning and and airport design to work with.
None of the 95-year-old buildings is still in use (except for storage or historical purposes).
"Modern" LAX was built in two bursts: the 1960s and the 1980s.
Sure, but it was still limited by some of those initial decisions.
Like location, and portions of the layout.
Building to expand as is demanded looks a lot different than preemptively designed to expand.