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
Things are comparatively new in emerging countries. Many of the countries you are coming from were essentially in the dark ages- meaning they were agrarian and rural without much economic development- until the 1990s or later. Now Panama is quite modern but all that development happened in the last 25 years, whereas the US has buildings 150 years old that still have a century or more of useful life left. Much of Europe was built in the 1500s or earlier and that infrastructure continues to be in service.