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
You're comparing the US to countries which in many cases were in complete shambles (or outright civil war) in the 1990s, and have since improved their situations and begun building brand new infrastructure in only the last 10-20 years. So of course it is going to be newer, shinier and more modern, with a lot more flexibility in areas where there was no previous construction, and an extra emphasis, often, on the "wow" factor to emphasize to the world that they are no longer "third-world."
Every country goes through a growth spurt period like that and their architecture tends to freeze in that style for quite a long time. As things get built up it becomes harder and harder to tear down large sections for grand architectural projects, so a type of stasis forms. It's much, much easier to design and develop a grand, modern city when you're building in a place where basically nothing was built before.