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
I think you're forgetting that the United States was ahead of much of the world developing our economy and therefore our infrastructure is also older. It wasn't that many decades ago that our infrastructure was heads and tails above and thevenvy of some of the countries that you are listing. Our population density is often lower so it costs more per capita to keep up on infrastructure maintenance than it does in a more densely populated country.