Why Everywhere in the US is Starting to Look the Same

Writing by Sam Denby and Tristan Purdy
Editing by Alexander Williard
Animation led by Josh Sherrington
Sound by Graham Haerther
Thumbnail by Simon Buckmaster

References

Select footage courtesy Getty and AP; Select imagery courtesy Geolayers; Select music courtesy Epidemic sound

[EvocativeKitsune]

The sphere of creators covering the quirks of US urbanism grows ever larger.

[poundlandvodka]

I live in Denver and it's always a bit embarrassing when people come to visit from elsewhere in the US (particularly the Midwest or inland West) - they ask what's good to do in the city and I'm just like ...probably all the same stuff as in your city ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

[lane]

For me the ultimate problem is that I find myself constantly having to deal with large corporations. Whether it’s at the store, bank, or hospital. A nameless entity is behind it, and that is worrisome for so many reasons. With sameness we ultimately lose the personal interaction that we need to have any chance at being treated fairly.

[DarkarDengeno]

Gotta say, the irony of a video essay about the costs of standardization and homogeneity being sponsored by a "one stop shop" stock footage provider is pretty delightful.

[okj]

If you hadn't name-dropped the city, I wouldn't have noticed your footage of one of my favorite restaurants two blocks from where I used to live.

[jack]

If anyone else lives in Northern Virginia, you know these 5-on-1 buildings are EVERYWHERE. They are selling these units starting at $800k like wtf how is anyone supposed to afford these when most homes people live in are under $500k?? The worst part about these for me is they don't even feel like a home. You walk in and it feels like you're in some super private hotel/office and it all just feels so fake like you're not really at home, you're just paying to live in an office building with bedrooms. They always give them pretentious names like "The Fields at "The Meadows at like they're in their own city. dude it's just an apartment behind Safeway lmao

[brianmonaghan]

This is the exact reason whenever I travel I make a point to research all the unique food options in a place and avoid the chains. Visiting someone in North Carolina and them taking me to a Longhorn does not create the experience I’m looking for in travel.

[sonofpait]

"The things that matter in this country have been reduced in choice, there are two political parties, there are a handful insurance companies, there are six or seven information centers.. but if you want a bagel there are 23 flavors. Because you have the illusion of choice!" - George Carlin

[patterbay]

I used to work at a theme park in central Florida that everyone knows and many Americans visit once in their lives. My favourite question to ask when getting to know the Guests during their wait was "Tell me about your town. If it's a weekday, and you don't want to cook, what's your favorite place to eat out?"

I can count on one hand the number of National Chains as answers. The rest were local places unique to their area. The guests would light up talking about them. I remember a handful of places that got on my Bucket list from those answers. Homogeneity is convenient, but it's not memorable. I really hope that we find a way to shift priorities from convenience to highlighting each town's unique attributes and places.

[dfec]

As someone who has never been evicted, much less missed a payment, I had a corporate landlord try to start the eviction process on me because the left their trashcan out - once. Corporate landlords are a sick joke and I would prefer to go live out of a van if I otherwise would have to do it again.

[CitiesByDiana]

This reminds me of the Tennessee Williams quote "America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland."
Except these days it seems like everything else is suburban Los Angeles.

[DrBernon]

I'm Spanish, and I'm also seeing this same issue with modern infrastructure. It is even more noticeable because there are still a lot of places that have stayed authentic to how they were in the past. When I go out with my motorcycle, all major roads look the same and are forgettable. But when ever you take a small path, every turn opens to a new view, unique and memorable.
Sameness not only makes us love less our environment, but it makes it smaller in our minds, and also makes our lives feel shorter, as there is no novelty in anything.

[xavieryozwiak]

I like how this video doesn’t dwell on whether this type of development in the US is morally good or bad, but rather it focuses on the incentives and rules that encourage these buildings. As citizens, understanding “how we got here” enables us to have more productive conversations

[alexandercrampton]

This is existentially horrifying. I’ve lived in the northeast my whole life, my city is over 300 years old, 90% of it is historic and walkable architecture and due to it being a small and lesser known city it is still possible to find semi-affordable housing here. I pay 1800 for a 4 bedroom in a walkable neighborhood, it’s an 200 year old multi family home, 3 apartments owned my a single local landlord who’s great with upkeep. The horror I felt when I took a road trip out west, and found NOTHING like the apartments in my neighborhood. Places twice as expensive owned by massive conglomerates in unwalkable neighborhoods. It was kind of a culture shock. The idea that there are so many places and neighborhoods where people don’t know their neighbors, don’t have a coffee shop they meet their friends at, don’t have a grocery store or park or library or bar within walking distance… I was considering moving out west for work but I don’t think I could give up what I have here…

[dawnious]

The fact that those giant corporations don't sell those apartments but rent out is messed up. That means in the future some time, they will control the majority of the housing market and increase rents and other prices however they want. This is too dangerous.

[tekuaniaakab]

“What’s left in a world devoid of walls is the pervasive power of sameness” Damn good writing

[jacksonlarson]

I was born in Wisconsin and I live here today. However, for six years of my childhood, I lived in Pooler, Georgia, right outside of the historic city of Svannah. When I lived there, there really wasn't much but a few low density suburbs and rural houses/farms. Our house was on a quiet, dead-end country road, and behind it was miles of forest. My family moved back to Wisconsin in 2012, but we kept in touch with a few people in Pooler. Over the past decade, these friends of ours kept gushing about how Pooler has gone through a growth spurt and an economic boom, and how we wouldn't recognize it now. Indeed, a glimpse of Pooler's census information would confirm these reports. Finally, in the summer of last year, while on vacation, my family paid Pooler a visit.

Our friends were right. It had changed an awful lot. And yet, I immediately recognized it. I recognized it not because it had any resemblance with what I recall about the area from my childhood, but because it had become indistinguishable from any other small highway-borne city in America. It is exactly the kind of city this video is about. When were driving through Pooler, I had a physically sickening reaction to how familiar everything was. Here we were a thousand miles away from home, in a completely different environment, driving through a city that looked almost identical to a few cities in Wisconsin (Janesville comes to mind). It was surreal and infuriating. Then, just to rub salt in my wounds, we visited our old house. Though I know it sounds dramatic, my soul was absolutely crushed to find that the forest that lay directly beyond our quiet little house had been replaced with a complex of several large "luxury" apartment buildings. The "sameness" of the area, the sterilized banality of Pooler's celebrated economic growth, felt genuinely oppressive. Again, I know it sounds like I'm exaggerating, but it truly made me sick to my stomach to see how just how uniform much of this country has become. We travelled one thousand miles just to end up somewhere that could have been right down the road from where we started.

[SeanConnery-jb]

Our country contains so much stunning beauty in its natural environment, that it really deserves matching beauty in its built environment.

[bobkay]

This is nothing new....it's been going on for decades. When I was a kid in the 1960s, we used to take a lot of road trips, where every town and state had its own identity and looked nothing like the one before it. Fast forward a few decades...corporate greed, monopolies, urban sprawl, gentrification and other ugly reminders of modern life bringing a McDonalds, a Walmart, a CVS, a Home Depot, a Dunkin Donuts, malls with the same stores inside, and a Target to Anytown USA. Gone are the small businesses which brought individuality and uniqueness to each town along the way. Remember the roadside architecture of buildings shaped like what they sold? Giant hot dogs and ice cream cones. Now, you can travel across the country and feel like you never left home. Actually, it was Howard Johnson that came up with this idea for his restaurants many decades ago.

[Josh-uxvy]

Wendover really played the "These are two pictures: One is your locker and the other is a garbage dump in the Philippines" on us