A lot of problems, and some significant lack of choice exists in the build environment and in American life today. When I lived in South Korea for two years I experienced a handful of things that I had never experienced in America, and that I had never even seen, in existence, in America.

More than anything, I was extremely confused. I wondered how America can be so different from everywhere else. Many people say, when they travel, that people and places are more similar than they are different and that is probably true, but what I was seeing was small differences that were significant, and were significantly altering how I experienced the world and spent my time, even moreso if I had lived there longer. I also wondered why the best parts of life in Korea, and other foreign places, (people everywhere, walkability, a strong sense of culture, cheap nutritious food at convenience stores, things to do and see everywhere I look) simply CAN NOT be found in America. They aren’t here, even by accident, which quickly led to the belief that this must be intentional. I had to know if that was true, and if so, why.

Research led me to figure out a few things:

Most people think that if something was built, that means it was designed (and specifically, designed well).

Most people also think that because something was bought, that means it is desired. Both of these are not true.

As shocking as that is, especially when the amount of money used for some projects are considered, things are built that are not designed well and things are bought that are not desired.

This is due to many reasons including: pretty basic oversight, city council members who confuse their responsibility to the entire community with being in debt to whichever select few that are the loudest (proponents or opponents), arrogant designers and council members that believe they know what’s best for the community without asking the community what they want, architects that design for other architects and not the end users (that also probably paid for the project), cities and states who do not understand basic concepts of fiscal sustainability, the immaturity of adults which prevents them from making responsible choices over throwing millions of dollars at the shiny new project that will sound good in a headline.

We know this is true because there are histories and records of buildings that are torn down because they do not function, they are later confirmed to be hideous, or worse, a health hazard. Because there are records of towns that swear the billion-dollar project will be worth it, that is later confirmed will never make it’s money back let along bring additional money in to the town. There are records of towns severely neglecting maintenance to infrastructure either literally because it’s not new and shiny, council members wont give it the time of day, or because the jurisdiction has completely run out of money to make necessary repairs. Because of this, citizens can forget about incremental improvements to schools or community outreach programs or turning unused land in an under privileged neighborhood into a small pocket park, of course, these won’t make it past the neighborhood news level.