re: Are Americans delusional about the quality and conditions of things in our country?

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don’t deny that. I was living next door to this stunning structure the past couple of months. You don’t see buildings like this in the US.

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The US doesn’t really do high capacity, skyscraper type buildings anymore outside of a few places like NY, Chicago etc. it’s not really necessary here and large building like that are more difficult to maintain and ridiculously expensive to engineer and build. Modern technology and the space we have means we don’t have to build up. Places like the new Apple HQ, and corporate campuses that incorporate green spaces are the trend here.

We were building the most stylish and design forward buildings back in the 80’s with the stuff that architects like Phillip Johnson and IM Pei were doing. But like I said before, we’ve mostly moved on from that type of building.

In the Middle East and Asia, they wanted to show their new wealth and power by building these giants and looked to outdo each other with avant-garde architecture. Basically showing off in a way that isn’t relevant in the US any longer.

My personal criticism of architecture in the US is that it has always been very utilitarian. There are some great buildings, but they’ve always trended toward conservative utility. Doesn’t leave a lot of stunning examples; but that said, I’ve been around and the cities and the buildings in the US (for the most part) function better than a lot of other places.

Having been around, I’ll say this as well, the world is full of absolute shitholes, we’re just very familiar with ours. For example Marseille, France… beautiful views on the water, great buildings, but an absolute horrible shithole once you get away from where the money and tourism is located.