Ironing Out the Wrinkles of the American Flag

The blueprints for America's future have already been drawn and, since at least as far back as the nineteen seventies, are well on their way towards total implementation. The America of the future is a land that celebrates uniformity and convenience, where one can drive into a new town without the slightest fear that it will look any different than the previous one. Every exit ramp provides access to a plethora of instantly recognisable franchises, each one providing selections of risk-free foodlike products. Individually-owned restaurants are nearly obsolete. Travelers no longer have to take a chance with an establishment called Edna's Beaneria when the familiar stench of a Big Mac awaits them in a fast food cluster overlooking the interstate.

Every third intersection is flanked by a drug store with a recognisable name housed in a cheap prefabricated structure and facing a competing chain on an adjacent corner. Building materials are cheap and indistinct. Streets are laid out in convenient gridlike patterns, eliminating unpredictability for drivers. Each business is surrounded by a parking lot. This makes it convenience for inhabitants of the town to encase themselves in their vehicle, drive to their destination, find a parking spot, conduct their business, and return to their home with a minimal amount of contact with the outside world. Sealed inside their capsule, they can travel along the highways with little to no interaction with their fellow townspeople, thus making it much easier to ignore such unpleasantries as poverty and homelessness. The most common form of communication is the occasional irate burst of automobile horn.

Domestic houses are arranged along rows of suburban streets, all identical, differentiated only by house number. The prevalence of the internet makes leaving the house a less frequent event. Television keeps the inhabitants constantly notified as to what the rest of the nation is thinking, doing, saying, wearing, watching, listening to. Younger generations are free to drift along in complacency. The urge to escape and see the rest of the country, once a motivation for their restless forbearers, is defused by the fact that the rest of the country is no different from their own hometown.

This blanket of uniformity admittedly still has a few holes in the fabric. Mountain states have an unfair advantage of picturesque scenery, as do coastal towns. Urban engineers will undoubtedly have this problem licked within the next few decades. An increase of billboards may be a partial remedy. Some of the bigger cities have certain cultural landmarks which give them an unfair edge. New York City in particular has a large share of deconstruction ahead of it in order to provide an even playing field across the nation. I'd say given another twenty-five years this country will have slipped entirely into the soothingly indistinct state of monotony which its current architects seem so intent on fashioning. Sleep well, brethren.