Are you enjoying the American Dream? Do you live in the suburbs, in a single-family home with two or more cars?

Since this is Mastodon, your answer might be 'No'. But for tens of millions of United Statesians, the answer is 'Yes', and for tens of millions more, the answer is 'Not yet, but that's what I want!'

(Full disclosure: I live in the suburbs of a large US city, but my residence is a small 450 sq ft apartment, and I don't own a car.)

David Spero, in the piece excerpted below, argues: "The American Dream Is A Nightmare" ...
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The suburbs are the least sustainable way of living imaginable, and their ecological bill is coming due. Things in suburbs are far apart, so people rarely walk. Since there aren’t enough people to ride them, public transport systems are unreliable or nonexistent. Everybody drives everywhere, including long distance daily commutes, polluting the air, stressing themselves, missing exercise, and getting into auto accidents.

People living in individual houses need their own individual appliances. Everybody has to buy their own washer and dryer, their own microwaves and vacuums and twenty other machines. This is one reason suburbs were promoted in the first place, to get people to buy the stuff American factories were producing. But think of all the energy and materials that are wasted when 100 houses need 100 washing machines instead of a six-machine laundromat where people can meet and share. It’s a capitalist dream, but an environmental and sociological nightmare.

We are living in a nightmare. The American Dream is just part of the nightmare, and the suburban home is just part of the dream. A lot of cities, particularly in the American West, are also sprawling and paving over all nature in their path. We need to wake up from the American nightmare if we are ever to live peacefully on this Earth.

The American Dream is the same scam as American freedom. It’s a psy-op designed to get us buying more stuff, living lonely lives focused on material goods, and calling ourselves free. Instead, let’s build communities and reconnect with Nature. Let’s wake up to the beautiful world waiting for us outside dreamland.
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FULL ESSAY -- https://davidsperorn.medium.com/the-american-dream-is-a-nightmare-8e0b20c8f227

#USA #Nature #Environment #Capitalism