johncrosthwaitgotopieces: Impressions of the US

Impressions of the US after a Long Absence

Apart from brief visits for funerals, I was last in the US over 30 years ago, in spite of having a US mother and relatives. I remedied this absence in April 2017 with a short 12 night visit, moving from Virginia to Washington State, via Illinois and Idaho.

This post won’t be discussing people or politics, because we were almost exclusively in the company of family, so that’s all out of bounds…

But of course there are all the causal encounters with people in restaurants, bars, airports, train stations, shops. These public interactions showcase a formulaic, almost antiphonic politeness and goodwill- for example, how are you doing; have a nice day – the stuff of cliché. But here’s a thing. The verbal habit is quite catching, and quite beneficial. So long as one injects warmth into the formulas, which most folk do, there’s very often a little bubble of good feeling blown out (but tradespeople friendliness turns steely when it comes to the bill). I grew to like the polite exchanges. By contrast, glancing at a down and out man huddled under an overpass in Chicago brought shrill abuse. There’s a lot of down and outs, except in the suburbs. (However, one very direct beggar, turned down with apologetic smiles, proved true to the prevailing American type, warmly wishing us to have a nice day, even if he wasn't about to.)

The suburbs I visited, in Illinois, Idaho and Washington State, had one thing in common – they are all recent creations (2^nd half C20), in contrast to the prevalence of Victorian and Edwardian, or earlier, buildings of English cities and commuter villages.

The middle and upper middle classes have pretty spacious places, both for people and cars, in various architectural styles. Sometimes these are dictated by the developer (Safe American Modern, with a lot of wood materials), sometimes bespoke. I noticed that the bespoke seemed to be either very modern or very gothic, or referenced the (mainly) European styles of the owner’s forebears.

Pavements (sidewalks) are patchy affairs: you’re lucky if you get a pedestrian cum cycle lane painted on the carriageway. However, the roads are usually wide. Most busy junctions at least have pedestrian crossing lights – but in Virginia, when walking back to our lodgings from Charlottesville, we had to cross 2 or 3 intersections of busy 6 lane highways without the benefit of pedestrian lights. This necessitated careful observation of the traffic phases and then a heart in mouth sprint.

Along the roads, pedestrians are either dog walkers or joggers. Few move about on foot for routine business. This contributes to an eerily empty ambience, unless it’s the weekend and people are tending their front yards.

In Chicago all the high-rise buildings are clustered in the centre, in a swaggering profusion of architectural competition. It’s truly magnificent, but it’s not the way most live or work.

What struck me about the poorer districts (of Chicago and elsewhere) is that the huge areas originally available for urban expansion means that millions of people live in one or two storey buildings, spread over many, many square miles. (In Europe, there would be forbidding inner/outer urban tower blocks.)

You can get a frightening sense of the low-rise sprawl when flying into Chicago airport (ironically named after a famous WW2 naval engagement in the empty Pacific). Our plane descended lower and lower, and nearer and nearer to the roofs of endless grids of low-storey housing. I became alarmed – surely were a few moments from skimming or impacting the rooftops? But no “brace” command came, and, just as it seemed that the plane might detach tiles, or worse, the runway opened up.

It doesn’t bear much thinking about the experience of those residents at the end of this oh so cosy flight path..

(My instinctive worries were later somewhat confirmed: a junior cousin, who is training to be a pilot, reported to his aunt that Midway is regarded by flight crew as a relatively dangerous airport because of its location in an intensive urban area, though not as dangerous as a WW2 carrier deck. Incidentally, the WW2 US Navy trained its carrier pilots on platforms positioned off Chicago in Lake Michigan.)

Although the US is not a nation of pedestrians, it is, in many places, a nation of hikers. Popular day hike spots are attached to carparks (of course) and enjoy well-maintained trails. One we walked in Washington State (Rattlesnake Ledge) was an hour’s uphill slog on a winding woodland trail to a precipitous cliff top. Wonderful views are promised to be the reward for the hiker; we got thick mist.

Even on a wet weekday there were lots of hikers. The ascent is no stroll, so it was remarkable to pass, or be passed by, numerous parents (mostly women) nonchalantly carrying babies in slings.

Finally, a word about Chicago’s gem: the Institute of Art. This imposing Beaux-Arts building (plus large modern extensions) houses a glittering collection of paintings, especially late C19 and early C20 European and American art.