Lost Faith

As you walk the city today, take note of the urban landscape — the broken benches, crumbling curbs, rusting light posts. If you drive, suffer the pot holes one by one, cross your fingers and hope you’re not on one of the country’s more than 70,000 structurally deficient bridges, and remember: We made this landscape, through neglect and dysfunction.

[...]

There are many reasons [DC's] Metro is closed today, including mismanagement and, some would argue, misplaced priorities. It is straining to expand and keep up with demand at the same time that it is dealing with the inevitable deterioration of 40-year-old systems and equipment.

But above all, it is closed today for the same reason that much of what was built during the Great Society era now looks ugly to us: years of underfunding, disinvestment and deferred maintenance, a neglect that comes of a deeper social and political dysfunction. We have learned to tolerate decay, and ugliness.

[...]

Demolition by neglect is now our maintenance policy, and not just when it comes to things we have made in bricks and mortar; it erodes our civic landscape, too.

Even more frightening: We are learning to adapt. In Flint, Mich., residents use bottled water, just as people all across the Third World drink bottled water. And today, in Washington, the city walks, bikes and hitches a ride, just as billions of residents of impoverished cities throughout the world regularly improvise their commute.

  WaPo

Third World, here we come. All we need is a demagogue racist president.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.