Cities everywhere

This is old, but my roommate had e-mailed it to me and I hadn't gotten to it until now. It's a little short feature from the Times about, basically, how communities and cities in the U.S. look the same everywhere. It makes me think of when my grandma spent some time taking pictures up and down Whittier Boulevard. I wonder sometimes if, pulled out of context, these ugly towns and streets and storefronts could be kind of pretty in a way (like Victoria does with random spots in San Francisco, which I have seen before and never thought of as pretty, but sometimes she makes them so). But for the most part, they aren't, and this video is correct, they look the same everywhere. In a way, it's sort of good ol' Americana, and in another way it's sad because of the lonesomeness of the landscapes (it makes me think of Ghost World, actually, which takes place in LA but which could have been anywhere, and which is a movie about lonesomeness if there ever was one), and in another way it's sad because these places are ugly, and in other way it's sad because of the lack of community. It makes me very happy that I live on a street full of people who care about the street. Anyway, it just make me think.