Thirty-five years ago, during the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution," China's Chairman Mao Zedong announced the coming of an uncompromising global struggle between the City and the Village. China, in Mao's eyes the best country in the world, symbolized the sturdy and righteous Village. Haughty and corrupted America stood for the cruel and ugly City.
Great revolutionaries of the 20th century are not known for the accuracy of their prophecies. There is probably no weather-forecast service in existence that would employ someone with the dubious analytical record of Mao or Vladimir Lenin. As with almost everything else he said, Mao was dead wrong about America's urbanism.
To most foreigners, the United States is indeed a highly urbanized country, full of megalopolises, skyscrapers and highways. Correspondingly, to many Americans the rest of the world is just a rural preserve, which they look at with a certain envious nostalgia. In fact, America's urbanism is not much more than a self-celebratory myth.