Ramblings on the BosWash megalopolis

Weather: it was dry and warm/hot (70s F) over the last week of September and the first fortnight of October in what was supposed to be the Fall in New England. It was hot in Washington (80s F, and 93F once). Hurricane Rita was raging away in Texas, and Montana - in the mid West - had 11 inches of snow! Our climate is meek by comparison.

Ups and Downs: Although the history of westerners arriving in the US is short it has certainly been eventful. The Puritans arriving first in New England (NE) obviously had very hard, simple and short lives. A century later and the immigrants fought for Independence from Britain. They had no navy and so to curb the Brits they gave licences to private shipowners to capture ships and profit from the proceeds. Many privateers in New England became millionaires this way. Later on their prowess at sea led them to trade world wide, and the main income from taxation became customs duties on imported goods. Then came an economic crash. And the Civil War another century later. Now the coast of Massachusetts basks in the genteel affluence financed by tourists from New York.

Transport: How the Washingtonians love their SUVs/MPVs and how they delight in cut-and -thrust driving. But in New England saloons are preferred. Is this a reflection on differences of income? or in status symbols, given DC's dominance by national politicians and power brokers? or what? The DC metro is clean and timely but appears to have a very small share of people movement compared to private motor vehicles.

Traffic: The only way to drive a distance in NE is on a freeway, otherwise your life could dribble away in processional driving through an urban continuum, in which the maps pretend there are towns. There are none - just one lot of traffic lights and shopping centres after another.

TV: We saw a lot of good stuff - Scorcese's film on Bob Dylan; a History prog on magnetism, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Friends, news coverage of US politics (or maybe we just enjoyed Bush's embarassments), weather forecasts. We didn't expect this.

Health time bomb: Forget about Al Quaeda, it is the health of the nation the Americans need to worry about. When you go into a motel breakfast room in NE and all the 20 or so people there are overweight it confirms the picture you see in public places. Just as bad, many middle aged and older people seemed to have stiff postures and hesitant, shuffling walks. There is lots of cheap, unhealthy food around but even the quality food is often served in oversize portions. Europe has similar problems but nothing like the scale of what we encountered. Urban DC was better, perhaps because the people we saw there were generally younger.

Soccer: Kids start playing at 4 years old. They wear all the gear, have a coach/ref, time-outs, neat little goals and small pitches. They need guidance on which direction to kick, and own goals are frequent and celebrated. But when you see a large number of pitches together with youngsters of all ages playing, in hourly time slots and well supported by enthusiastic parents, there is a positive time bomb of the young in place. Give it ten years, or maybe less, and the US will have a world class side.

BosWash megalopolis?: found the name in Wikepedia; sums up what we saw from the air. Boston, New York, Philadelphia and DC all running into each other.