I was shocked when I came to the US from Norway 20 years ago. It was not the society I had come to expect from movies and tourist travels. Living there for a year exposed me to so many problems I had been unaware of.

The irony for me was that I didn’t particularly like my native Norway or was much fan of social democracy. I was a capitalism fanboy, but living in the US turned me i to a social democrat and opened my eyes to all the qualities of Norwegian society I had been utterly blind to.

I doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate many things about the US. The US taught me to be more social and outgoing.

What is crazy about the US to Norwegian eyes is how crazy wealthy the US is while infrastructure is falling apart and there are deep levels of poverty. Nowhere else in the world do you see so many people living in huge houses, huge pickup trucks and SUVs while subways look like the third world. Streets are patchworks of decay. Busses a study in social decay. Magnificent shopping malls but very little public space. Here in Norway neighborhoods are full of public playgrounds. We got public BBQs, even public cabins. There are a lot of free nice things for everyone. In the US it is all private wealth and opulence. Anything public seems run down and neglect.

Judging by private affluence the wealth is clearly there to create a great society for everyone, but one seems to choose not to.