<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title></title> </head> <body> I think it's partly about status. In Europe, the poor and the immigrants live in the suburbs. The city is for the cool, well-to-do rich. I actually knew one in Paris. She was the mistress of a very rich man. She lived with her daughter near the Bois de Boulogne in a modern apt building, and she occupied a very luxurious 2 bedroom apt. What made it luxurious was the size -- enormous living room, the persian rugs and furnishings, the maid, and the very modern kitchen and bathroom. Most Americans would have thought it on the small side. In the U.S.A happiness seems to be defined in how far away you can get from others, except for the few brief special occasions when you want to be around them, mostly in order for them to admire and recognize your achievements. It's utterly pathetic and miserable. J. Carrol Cox wrote: <blockquote type="cite" cite="mid45345786.F4F6D9FF@ilstu.edu"> <pre wrap=""> Miles Jackson wrote: </pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">Why not just say--people like the kind of environment they're used to? What does it add to the argument to smuggle in fanciful claims about how people in certain places are neurologically "hardwired" to like open or closed spaces? </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> That proposition itself might repay exploration. I would agree, people like what they are used to. Is it just a hidden tautology, or can we make it into a substantive proposition, explore _its_ causes, its political importance? Sometimes, of course, people don't like what they are used to, or think they don't. And sometimes they are ambivalent. Doodling at 11pm while suffering from an aching neck. Carrol ___________________________________ <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk">http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk</a> </pre> </blockquote> </body> </html>