I’m not talking about standard tropes like most of your restaurants being fast food, obesity, trucks, having to drive everywhere, etc., but stuff like this:
[Plans for Luxury Dog Park Win Alpharetta Approval](https://www.appenmedia.com/alpharetta_roswell/plans-for-luxury-dog-park-win-alpharetta-approval/article_787db47e-7297-11ee-a03c-3bde4265c744.html) (I’m not complaining — this is replacing a drug store that’s been derelict for 5+ years)
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There are so many but the most entertaining ones are when a restaurant announces they’re going to shut down and the angry villagers start with the old “Covid ruined everything” and “nobody wants to work anymore “and “the economy is so terrible but no one’s going out to eat” and on and on and on.
Then it turns out that the owners are selling their place and retiring. Even more hilarious is that the retiring owners have sold the restaurant to a local who is keeping everything the same, including the recipes.
Another favorite is people complaining about the lack of good grocery stores. Apparently we need Trader Joe’s and Wegmans and Aldi and Whole Foods.
Other than Wegmans, all of the other ones are within a 20-30 minute drive of this relatively small town.
The giant glass pyramid we built as a college basketball stadium with the hopes of attracting an NBA team was abandoned because it wasn’t actually built to NBA regulations, so the city dropped millions on another stadium once the Grizzlies moved here. The pyramid became an enormous hunting and fishing supply store with a built-in hotel and restaurants.
The town I live in was [used as the staging ground for the “Freedom Convoy” that tried to blockade DC.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/05/17/peoples-convoy-returns-hagerstown-speedway/) It was a handful of very loud alt-right people that ended up getting drowned out by everyone else in the area not giving a shit about them and telling them to fuck off. The whole thing felt very Western Maryland.
Most recently, and in the spirit of Halloween, a haunted car wash
My local church’s new minister shot a robber his first night here. Felt strangely American.
A prominent issue in the mayoral election was that one of the candidates accidentally left his gun in a restaurant bathroom. Oh, and he was a prominent car salesman with his name everywhere
I live in Houston, so whenever the news shows a place flooding, I’m that Leo meme.
Basically just rich and connected developers/builders/contractors overriding zoning laws because he and tradespeople and their partners are on the boards.
Homes are on wetlands and piled on top of each other in clear cut developments.
There’s a local mayor who is under investigation for having the ballot stuffed so he would win his primary race. This mayor was previously convicted of and served time for corruption while serving as mayor, and then was re-elected once he got out.
Honest to god, my county is so boring I can’t think of anything. Best I can do is the bed bath and beyond that went under becoming a spirit Halloween store.
That’s so Riverside County: I have neighbors that constantly work on their lifted jeeps in the driveway
My town has been building car washes and storage buildings. Like I swear we have gotten 15 new car wash places in the last 2 years.
The town I grew up in just said fuck it and allowed massive warehouses to be built in the outskirts next to low income communities and next to schools too.
In the Birmingham suburbs, locals [sued](https://vestaviavoice.com/news/residents-file-suit-against-city-daniel-corp-for-patchwork-f428/) a construction company for cutting down trees they said they wouldn’t. That might be a more southeast thing, though, as trees are kinda a big deal for shade while out and about in the summer (generally, in the more urban areas, the best spots are the ones with well kept trees along the sidewalks).
The developer of a large new neighborhood neglected to build drainage infrastructure according to the plans from his engineer and just cowboy’d it in his own way. He’s the type who thinks he can do whatever he wants because it’s his land, etc. etc.
Well, meltwater from the development in spring and runoff from the development in a large storm this summer flooded downhill properties and businesses. So the City finally grew a spine and forced him to stop work until the drainage infrastructure is fixed, which he’s working on now.
A tale of construction probably not just in the USA but anywhere. It’s always cheaper to do something right the first time, folks.
We have a nuclear plant with two stacks and it only needs one, but there was a test plant..
In one city the mayor keeps trying to push for a casino to open in town even though residents keep voting against it, in another they just cleared out a homeless encampment in a park in the middle of downtown.
Yesterday, I saw five cop cars pulled over with their lights on. As we drove by I expected to see something crazy (accident, pole down, etc.) but no. They had pulled over the tiniest Toyota mini-EV (green with flame decals on it), whose driver was the most middle-aged Karen I’ve ever seen.
The place I get my haircut at is attached to a gas station.
Also on the lot is another building which has a gun shop, and next door a liquor store.
One stop shop for beer/smokes, a haircut, guns n ammo, and your favorite bottle.
And yes this is NY, boy LA or some shit down south lmao
Despite living in a fairly progressive, historic city neighborhood- lots of rainbow flags and same-sex married couples, Subarus and EVs a-plenty, multiple weekly farmers markets, community-supported arthouse movie theater…
* my neighbor and I have both skinned deer in our backyards after a morning of hunting
* the surrounding blocks could put together a (terrible) five-piece bluegrass band
* our neighborhood dads’ group chat frequently discusses NASCAR and bass fishing
It might be a fancy-ish urban neighborhood, but it *is* still in Virginia.
luxury dog park…
Chicken wings on the side of the street?
New gerrymandered maps are out, so the party with right about half the votes statewide will have 70% of the congress critters in the US House, and maintain supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature. That’s pretty American, right? Hurrah for representative democracy.
This summer they finally solved (allegedly, the court case hasn’t happened yet) the 10-year-old case of the [Gilgo Beach murders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgo_Beach_serial_killings) on Long Island.
Turned out the guy was from my home town, he finally got arrested because they pulled his DNA off a pizza crust that he threw away outside his office in NYC.
They caught the Gilgo Beach Killer by getting his DNA off a *pizza crust.* That’s some Long-Island-ass shit if I ever heard any.
The biggest recent development in my town is a new bike path. There’s controversy about why it’s gravel and not paved, but people also vote against any tax increases and think “whatever they take should be enough” regardless of the cost of the needs. We might have to close our jail building because it’s falling apart.
I think I said this story before somewhere.
We went to a small town in inland/rural California, where a local bill was heavily debated.
My friend, who is an environmentalist took a few of us to protest (without telling what it was about). It was about wild wolves. Environmentalists wanted to repopulate the area with more wolves, while farmers wanted the wolves dead, as they might harm livestock. So, there was this protest and counter-protest. One side dressed up ranch outfits with the cowboy hats, and the other side dressed up as wolves, with fox ears, tails etc. that looked like out of an anime convention.
Then after a few hours of protest (holding up signs while passing water bottles), both sides went to the only restaurant open in the small-town – a McDonalds with a large seating. And here, the cowboys and the wolfies sat next to each other, ate burgers and then drove back home.
Being able to eat just about any cuisine you want whenever you want
Chicago winters can get pretty rough, so there’s something called “dibs” where people (usually residents of the home the street is in front of) will place parking cones, cheap chairs, literally anything in that spot when they move their car to save that spot. Additionally, if someone else takes that spot by moving the items in that area, it’s somewhat common for your vehicle to receive some “light” vandalism. Like I’ve seen “asshole” in car paint or something similar written in Sharpie on cardboard and taped to the person’s vehicle.