Tuesday, March 9, 2010

I love America

Floating Sheep links to a great map that shows the density of fast food restaurants in the USA. Click on the image to see the whole thing.



 It comes from a site called Weather Sealed and the original post is more than worth your time. To grasp the significance, you have to remind yourself that the black sections of the map are where Macdonald's has the greatest density.


I say that because my initial reaction was to hone in on that huge violet patch in the middle. That is Sonic Drive-in. It's a retro sort of place with drive in bays and servers on roller skates. I don't think it is any accident that it dominates in exactly the part of America where just about everything good first originated.

I'm not saying that Sonic is better or has better food—I've never even seen one them. It has better culture. It has better culture in the same sense that Quebec has better culture than Canada, Ireland and Scotland have better culture than England, Provence has better culture than Paris and New England has better culture than New York City. Not more authentic—the classic red herring in these comparisons—better. You might not want to live there but you'd buy the music and literature.

I don't, as I have mentioned before, say much about politics here and I won't do any actual analysis here either. I would note only that this has something very important to do with politics and anyone betting on the future would do very well to pay attention to that big violet blob because whether or not the restaurant itself succeeds, there is something coming that way.

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