(or: Urbanism killed Grease, the Mythos of the 1970s)
Makeout Point is dead, dead, dead.
You all know the place that I'm talking about; some little spot somewhere where nobody ever
goes; it's secluded, it's somewhat dark, and it has a hell of a view. In
every production from Pleasantville to The Simpsons to That 70s Show to Grease to
Codename: Kids Next Door, there's a place that every teenager knows about where they can
drive up to try to score with their girlfriends. Usually they fail. It's
charming.
The cities have spread across the landscape now, though, and there just aren't any
places like that anymore. Pick a city. Do you know what overlooks it? The highway.
There's no scenic cliff overlooking any particular metropolis anymore. Perhaps, on some
particularly boring day in 1982, the denizens of every city in the world quietly
picked up and moved to a less attractive location in order to better keep their youth at
bay.
Do you know where kids go now? Hell, nobody does. Most of the kids don't, although we'd just
love it if somebody would tell us. Makeout Point has been replaced by the drug hangout
that gets busted by the cops every couple of weeks. It's a gathering of dozens of kids,
and it's much more illegal. It doesn't have the spirit of the grand old original. There
needs to be somewhere that accommodates a whole lot of cars, in privacy.
And there just isn't, anymore. Makeout Point was bulldozed to make way for more city, and the
best spot has got to be somewhere like on top of a tall building, or a state forest, or
something equally crazy. What are the kids to do without a nice mountain?