Suburban sprawl is a sad state of affairs indeed.
I was driving around town with a few friends the other day, when out of nowhere we saw a pedestrian. This was a sufficiently rare occurance that we all stared and gawked until the stoplight turned green.
It's sad, really, but there are no pedestrians in this city. It is a city of bubbles; people are outside only long enough to move from one bubble to another. They go from the home-bubble to the car-bubble, and then a few minutes later leave the car just long enough to enter whatever building was their destination. And there's no human interaction at all!
It is a sad state of affairs indeed. This city personifies everything that is wrong with sprawling western cities and a society that values personal space so much that it forgets about the importance of human interaction.
When simply seeing another human during the day is so unusual, how can we be expected to meet and empathize with one another?