It’s the peak of civilization, and yet . . .

An idea that we’re at a peak and it’s all downhill from here for quite a while.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1713209.Peak_Everything

And the lifestyle peak is being enjoyed (aside from that tiny “1%” global wealth/influence elite) by those who are able to afford to live in the modern American exurbs.

The cities are horrors of pavement and congestion. The suburbs have become tacky blobs of monotonous lawns and strip malls. Sophistication, communitarian culture, good schools, and pastoral greenery has gone to the Princetons, Chapel Hills, and Amhersts.

And yet the critique of our everyday life still applies, even in those peak-of-civilization places. The households and the enterprises are still atomized. They still confront the modern Leviathan. They often have enough money to buy amelioration. Stress reduction. Comfort. But at root the even-best-life-in-our-civilization still essentially sucks.