How Poor Architectural Design Hurts Culture

Here's an excellent video presentation by James Kunstler. He uses some big words, and I'll add a vocabulary later, but the gist of his argument is fairly simple. The kinds of architecture he speaks about apply mostly to America because of two factors:

1. America is a country that drives, so Americans ignore a lot of the landscape - it's just a place to drive past, not to look at.
2. Many buildings, such as shops and houses, are now planned by large companies, where cost is the main concern. They're designed to be as economical as possible, but they're often ugly.

As Slovakia becomes more and more like America, with more cars, highways, and megastores, this trend is slowly becoming a problem here.