How often do you take road trips or drive from town to town? Have you ever noticed that it all seems to blur together? Every town seems to have something every other town has; a McDonald’s, a Walmart, some chain stores, lots of roads. Geographers coin this phenomenon as Placelessness: the effect of having cookie-cutter attributes that evoke a “lack of place” – a detachment from the local geographic distinctions, as they could exist anywhere else. From the moment the concept was introduced to me, I started to see it everywhere. Every time I crossed into the lines of another town – every time I got into a car – I couldn’t help but realize that America is becoming geographically stagnant. There’s a reason why we have to travel long distances
