My hotel was in a particularly shitty area. For those Gothamists, imagine the Fulton Mall, yeah that piece of shit, but without the charm. For others, think of sadness made into an area.
I propose that the American city at a certain point in history far outpaced those of Europe and I would brag at one point we won Civilization.  That’s why my ancestors escaped [fucktardistan] and came here. Even if their struggles in life continued, they no longer had to fear the [Tzars, police men and special branch men, or peasants with rakes and torches or whatever].
While our nation has been beset by the low machinations of the Human Condition/sin and entrapped by the failings of the human spirit, greed and corruption and bigotry like elsewhere, however for a time we rose above the lowly breeding grounds of London, Bombay, and Rome of old to produce some of the greatest cities I believe the world has seen. Wonders of the world with tramways, electrified street lamps, and flush toilets. We raped marble hills, Virgin forests, and rent the earth in search of copper roofs, lead welds, iron gates, and slate steples and turned the earth into temples to commerce and civil society.
And then we torn it down.
All of it.
Again and again.
The cities of the South were burned and torn down long a go. When Sherman left he bragged that from a military perspective, Atlanta ceased to exist.
Then, after a few decades, they were rebuilt. Atlanta went from 11,000 souls/bodies to 22,000 in just a few short years. In a hot clammy land brutalized by war and drained of much of its middle class (slave owners yes but those who could read and had capital), this was rapid change. And Atlanta grew still. On and on. There were ups and downs but the city grew. Like other American cities, it had a transportation system. It had a growing industry, grown ever larger by air conditioning and a release from the oppressive Hotlanta summer heat. It had libraries and opera houses.
Then… The city turned on itself, as did all the American cities. After a century of perfecting he city, those remaining City Fathers turned on it. Some in science turn to the natural Kingdom for proof of this or that human condition. Monogamy, promiscuity, friendship, homosexuality.  But there also exists rape, canniblism, and infanticide. And after so many decades of building, it was the time to again burn the city.  And in a few years, Atlanta was smoldering.  Tracks torn up, buildings left to fade in the sun, and entire neighborhoods vanished in as much time as it took for reconstruction to kick in.
Then.
Suddenly.
Cement was poured. And civic projects came. Then CNN. Then the Olympics(tm).
Two lines of public transportation were installed (more on that in an additional post) each going to no where. Public housing was demolished and poverty pushed out to the far reached of the bus lines.
Cement and corporate towers were built. Corporate (public) art was brought in by artists like I Take Money From Rich Whores, I Have No Talent But Daddie Was on The Board, and Peter Max.
Communism and Capitalism share the trait of sucking in people’s dreams and aspersions and shitting out cement edifices the elegant shape of alienation and self abuse.
I wandered the broad and hot streets. Sidewalks were decor, not utility. I smeltered in the hot hot of the summer day. Time to time a baking zombie would ambulated by. The forgotten. Those tossed aside progress and the new age. Remnants of the old city were punctuated by parking lots of various styles. The new building sprouted up from the soil and they didn’t seem to have entry nor egress, perhaps only accessed from above blue luminaries beings and Blessed Elect hovering from above, or delivered by Uber on angelic wings and prepaid trips. Or both.
I was a slippery melty creature wandering about a space station here on earth.  In the distance, I was reminded by a huge sign that This Is CNN.
Large art and homeless men confronted me on occasion.  Outside of that, I was alone. Completely isolated. In the center of the city.
The city is a breeding ground for our species. It is a holy space to achieve the best of our Spirit, a place to worship G/_/od/s/es/ses as we see H/I/er/m/t. A City Upon the Hill (Matthew 5:14). It is a collection of buildings, a certain density and tax allocation. It is a historic downtown surrounded by suburbs. It is an artifact. It is storage for minorities. It is a center of art. It is a snarl in our highway commute. It is the once and future kingdom of Heaven.
Atlanta is that war zone, still active for all these years but not for the reasons anyone, right not left, can any longer explain.
I wandered down the street and a homeless man, sores on his naked feet, exclaimed to me… I like your [clothing]. Thanks.  I said back, expecting him to beg money or otherwise engaged unwanted. But, he kept moving. He, like Atlanta, had an agenda I am still trying to understand.