[barney54]

Except the environment in the U.S.—better air quality than almost all of Europe. Except natural beauty in the U.S.— the U.S. has some truly beautiful places to visit and to live. The people are very friendly, especially outside of the cities. These are all good things about the U.S. that has nothing to do with the fact that the U.S. is rich (actually the U.S. being rich is one reason air quality is improving and better than Europe).

[lostlogin]

> actually the U.S. being rich is one reason air quality is improving and better than Europe

Is it that, or that that there is a lot of USA?

Dilution works very well, until it doesn’t.

[Schiendelman]

Not at all - cities are worse in Europe than in the US. European policy pushed diesel cars for a long time, and Europe burns a lot more biomass for heating than the US does. Both of those are localized - it's particulates, especially during winter, that are much worse.

[tardedmeme]

In European cities less people drive.

[Schiendelman]

And yet they have worse air quality...

[holgerschurig]

BTW, you cannot compare a country ("USA") with a whole continent ("Europe"). The countries in europe aren't all in EU or EEC and are much, MUCH more different than US' states are.

"the environment in the U.S." ... and yet you have abysmal drinking water quality in some areas. A friend of mine from Florida was astonished that you can drink tap water in all of Germany. We can all see how bad USA is with it's environment if we link hydraulic fracking to tap water quality.

Many people over here think that a good amount of US americans are so dumb because of lead poisoning.

Air quality: currently https://waqi.info/de/#/c/5.69/7.058/2.8z doesn't indicate that the USA is vastly better. Yes, there are green areas ... but these are areas devoid of people. Europa has this in Scandinavia. In areas where population and industry density is high the USA isn't that good either.

"beautiful places" I grant you that, but that has every region on earth. You also have many, many more awful places to visit. The last two times I was in the USA locals warned me about "no go" areas. That doesn't exist in Germany, for example.

"people are friendly" no, they aren't. You have the highest crime rate in the developed world. People robbing or mugging me aren't friendly. That "no go" areas even exist is also not a sign of friendly. Your immigration officers are exceptional rude and unfriendly --- virtually the first experience a tourist travelling the USA has with their "friendlyness". And your ICE is even more rude: a swiss journalist from NZZ was e.g. detained for about 2 weeks. Instead of just denied entry and put into the next airplane heading to back Zürich. And the detainment was in one single room with about 30 other illegally-jailed inmates with zero privacy. Even the loo was visible for all. That's US friendlyness ...

Even not rutal... the last time I was in TX I heard on local radio that some whites put a colored man with chains on behind an oversized US car and drove him to dead. And if you are an outlier, e.g. you are from a minitory, or LGBTQ or whatever, then you have a hard time in the friendly rural-ness. Many people leave the ruralness towards towns to gain freedom.