I have vivid memories of walking through high rise housing projects near Tokyo which, according to the theories of BO and JJ, should have been breeding grounds for poverty induced crime. The loudest sound I heard was a kid, a couple of floors up, practicing a piano. What is it about these parents in crowded substandard public housing buying their kids pianos?
Then there was Kobe, after the quake, my eldest daughter, then 10 years old, stood in line for over an hour to get fresh water for the household. She reported the loudest sound in the line were other people trying to get an elderly woman to move to the front of the line and she insisting she could wait her turn. Can you imagine anything like that happening in New Orleans post Katrina?
Thanks for that those amazing anecdotes. I work in a tall tower office building in Newark and often have to work late (amazing how that translates into pay raises-but I digress). When I see the sun go down I feel like the scene in I Am Legend when he is giving the dog a bath. No one is on the streets at 7 in the morning but when that sun goes down, they come out and you better be sure to have a clear means of escape at red lights.