Airports don't have to compete on butterfly gardens. They can compete on basic competence and being able to efficiently and quickly allow people to get through

Airports don't have to compete on butterfly gardens. They can compete on basic competence and being able to efficiently and quickly allow people to get through it, and not being a total misery to have to wait in for a few hours when transiting. Singapore beats the crap out of US airports on that and also has a nice butterfly garden to look at. You could put a nice butterfly garden in JFK and JFK would still be a miserable, frustrating experience; nobody would even look at the butterfly garden because they'd burn all their time in just trying to get through the airport.