So there are some measures by which America will never have a culture like other countries. We're a young country, by many standards -- just 250 years, by most

So there are some measures by which America will never have a culture like other countries. We're a young country, by many standards -- just 250 years, by most standards, four centuries if your really push it, only a century or two for most of our cities. We have always been in a state of change and development -- the Eerie Canal was less than fifty years old when the trans-continental railroad was completed. The Pony Express was put out of business by the telegraph within two years. The shopping mall era was maybe three decades. It's hard to find any techniques or traditions or enterprises which last more than a generation or two when everything changes so much. We have always existed in the global context. Take pizza -- it's hard to find a more American cuisine than pizza. Our cities have their own rivalries and pride over their takes on it. But it started off as Italian pizza after WWII, and we of course immediately re-exported our takes on pizza through the globe, so you can hardly claim it's distinctly American. We've always been a fragmented culture. The breaded pork tenderloin sandwich is on the menu at half of the restaurants in Indiana, but virtually unknown outside of it. Mardi gras is a huge thing in New Orleans, but not New York. There's barely anything besides fireworks on the fourth of July you can say is truly done throughout the US. We have plenty of culture of course, from jazz clubs to Shaker furniture to apple orchards and county fairs and quilting bees and all the history and artisans you could ask for; it will just never be the same as the culture that develops over hundreds of years in stagnant isolation.