@cstross @scalzi I think I experience some similar semblance to this sort of feeling when visiting mega cities in China in 2008. You look at the skylines and there's just nothing like them in the US. The amount of construction going was just off the charts. Everywhere, the future was being built and it was a more "futuristic" future than my American mind could conceive. All the buildings too fanciful and lit up neon. Fuck New York. Have you seen New Pudong?