“Efforts to reinvent downtown Middletown always struck me as futile. People didn’t leave because our downtown lacked trendy cultural amenities. The trendy cultural amenities left because there weren’t enough consumers in Middletown to support them.”
—J.D. Vance, "Hillbilly Elegy"
I was struck by John Maeda's suggestion that design is not the most important thing, and now I keep seeing reminders of it in the most unlikely of places.