Just read another interesting Momus essay on Density and Urban Culture. More specifically, I was intrigued by a thread in his discussion board:

"I'm interested in two things about car culture:

1. The way cars are private space encroaching on public space. The more we shift from pedestrian to car culture, the more we eliminate 'public life', at least in its non-electronic form.

2. The way that, appearing less and less in public space, we devote less and less attention to our appearance and to ourselves as actors in 'the theatre of everyday life'. Look at the way chairs in Paris cafes are oriented to the sidewalk, like seats in a theatre! In high density situations, life is a fabulous spectacle, a mesh of freedom, encounters, assembly, of the constant contact with 'the other', of cutting a dash. Our private space is relatively insignificant. We spend little time there. Our life goes on in public. Judged daily by strangers, we vest a lot in our appearance. We try to look good, or interesting. Car culture makes us look daggy and go baggy. We see only significant others, and trust that they're seeing 'the real us' and not our outward appearance. But a dose of theatre -- an audience of strangers -- would actually do us the world of good. It might even change who 'the real me' actually is."

Obviously, car culture has much to do with the rising epidemic of obesity. You don't walk, you sit. You don't burn calories, you add more through a drive-through. But I think he raises an interesting point on personal appearance and how it's tied into the lack of public life. Everyone knows that people in cities dress better than rural or suburban people. Even in America, this is true, even though people in most European cities dress much better than their American urban couterparts. Now, I realize why this is so. In a city, especially if you take public transportation or spend much time in the "public theater" of cafes, bars, restaurants, sidewalks, etc. you are on display, watching others and being watched. In a suburban/rural life you travel from car to home without being seen. You may shop at the Walmart/Safeway but no one looks at you, you scan the shelves without making contact. Existing in your own world, why would you bother to dress decently? Why would you worry about your weight?

I am spending two weeks in St. Petersburg, attending a literary conference in the company of 50 other writers from America and around the world. It isJune and the sun barely leaves the sky. The Russians fill the streets eating ice cream, de-thawing from their frozen winters. Hot water is scarce, as are fruits and vegetables, but the town buzzes with relief. As part of the literary experience, I would like to comment on this place, this culture. I would like to fancy myself a critic and inform.
But Russia – what can I say? If we presuppose (and I feel we must) that critics must be experts, then a trip to Russia – a swollen thicket of curiosities – leaves me without much to critique.
Let’s face it; my expertise, it is slight. A quick rundown: All things myself, (except knowing what I don’t know.) My own cooking. Who better to describe my free form inventiveness with cottage cheese and Swiss chard? But Russia?
I visited the magnificent Church on Spilled Blood, a church erected to honor Tsar Alexander II who was assassinated on the very spot where it now stands. The tiles in the church depict Bible stories in amazing color schemes. I stare in wonder at their Technicolor dreamscapes, but I don't understand building a church on the spot of your leader’s assassination. Could you imagine a cathedral in Dallas near the grassy knoll, JFK starting out at Abraham slaying Isaac from where the goat now waits and watches?
How about cartoons? I watch “Vinny the Pooch”—an approximation of Winnie the Pooh complete with Piglet and Eeyore. Except here, Vinny is a chubby black bear with a 60-year-old smoker’s voice. In Russia, men are men and Vinny the Pooch could kick your ass.
Or the TV show, “The Burden of Money,” where three people compete for cash by presenting the sorry state of their personal tragedies. “My son needs an operation but we have no money since a flood wiped out our modest home in which my deaf and blind mother slept.” A jury of their peers votes to confer the prize on the most pathetic. How can I compare this to American game shows where we reward mental acuity, nerves of steel or the ability to eat giant beetles that explode when you bite into them? We don’t decree riches on the pathetic; we kick losers off the island, immediately.
I see cramped living spaces and the sad eyes of men in ill-fitting jackets and the tinted windows of racing Mercedes filled with perfectly slicked men with expensive watches and large fists. I’m an expert on none of this, so what else can I do but marvel at the sights while I struggle to decipher the Cyrillic alphabet under a sun that needs only two hours of rest per day?