you get to choose between Insurrectionist Barbie On Twitter Party and Art Candee On Bluesky Party

American cities look great from a few thousand feet up in the air, if you focus the shot on a giant park where nobody lives, works, or sells shit.

of course, I could find a close up shot in any American city that would require anyone looking at it to get a tetanus shot and take two Silkwood style showers.

Conversely you can also find pictures of "Third world" cities that look wonderful, clean, and modern. Compare the Vietnamese newly built Ho Chi Minh metro system with some downtown Manhattan metro stations, and it's not Manhattan that comes out looking nice. You have to compare like for like. The average downtown business district of pretty much any decently sized city on earth, "Third world" or otherwise, is going to look nice and clean from afar.
- Mogadishu, Somalia
  Bakuva, DRC
  Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
  3 of the poorest cities on the planet, brought to you by the power of selective photography!
- This is all true but...
  You have to compare like for like.
  In order to avoid creating false equivalences, you have to compare representative samples.
  The average American does not live in a shiny NY apartment and commute by metro, but the average resident of Vietnam isn't living in Ho Chi Minh City either.

"our three largest cities, and a third world country."

Oh ok, what do these look like?

Edited marketing photo of a private college campus in Chicago.

Edited marketing photo of Central Park in NYC.

Edited marketing photo of a multibillion dollar private subdivision near LA.

Bitcrushed photo of an apartment building mere moments after being hit by a hurricane.

Cities around the world, in the richest provinces and counties of a nation typically look good from up high like this. You can easily reverse this by taking drone shots of tier 1 Chinese cities and juxtapose it with photos of Manhattan at street level.

Show Houston and then tell me that American cities have anything going for them.

- The power of angles

I’ve seen the Chinese tourism sizzle reels on RedNote. I cant unsee them

Switzerland and China have some of the most picturesque tourism videos. Whoever is pushing those out better be getting PAID.

So the difference between a third world and a first world country is that the first world country can afford to take aerial shots of its cities?

I challenge her to define what a "third world country" is. Traditionally it was countries unaligned to the West/USA or Russia. Mexico would be a 3rd world country.

Perhaps she means "developing country"?

she forgot the honkie shitting streets of frisco