We moved to Austin one year ago from New York City. Austin is one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S., if not the fastest growing city. The housing market is booming. The highways and the airport are expanding. New restaurants and stores are popping up like weeds and traffic is increasing.
The boom in Austin could not have been predicted ten to twenty years ago, at least that is my impression from talking to long-time residents. The growth has been exponential and the city is responding in kind to try to keep up. The situation in Austin is a relatively small-scale example of the impact of globalization and a city scrambling to keep up with its growth.
My wife, Debbie, is from Lima, Peru. My first visit to Lima was in 2002. The Peruvian economy has undergone tremendous growth in the past 15 years. The middle class has doubled and extreme poverty has been drastically reduced.
The population of Peru is a little over 30 million people now. Approximately 1/3 of the population is based in Lima, the capital city. Between the 1940s and 1970s, Peru experienced a number of coups d’état. Millions of people migrated to Lima looking for work and a better quality of life, transforming the city from a tranquil and charming seaside port to the overly congested capital that it is today.
Lima is an example of growth that could and should have been forecasted. Automobile traffic is out of control. Long-term planning and infrastructure have suffered due to the lack of strong political parties and years of self-serving, corrupt politicians.
The fragile European Union, fluid borders and the reversal of colonization over the last five decades have contributed to massive migrations and transformations in European countries like England, France and Germany that have left immigrants feeling marginalized and natives feeling resentful and xenophobic.
This is a larger scale example of an evolution that should and could have been addressed. The world is now paying a price for the lack of foresight that is inherent in institutions where the incentives of short-term gains outweigh the ethical demands of long-term planning.
The denial of global warming is yet another example of our ability to turn a blind eye to something that is staring us in the face, but can be neglected and avoided until it becomes a crisis that can no longer can be ignored.
Freud developed the concepts of the Id, Ego and Superego to shed light on the mechanics of the human psyche. The Id is impulse and passion driven. The Superego is guilt and conscience driven. The Ego is the poor sod caught in the crossfire.
Humanity is at its best, both on the level of interpersonal relationships and in governance, when there is a harmony between Id and Superego, when there is room for passion and rational discussion, impulse and planning, pleasure and delayed gratification. (See this article in the Smithsonian on how Finland transformed its education system:
Now picture two starry-eyed lovers that decide to tie the knot. Life couldn’t be better. Passionate sex, sleeping in on the weekends, dinner parties...
Fast forward five years. There’s a newborn. Mom wants to go back to work after three months, but dad wants her to be home with the baby for the first year. Mom wants to have the child baptized. Dad is an atheist. Mom would love to move closer to her family. Dad says he’ll never leave New York City. Uh oh. Who wants to deal with issues like that when you can just hop in the sack, have a candlelit meal and go for a spontaneous weekend getaway? Talk about a buzzkill.
Who wants to raise taxes to support rising infrastructure costs when it will mean losing an election? Who wants to address such unsexy things like education and healthcare when there are terrorists out there, wars to create and a ravenous military industrial complex to feed?
If we don’t risk talking about the difficult issues and just hope that they’ll go away, we will face the consequences no matter if the relationship is between two people or two nations.
We live in a world full of distractions and instant gratification. It’s easier than ever to avoid the elephant in the room when you can dress it up with fancy clothes and spray perfume every time it poops. Have you ever seen elephant poop?
David B. Younger, Ph.D is the creator of Love After Kids, for couples that have grown apart since having children. He is a clinical psychologist and couples therapist with a web-based private practice, and lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, 11 year-old son, 2 year-old daughter and 4 year-old toy poodle.
*This post was originally published on 8/10/16 on the Love After Kids blog.