Our culture of impermanence has created what sociologists call “limited liability communities.” Whenever we attach ourselves to, well, anything, we reserve the right to quit when that attachment no longer serves our purposes. That’s what freedom of choice is all about, right? Yes, but we rarely acknowledge that the flipside of all this freedom is weak attachments to people, groups, and, particularly, to place.
I don't quite understand the significance of the "more wood than brick" quotation from Lord James Bryce. We built and still build with wood in the United States because we have the trees. We replace the oxygen-giving, pretty trees as part of a wood-farm cycle. The English never replanted the forests they denuded by the 1700s so they could make them into boats. They took colonies to get more trees. We got tired of them taking the trees and not letting us do our own stuff with the results, so we rebelled. (Oh, and some tax stuff.) We do not consider wood as temporary or primitive. We like wood. It makes a house flexible, makes modifications easier, and it even smells good. How this quote even ties into the original article is confusing. It got me so lost that I stopped reading and had to go back. The author does a poor job buttressing his point, which he barely mentions. Heck, the sameness of the Land and Northwest Ordinances was vital to a caste-less growth of the nation. If we hadn't let surveyors lead the way, we would've have gnarled whorls for cities in a couple places near the Mississippi and California would've been a separate country. Creating a grid meant that each state was equal to another and to the original thirteen colonies. Flyover states may vote differently, but they are no less states than Virgina or New York. Also, the author provides no evidence of his premise that there is too much similarity of place in the US. I've traveled the nation and live on both coasts as well as inland. There are huge differences. Assuming "well, there are the same chain stores and TV shows so it's all the same" is negated by a walk down the block in Columbia, South Carolina versus Oakland, California.