Getting around in Johannesburg is its own kind of craziness. A lot of time in the car travelling from one oasis to another.
There’s a great episode of 99% Invisible on the development of the shopping mall in America. Victor Gruen, its Austrian inventor, eventually returned to Vienna, disillusioned and “refusing to pay alimony for the bastard developments” his invention had spawned. Those children are alive and well and leading sophisticated lives in Africa. (And a great many other parts of the world I suppose.)
“Paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
I’m thinking about all that time and space.