Your article on megacounties, the fast-growing, sprawling suburbs ((NATION, June 15)), failed to highlight one of the most frightening aspects of these neo-urban communities: their stultifying similarity to one another. With their flashy office buildings and cookie-cutter shopping malls, bars and theme restaurants, megacounties like Orange County, Calif., and Johnson County, Kans., are not only interchangeable, they are indistinguishable. I despair to think of a generation whose idea of local color is watering holes such as Houlihan's or TGI Friday's.
David Greusel
St. Louis
You only touched the surface when you discussed "radical polarization" occurring in America's boomtowns. I can tell...
