Perhaps Mr. Balashov is thinking of the great urban centers of Europe like Moscow. Where it can take 2.5 hours to go 20 blocks and where the mass transit system embraces multi-culturalism and internationalism by only having signs in Cyrillic.<p>I am sorry that Mr. Balashov has chosen to live in Atlanta, but I suspect he has little knowledge of Omaha. Growing up in such a place is quite idyllic. The creeks, the parks, the forest and the fields encourage children to play sports, have pets, picnic and stare up at the sky from amidst fields of boundless green listening to the sound of insects and birds instead of sirens.<p>As Oscar Wilde said, &quot;For heaven&#x27;s sake, don&#x27;t try to be cynical. It&#x27;s perfectly easy to be cynical.&quot; It is easy to be cynical about suburbs and wax poetic about cities. Well I grew up in Kansas and have lived for 25 years in NYC (Manhattan). Also known as the capital of the world.<p>I&#x27;ve been to Paris, Moscow, London, Dubai, Cairo, Buenos Aires, Brussels, Prague, Budapest, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, etc. And guess what I still love Kansas and Nebraska.<p>Loathing suburbia is snobbery and a failure of imagination.<p>My favorite Tarkovsky film is Nostalghia. The title refers to a very specific feeling that Russians experience when the miss their homeland.