This is just third-worldism: Without a fundamentally middle-class society and bourgeois norms, there is no safe, shared space that isn’t private. The American upper class lives like the Brazilian upper class: They just don’t realize it.

Exhibit #1 in the American Brazil thesis: What’s the city that now draws every fleeing post-liquidity wealthy person that’s also explicitly and unabashedly modeled after upper-class LatAm lifestyle norms? Miami, of course.

In Miami, you’re either upper-middle-class and live in a high-rise condo building with all the amenities that means you need never leave: gym, pool, sun deck, pet area, children’s play room, doorman to get all deliveries. Or you’re really upper-class and live in a walled villa.

There is little or no Euro-style urbanism of shared parks, orderly streetside cafes, or shared services like libraries and schools. And those that exist are heavily policed (in Miami as in LatAm, the cops station their cars alongside common areas with their lightbars on to signal their presence). You view the outside world from inside a chauffeured vehicle (often armored), ferrying you in between private spaces.