In September 1954, he moved from Northwood to Long Island on the Northern State Parkway to see his new home in the country. He specifically said that Long Island was one of the most beautiful places in the United States, and that his home was one small reason why it wouldn't stay that way much longer. His new home lacked exterior grandeur, but made up for it in interior comfort and cost a total of $25,000. Kunstler got his first glimpse of what real American cities were like when he was sent to a boys' camp in Lebanon, New Hampshire. He visited his hometown of Northwood when he became a teenager and saw how he fell into a coma with so little to do there. Northwood had no public gathering places, so teenagers were stuck in their holes smoking weed and imitating rock and roll. For the teenagers there, the most awaited moment of transformation was when they became licensed, and I can say the same about my city. Kunstler attended a state college in a small town, Brockport, in western New York. The college was the only thing that kept the city alive with healthy conditions where it was tailored to people, not cars. He concludes the chapter by pointing out that this book is an attempt to discover how and why the landscape of scary places, the geography of nowhere, has simply ceased to be a credible human habitat and what we might do about it.