“Don’t you think,” one of George Minafer’s unnamed compatriots asks in The Magnificent Ambersons, “that being things is rather better than doing things?” Minafer and his crowd are not the most sympathetic characters, and I don’t think Booth Tarkington intended them to be (although Minafer could arguably be considered an exaggerated avatar of his creator in certain respects), but I think there’s something to this quote.

I thought about it on a recent drive to Fort Wayne, where the Hoosier Heartland Highway in all its four-lane divided highway splendor curves around several small towns. Americans, it seems, would rather get to places than go to places. By this, I mean the journey is something to make as short as possible, not a part of the experience.

I’m no highway engineer, but every time I’ve driven the Hoosier Heartland Highway, the traffic has been almost non-existent. There seems to be very little reason for the “upgrade”, other than to let people drive faster. And as a result, there are towns that people no longer drive through. This might be good for the driver, but it seems less good for the businesses in the towns, and perhaps for us as a society.

When I drive through small towns, I sometimes wonder how much longer they have. The population of Americus, through which Indiana 25 no longer passes, has fallen from 630 in 2012 when the Hoosier Heartland Highway opened to 57 in 2023. Some of this is part of a general trend, to be sure, but not all of it.

Are we really in such a hurry that we’re willing to give up unique places in exchange for the sameness of limited-access highways with the same fast food places at every exit? Probably. I’m guilty of it myself. But there’s a lot we’re missing out on that we might not get back when it’s gone. We could do with spending more time being and less time doing.