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So much of modern O&G infrastructure exists to enable segregation.

Cars shield you from sharing a space with poor people going to and from work, and operate as a status symbol to let the police know who to bother. Toll Roads allow richer people to "skip the line" as it were. Free-standing housing means you never have to share anything - not the gym, not yard, not the parking. The suburbs allow you to flee "urban" inner cities. Flying means you never have to pass through poor states or cities on the way across the country, and the high and varied costs mean you never have to share a row or a plane with the wrong kind of people. Highways are used as real physical divides between sections of neighborhood that are designed to be difficult to cross, clearly delineating the "good" side of town from the "bad". And then you've got the jobs, with roughnecks sent out to the rural corners while white collar office workers live in their walled gardens at home.

If the American Dream is that picturesque Leave it To Beaver vision of a Levittown neighborhood where everyone knows their place, then the O&G industry is the magic fairy dust that makes it real.