Here’s a cultural contrast between a pretty Sunday in Italy and one in the United States. It’s based, unfairly, on my own unscientific impressions.

In Italy, I was lucky to be on the faculty of a one-month program for five Springs since 2011, in the walled Renaissance city of Urbino. In that city, and in other old towns, I would see men sitting for hours drinking espresso or on walls around the piazza, talking, laughing, and watching younger folks walking around in clusters. Or young people taking nonna to church. Or groups around tables outside a caffè. Cars, few in number and never a bloated SUV, mostly stayed away from these centers of old towns.

On a recent Sunday, I rode 90 minutes out of metro Atlanta in an SUV to a lavish Ritz-Carlton in rural Greene County, Georgia. I was the saxophone player for a Sunday jazz brunch duo on Lake Oconee. The incredibly talented guitar player, John Willingham, was driving.

The contrast with Italian public life was vivid. We drove past the golf course and many acres of valet parked cars, but saw only a few human beings, most in Ritz-Carlton blue uniforms. At the loading dock, we joined an influx of these uniformed workers – kitchen staff, housekeeping, baristas, etc. and one “Loss Protection” official named “Duke.”

Luxury in America can take on Italian references. We were booked at the Amore del Lago restaurant, where I could get a free slice of brick oven Carnivora pizza. But the pseudo-Italian culture comes with a price. I thought of Mar-a-Lago, except there were no oligarchs or tech-bro billionaires here. In fact, almost nobody showed up for the $85 brunch. We played for four hours for no more than two or three small tables at a time.

I don’t know where the paying people were, but I’m sure it was costing them a lot to be in this Xanadu, safely away from the carnage of American cities.

Men in Urbino, Italy. Photo by Pavel Wyszomirski.