This work aims to identify the physical ugliness that defines and homogenizes America's cities, suburbs and countryside. Believing that prevailing assessments of the American landscape are inadequate and injudicious, the author calls into question the conventional wisdom of environmentalists, urban planners, and architects alike. In this examination of what he sees as the ugliness that is the American consumer society, he argues that our aesthetic condition can be fully understood only by explorers of the metaphoric environment.