Comment by JumpCrisscross

> the isolation I see in the United States

Travel alone in America and the frequency with which strangers will engage you in conversation reveals its diversity. New York and Atlanta are, today, exceptionally friendly places. (Random sample: I was in New York yesterday and am in Atlanta to-day.)

Most of the South is, too, as well as a surprising majority of rural America. (Boston and Seattle are, in my experience, the worst.)