Culture good, culture bad...

The more you have of some cultural traits the worse off you'll be as a person and a culture and society. The more you have of some other traits, the better off you'll be. Seems like to me anyway. OK, let's see the line-up...

Let's start with the depressing bad... This isn't really a ranking, just a list...

*TV
*stadium sport
*car-power-love
*internal-combustion-love
*conspicuous consumption
*minimalls
*freeway exit development
*Jerry Springer
*fun/party culture
*noise
*mental medications due to stress
*public rudeness, profanity and vulgarity
*fads like SUVs, Harleys, NASCAR, jetskis, loud boats, generators on RVs, big RVs, noise in general
*nonviolent drug prisoners
*chain stores
*big corporate advertising
*big media movies
*destination resorts
*airline travel for recreation
*1-hr+ solo driver commutes
*transience
*obesity
*sweatsuits
*camo as streetwear
*casinos and lotteries
*cellphone jabber
*divorce with kids
*unskilled teenage workforce
*insurance abuse and overuse
*avoidance of the outdoors unless it's while connected to a noisemaker
*complain about weather and nature

If you culture has these features, it'll die very soon. Each of these features is a very potent poison. Don't you think? I don't want to get depressed, but is there any data anywhere indicating that any of these features is sustainable? Part of a way of life one can do without injury or illness? Man, it seems like these features are each directly connected to enormous and contagious trouble. And that they each stem mainly from a fevered drive to exploitation both from without and within. And, sure, none of us are perfect, but there ya have it.

OK, what are the good things, what things if you see them you might see them in relation to a culture, community or neighborhood growing or strengthening...

*bike riding (especially to work and for errands but also for R&R)
*walking
*porch sitting
*being outside, and doing things manually
*kids playing outside unattended
*going to the library
*knowing the history of your area
*knowing many songs, poems, stories and jokes by heart
*being able to sing, play an acoustic instrument and do actual dances
*a multi-generation, owner-operated business
*eating local food and produce
*doing local things down the foodchain to eat a few meals a year---garden, fish, hunt
*knowing all your neighbors and having at least small ongoing exchange relations with them (cookies, produce, news)
*living near family
*living near where you work
*living near where you grew up
*employer/owners who live next to their business
*people who don't run a credit balance
*people whose homes are paid off
*travel to the edge of town for recreation
*if on the water, use a boat that doesn't make noise---canoe or sail
*if in snowy area, get outside in winter most days for jaunts (on foot, xc-ski or snowshoe)
*families that eat together every day
*older people helping younger people learn about and do all of the above
*young people, even children, out doing most of the above

When you see the things in the second list today, as part of a western-civ setting, is there cause for hope? Are these things conducive to development and creativity? Is there any directly related decay and decline? Sure, bad people can do these things (a la the German Volk and Southern slave-owners, say), but do these things themselves contribute to the bad? When poor people display the second list but not the first are they actually poor? When rich people display the first and not the second are they well-off---for very long?