I grew up in a rather grim seaside town in Devon surrounded by some of the most spectacular countryside and coastline in Britain. Whenever I return from New York, I’m struck by how little this landscape has changed: new housing estates may have crept up the valley and a Morrisons now sits on the old industrial estate, but Dartmoor looms in the distance, set amid farmland and woods that have barely altered for centuries. England’s “green and pleasant land” endures, deeply rooted in the national psyche.

Americans, too, see their remarkable landscapes as central to their identity. Their national and state parks are breathtaking, beautifully preserved and impressively managed. Yet outside those protected areas, much of rural America is incredibly visually depressing. Like many Brits, I once assumed rural poverty was confined to the Deep South, Alabama, West Virginia and the like, not something you’d find just 50 miles beyond Manhattan.

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