I've been to a number of developing countries and the one thing that is always the same is the hidden filth and poverty. Cheap labor, thugs, vagrants, homeless, are all either removed by bus or brought in by bus depending on their relative utility to the greater good. Those big expensive buildings you see in Singapore weren't built by the corporate big wigs that work in them. They were built by the cheap Indian labor that was boated in and subsequently sent back with almost no money in their pockets.

Those super clean sidewalks come at a stiff penalty with the local authoritarian law enforcement. You can't walk around without their being a constant reminder of what happens to you when you go afoul of the authorities. A constant reminder of his unfree you really are. I think its a shame how we abuse and take advantage of our freedoms here but I sure am glad we have them.

The United States only seems worse to you because you have seen behind the curtain and you realize what it takes to make Oz the great and powerful wizard that he is. You haven't spent enough time or even LIVED in the country to know what happens behind those curtains.