I just returned from Italy, where I ate great food, drank the best wine, and enjoyed how incredible the air smelled. (Yes, Italy smells great. Who knew?) I saw incredible works of art, ancient architecture, fine goods in tiny stores, little farms hand growing the best ingredients, and lots of trees everywhere, both urban and rural.

The most shocking things I discovered were the things that were missing. There was no homelessness, even in a big city like Rome. No one got shot. Crime was very low and walking around at night was perfectly safe. People don’t need to own cars, since trains, buses, and other forms of public transportation were everywhere, again, in both urban and rural areas. Italy is not as huge a country as the US. However, their transportation systems move millions of people every day across hundreds of miles, quickly, (can you say bullet train?), and efficiently. The tracks they run on are also much smoother than ours and the rail cars are newer, clean, and in good repair. Compared to Amtrak’s 30–40-year-old train cars and ancient tracks, Italy is years ahead of us and they have been for decades.

But it’s not just the US public systems that are so inefficient. Private ones are, too, because of all the restrictions corporations have on our daily utilities. Let me give you an example.

I took my cellphone into a mobile phone company store in Rome. I wanted an Italian SIM card so that I could have a local number and text capability. The clerks did not speak English, so we communicated through hand gestures and pictures. It took me all of 5 minutes to obtain a new card, have it installed, and pay my $20 fee for the entire month of service. In the US, you can’t get out of a phone store in under an hour or $100.

Why is it like this? There are a number of reasons:

• Cellular carriers make phones proprietary to each company, so if you change carriers, you have to buy a new phone. In Italy, all phones must work with all carriers as mandated by law. You just have to change the SIM card.
• US companies use their customer service personnel as their front line of marketing. Managers grade their employees not on their level of service, but on their ability to sell the latest upgrades. This is why it sometimes feels that they are less than helpful in solving your problems. (I used to work for a couple of phone companies, so I know how they are.)
• Companies in Italy have a much more difficult time price-gouging customers, because they are regulated and watched more closely that in the US. A monthly charge for unlimited service might be $30. In the US, it can be up to $150 at a big carrier.

Once again, the US consumer is getting the very short end of the straw when it comes to services, both public and private, because the regulatory system, as we currently have it, precludes efficiencies that would make our lives easier. No wonder so many people, especially retirees, want to go live overseas. Things just work better there.

The other noticeable absence were car fumes. Almost all the cars, delivery vans and SUVs were hybrids or EVs. The incentive for purchasing electrified vehicles is great and the EU law against polluting vehicles is pretty harsh and are becoming more stringent over time. They are actively working to have zero emissions by 2035.

It was so nice to enjoy Roman ruins in clear skies and fragrant air.