Perhaps Walt Whitman sums today up best:
If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
‘Twould not be you, Niagara – nor you, ye limitless prairies – nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite – nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyserloops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon’s white cones – nor Huron’s belt of mighty lakes – nor Mississippi’s stream:
This seething hemisphere’s humanity, as now, I’d name – the still small voice vibrating -America’s choosing day…
(Borrowed from Dailykos.)