As research for my own book, I’m re-reading Tyler Cowen’s indispensable volume, In Praise of Commercial Culture (1998). (Here, by the way, is a review that I wrote in 1999 of this book.) On page 31 I ran across this interesting fact — one that further supports my claim that the quality of life today in America today is vastly superior to what it was 30 or 40 years ago:
From 1965 to 1990 America grew from having 58 symphony orchestras to having nearly 300, from 27 opera companies to more than 150, and from 22 non-profit regional theaters to 500.