For example, for miles around Sudbury it used to look as if there had been a massive forest fire with blackened snags sticking up from rock and barren dirt. This was the result of the nickle smelter. The pollution has been cleaned up today, but thirty years ago you wondered how people could live where no plants survived. However, all of this is about the physical appearance. Neither country will disappoint in that regard.
British mysteries do nothing to dispel the myth.
Somehow the crimes seem more couth and upscale. The Inspector Morse and Jane Marple TV series serve to continue the legend. It is only the more recent British movies and the Jane Tennyson series that show a seemier side to the tight little island, and some of that is seemy indeed. Reading their papers should dispel my illusions. They are dealing with the same problems we do.