Social class, defined by material wealth, dictates the type of housing to which citizens are entitled. Each step on the social scale is assigned a different housing color. People obey the laws and trust the system, and doors are never locked. The rest of the country is a war zone. Half the students at the University of Massachusetts walk around the campus armed with weapons.
Snipers shoot people on the campus at night for the fun of it, and rape is rampant.
Professors sit behind bulletproof desks. At some point, Princeton University was flattened by explosions and no longer exists. Yet somehow we feel that the chaos of the rest of the country is preferable to the tranquility of the 51st State, which is really a benign prison. The rest of the country is a jungle, but one can learn to live in a jungle and survive. So much for setting the stage.