Cell Phones and Sanitation

I find it somewhat strange that a technology such as the mobile telephone is so prevalent, while other advancements such as regular garbage service, clean running water, and a working sewer system, are absent. Perhaps it has something to do with the difference between individual and community needs brought up in the Ecology lecture. I would hardly say that people here are more indivdiualistic than in the US, but the balance of individual vs. community falls closer to the side of the individual in some areas (see above) and on the side of the community in others (for instance, the closeness of families and neighbourhoods.