Kudzu

When we were young there was a lot of concern with kudzu.  We saw a documentary in Jim Charles's class about how noxious it was.  REM put it on the cover of Murmur back in '83 as a metaphor for the degradation (in all senses of the word) of southern culture.

Wikipedia emphasizes that it is still a menace "Kudzu is a serious invasive plant in the United States. It has been spreading in the southern U.S. at the rate of 150,000 acres (61,000 ha) annually," blah blah blah.

However, coming back to the south after roughly a quarter century either in the Northeast or otherwise preoccupied, kudzu seems less rampant.  Maybe it's because the Triangle has burgeoned and kudzu has been pushed back right here, or maybe it's because kudzu seemed like such an apt metaphor for how we felt about a lot of things coming out of stagflation, Vietnam, Iran, and other traumas of 1973-82.  Or maybe it's just me.  Thoughts?