Pastoral Capitalism
By Outstanding Louise Mozingo op-ed on how office parks contribute to sprawl and how any rethinking of urban spaces needs to place limitations on the growth of “pastoral capitalism,” as she calls it. In conclusion:
All three steps — a halt to agricultural land conversion, connecting dispersed employment centers with alternative transit, and encouraging downtown development — are needed to create renewed, civic-minded corporate workplaces and, in the process, move toward sustainable cities. Even leaving aside climate change, very soon the price of energy will make the dispersed, unconnected, low-density city-building pattern impossibly costly. Those jurisdictions and businesses that first create livable, workable, post-peak-oil metropolitan regions are the ones that will win the future.
Indeed.