chris talks about 'napsterisation', to describe this 'small is beautiful', spread-the-bennies-and-the-risk, approach.
computers showed the way...it's a 180° turn from the 'centralise-is-good' mentality that has accompanied our evolution, probably since we first 'centralised' our favourite tools and trinkets in our fave caves.
and on to centralising skills into guilds, shops into markets, markets into towns, towns into cities, intelligence into universities, art into academies and museums, und so weiter...
at a certain point these convergent forces hit a membrane and have to disperse to survive the calculus of waste/benefit.
it's always tragic, cf the library of alexander, possibly the biggest cognitive setback ever in history, we'll never know.
you collected your goodies in yer cave, then some gang came and ripped you off....re-dispersion.
you set up yer farm and holdings, sorted, mature orchards, and along comes some religious fanatic group and decides their 'sacred' cause is served by reducing your (and your forefathers') carefully crafted life's work into rubble...
sleeping peacefully in your teepee, along comes the next tribe looking for scalps, necessary for their positional status.
now it's the info-age...and it seems like much as certain interests want to 'big box' that too, the info seems to have a mind of its own, like water always finding the cracks.
if the internet weren't so vital to business, it's be gone by now, too damn subversive of authoritarianism by its very nature.
so instead of capitalism supplying the rope to hang itself, it's more a case of 'hoist by its own petard'. marx wasn't far off in his metaphor.
anyway, i don't think capitalism as a machine is all bad, per se.
it has to be run by serious principles, and rule of law for all equally.
i do think its baser baser sides are being hauled up for scrutiny, for millions of cruelly wasted lives too late, and out of this scrutiny will evolve the enlightened systems of capitalism like that embodied by paul hawken, and so tirelessly promoted by chris cook here at ET.
it's not the car, it's the fuel, and the inefficiency...
ramblin' on... The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it. Chinese Proverb.
In Finland, the family outing to the big boxes has become part of the culture, especially where the big boxes offer other community possibilities such as sports, live entertainment, theatre, cinema etc. The question is whether the boxes are sustainable from a transport POV. They are built greenfield because parking space is cheap, but basically they are displaced main streets. You can't be me, I'm taken
Well, yes.
You say that like someone made a mistake, or doesn't understand their business. But really, there are no external threats.
To be less arch about it: The destruction of public space is the deeper point. No democracy can remain in the hands of the people if public space is eliminated. This is understood, and plans are made accordingly.
