really living means being not only able but willing to change and grow, and most people don't want to do that.
Most people find their confort zone and kid themselves they are forward thinking people, but reality is they are stuck in the past and haven't evolved in decades. They learn a few new tricks with tech toys and think they are with it as they play with the latest gadgits to hit the market but reality is they don't want anything to disturb their lives.
Here in vermont there are nut cases running around calling themselves progressives; they are really regressives trying to turn back the clock a century or two or at least decades.
Wackos calling themselves urban planners want to take society back over 50 years and bring back trollly's now called light rail mass transit to shuttle people from bedroom communities into a central city full of office buildings. News flash, the days of the huge factories in cities employing thousands of workers are long gone and there is no reason to not have office buildings in the burbs where people actually want to live. They left the cities because of the crime & grim and annoying neighbors way too close for confort.
if people were actually progressive they would be pushing for regional zoning and pushing to spread out the jobs to near where people live.
I agree with most of what you said, esp. as regards planners. They operate from a set of assumptions about Homo sapiens that are mostly invalid. That's why the USSR collapsed. Or, as Zappa put it, the thing the Soviets forgot is that people want to own stuff. They don't want to be forced to share living quarters, or forced to shop at the same store (GUM) where they may or may not be able to purchase needed materials and foodstuffs. Voluntary co-ops are another thing. (See my message re establishing a group home under ASD Advocacy.)
Generally, I find that even the most openminded progressives want to turn back the clock to the 1920s. I'm not sure they realize the full socio-bio-eco-ramifications of doing so.
However, I think instead of physically moving the jobs to where people live, I'd like to see more telecommuting and automation come into play. As J.R. "Bob" Dobbs used to say, "Let the robots do the shitwork, and *we'll* take their pay."
OTOH, I have serious reservations about some tech innovations, such as gengineered crops. I don't like that there's no labeling structure in place, and so far Monsanto et.al. have chosen not to label gengineered foodstuffs as such. Also a concern about gene splices: let's say someone can eat tomatoes OK but is allergic to corn. If you splice some corn genes into the tomatoes, you have a built-in health risk. Also there's the proprietary rights issue: what if pollen or seeds from a gengineered crop migrate onto a neighboring field using more conventional seeds? Under US patent law, the company that made the g seeds would have the right to sue the farmer for interference with their commerce. Monsanto has already sued one farmer for literally "being in the way" of their proprietary seeds. BTW, I've been called a wacko for expressing such concerns.
That's my 25 cents worth (prorated for inflation).
