<html xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:st1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"> <head> <meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"> <meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11 (filtered medium)"> <o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="country-region"/> <o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="place"/>  <style>  </style> </head> <body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=blue> <div class=Section1> <div> How about dispersal of the means of production and rationally planned production for use and need with a view towards beauty while "living in harmony with the Earth".  Salmon in the <st1:place w:st="on">Thames</st1:place>!<o:p></o:p> </div> <div>  <o:p></o:p> </div> <div> Regards,<o:p></o:p> </div> <div> Mike B)<o:p></o:p> </div> <o:p> </o:p> [WS:] Was it not a way the ruling classes wanted to deal with the growing “threat” of labor militancy – through geographical dispersed housing projects?  If memory serves, Le Corbusier even designed one, and Nixon claimed that suburbanization of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> will finish off communism.  He was certainly right.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> I think that American suburbia are probably one of the most sterile, aesthetically uninspiring and alienating landscapes ever created, perhaps on a par with Soviet-style housing projects.  However, the deciding factor in people’s attitudes toward this form of settlement is not efficiency, functionality or aesthetic but “hard-wired” cognitive perceptions of space.  Those who are hard wired for open, scarcely populated spaces will feel miserable in the most functional and efficient urban setting; while those hard wired for closed densely populated spaces will always be miserable in the country side, even if they lived in mansions.  These preferences are like claustrophobia or agoraphobia - they cannot be rationally debated.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Personally, I feel miserable in open, sparsely populated places.  This is true not just about human settlements but natural landscape as well - I feel better in a dense forest than on an open plain – which is probably an agoraphobic tendency.  So obviously, I am biased against suburban and rural settlements.  But having acknowledged my bias, I have a simple question that can be answered in a matter of fact manner.  How can they fit 6+ billion people in a landscape modeled on the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> suburbia?  Or is it going to be “fenced in open spaces” for the selected few, while the riff raff will be keep at bay by gunboats and fenced borders?<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Wojtek<o:p></o:p> </div> </body> </html>