An Interesting Look By...

...the opinion page of the Bloomberg news service regarding what a post-sprawl future might look like:

``Then the euro, one of capitalism's crowning achievements, began to unravel. After Ireland rejected the Lisbon treaty in three consecutive referendums, its fellow single-currency members decided to kick the country out of the project. Once Germany and France realized how easy it was to thin the ranks back to the core gang of euro countries that they'd wanted in the first place, they started finding excuses to bar more nations, starting with Italy.

``With banks and mortgage lenders going bust faster than the government could arrange bailouts, every nut job with an Internet connection started demanding a return to something called the gold standard. When a bunch of academics joined in by denouncing fiat currencies, the general public lost all trust in money.''