Not sure whether to be inspired or depressed.

The pre- and post-WWII mobilization came as the result of huge catastrophic events (great depression, war) which necessitated a cultural shift from individualism towards collectivism.

It will take a catastrophe of similar scale (drought, starvation, massively destructive weather events) to achieve anything like that again, and by that time, it may be too late.

Charles, you might enjoy looking into the work of Paul Romer, an economist at NYU. He is heavily involved with (maybe running?) NYU's urbanization project. Previously he worked in macroeconomic growth models, particularly endogenous growth models. (Krugman recently had some dismissive things to say about those models, although I suspect he admires Romer's work.) You might also like Romer's paper on financial regulation (PDF).

Note: Paul Romer is no relation to Christy Romer.

@2, Doug Saunders has done some great writing along those lines too. His "Arrival City: How the Largest Migration in History is Reshaping Our World" is pretty great. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/se…

p.s. used "great" twice - shit! Me no great.

@3, if you like that stuff, you will probably like this extended post on Tokyo's decentralized growth (confession: I didn't make it the whole way through).

The post-scarcity argument sounds...reasonable...but then again.

For example, we seem to have solved hunger at least in the US. But at what cost? Pollution, nitrates, and corn syrup. By making it easy to fill our guts with pseudo-food we created a new scarcity -- of health...as diabetes, obesity and cardio-vascular problems take the place of simple hunger. And instead of having farms, land, backyards, they want to cram us all into 125 sq. ft. apodment cells. That isn't "solving scarcity" that is prison.

As far as the "quick switch" you propose...nothing could be simpler than doing everything we are now doing..but by using renewably generated Hydrogen and consuming it in fuel cells.

Here's how the switch will look to the average person:

Hydrogen Refueling Station Incorporated in Retail Gasoline Station Opens

http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/033020.h…