If fewer people lived in cities, and more lived in small towns — then we could have the lawn without the long commute.
With modern communications technology, there’s no reason for most workers to be concentrated in large urban areas.
Right you are. The company I'm part-owner of is located in a rural area on a island in Puget Sound. The company facility is located on my partner's property. He has a 30 second commute by foot, I have a five minute commute by car (live on the same island). Our third partner isn't on the Island, but he's still only about five minutes away.
We have customers for our equipment all over the world. Production is in several contract shops around the US, with final assembly and test at our site. With phone and internet (email and webmeetings), we can handle pretty much anything. The most "face-to-face" we do is during initial customer contact.
It beats hell out of either living in or driving to Seattle.
The problem there is that small town life life is horrible. I did it for 10 years and it almost killed me. Give me the city any day.