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Thanks for the lessons. You're smack-on to say that what's important to the 'burbs is what's not there. That's why it all started, I think (enabled by the automobile, of course). Reston, VA, was created in the 1960s as a solution to city problems. They built the place for the middle class, then imported city problems along with city folk who were inticed to move there by free or cheap housing. The problems linger.

I never knew Fallaci; but I didn't do a lot of thinking in the 1980s, either... I mean, I was in school most the decade and in business the rest.

30 cites in the Library of Congress catalog -- wow!

Great fun, her take on the Founding. I think I'm gonna take that attitude and go read Beard's stupid 1913 "Economic Interpretation of the Ameircan Founding." I'll take along a knife... And I love her on rich Americans: very, very good. By way of perspective, I ran her name by a communist friend of mine, my connection to Fidel. I can't wait to hear back!

I'm having fun thinking through this suburbs thing. Do you know the DC area? I've been watching Arlington, VA, and wondering when the inside-the-beltway Rte. 50 corridor is gonna get hit by the builders. Fairfax is a special beast, owned inside-out by the developers, so zoning wont' be a problem... more interesting is Arlington County, which is still part of DC, it often seems. In Maryland its happening to the original 'burbs: McMansions being fit into 1/4-acre lots of orginal GI-bill homes. Quite a parade.

We can apply the same notions that led Tocqueville to predict the American usurpation of Mexican land to today, and I don't see space as an inhibitor. Money follows the path of least resistance, be it Henderson, Nevada or Gaithersburg, Maryland. More puzzling is California: which way will she go? Even California politics are susceptible to economics. But to water rights? Hah!

I was hoping for more from Caldwell as to why rich people like Massachusetts. Maybe I missed it. I think rather they like it despite the taxes. Maine, for example, has a high sales tax to soak the tourists (a la FLA) and an 8 per cent income tax (and property taxes to kill). The plants are closing, Walmart has roosted, and the population is getting old. The government promotes this outcome. Why are they so stupid? They don't change because they don't have to, that's why. The rich still like the place. This year's tourism was off, so maybe they'll open one eye in Augusta. A couple eyebrows were raised last month over the news.

It's the same along the Hudson Valley, FDR's home turf, as you say. One of God's most beautiful places, and its a cultural sink hole. The irony is perfect: an eighty-year depression enabled by the New Deal that was to solve it (thanks for pointing this out). The smart money moved to Henderson, Nevada.

I keep hoping there's opportunity in those old northeast mill towns. There are more ghosttowns in the East than anywhere else. I love driving through them. Get off the interstate by Albany or Springfield, Mass, and its like Grandma's attic. I love it, but it's desparately sad.