THE "URBAN SPRAWL" AND SOIL EROSION SCAM
Quote;
...the long-run trend in the decades up to 1970 was about one million acres of total land urbanized per year - not increasing but rather constant or slowing
The jist of the article was that much of the U.S. was still not urbanized and that many were exagerating the rate at which it was being urbanized. But the rate which he accepts as valid is clearly unsustainable in a finite world. It must slow or stop. And not just in the U.S. but in the rest of the world as well.
I could attempt to refute you point by point - for example, your contention that skyscrapers were built for reasons of pride rather than economics - but I think it would just detract from the main argument.
Many point out that fertility in the developed world is below the sustainable level. True. Whether that trend will continue in the face of undiminished birth-rates in the third world (and ever-increasing immigration) is questionable.