If the Internet exists at all in the future, it will be on a much-reduced scale from what we enjoy today, and all the activities of everyday life are not going to reside on it.

We will have to make new arrangements, or revive bygone ones. We may, for another example, see the return of the boarding house.

The twentieth century was about getting around. The twenty-first century will be about staying in a place worth staying in.

The industrial age is over. What follows will be life lived on a much smaller and finer scale.

We're not going to reform our moronic land-use laws, which mandate suburban sprawl one way or another. They're simply going to be ignored when it becomes self-evident that we cannot build stuff that way anymore.

At the heart of our misunderstanding and infantile behavior is the wish for a miracle cure.

There is not going to be a "hydrogen economy," and no combination of alternative energy systems or fuels will allow us to continue the suburban pattern. It's finished. We will, however, desperately need to grow more of our food closer to home, and so the preservation of agricultural hinterlands is of great importance. But don't expect the fiesta of suburban construction to continue more than a few more years.