Based on recommendations of a couple A-list types, I snagged a copy of Lisa Gansky's The Mesh and am about halfway through it. I'm already sick of her raving about ZipCar, but expect to polish off the book anyway. Despite the fact that it doesn't apply to software development except to emphasize Web 2.0 and mobile apps as one of the underpinnings of mesh business development.
(Aside: It's a little weird reading about BP's oil spill in an actual book--particularly given how I'd just finished Crossing the Chasm, which--even in my "updated" edition--mentioned the Twin Towers as if they still stood.)
Trust me when I say that I'd like to believe that all Gansky's premises are true. Particularly the one about how the Great Recession has adjusted people's value systems to prefer part-ownership (or renting) well-made things to full ownership of their shoddier, inhumanely- and unsustainably-made counterparts. But--with all due disrespect to the ethical fecklessness of the average American consumer--my cats have longer-term memories. Seriously.
That being said, one point in favor of Gansky's arguments is the increasing density of urban areas. When done right, it's certainly a "greener" way of living than offered by the 'burbs. But that brings us to what I hereby dub "The 'Green Acres'* Paradox," by which I mean that "the dream" is still to carve out a slice of real estate that we can call "ours." Where we can remain blissfully ignorant of our neighbors' dreckish taste in music, their domestic woes, or even their pet ownership status. As my prof. for American History I and II in college put it, "There is no freedom like the freedom from the vices of one's neighbors." (Preach it, brother!)
Yet, somehow, just down the road (not even half-a-holler, y'all), there's supposed to be a full grocery store.
And a gas station.
And a WalMart.
And a Starbucks.
And a Gap.
And four bars on the 4G phone.
And this amazing little hole-in-the-wall Thai/Halal/Tapas/Tepanyaki/Dim Sum place.
And...you get the idea.
And what I take away from this is that the companies that best reconcile the paradox will win as big as they want to win. Not necessarily for the "right" reasons of sustainability and distaste for materialism. But because, as a culture, we're pastmasters at saying one thing and doing another.
P.S.: If anyone out there invents a technology to neutralize the hystrionics of a spectacularly undisciplined beagle, call me.
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* Exerpt from the "Green Acres" Theme Song
Oliver Douglas: Green acres is the place to be:
Farm living is the life for me!
Land spreading out,
so far and wide.
Keep Manhattan,
just give me that countryside.
Lisa Douglas: New York
is where I'd rather stay:
I get allergic smelling hay.
I just adore a penthouse view.
Darling, I love you,
but give me Park Avenue.
