Are edge cities by Walnut Creek going to start sprouting up?
It could be. We’re going through yet another fundamental shift here as computers become more available to all sorts of individuals. It turns out there 87 classes of real estate whose needs and uses are being reshaped by the computer. Take the supermarket, for example. Suppose they decided they didn’t want to waste money heating and lighting this building anymore or paying taxes on it. Suppose they figured that they could make more money for themselves by shutting the building down and delivering your toilet paper to you on demand. The question becomes if you had that option, would you go for it? If you didn’t have to go to the Safeway ever again, would you feel bad about that? Cities are about choices. I asked myself that question and I realized that 97% of the things in that Safeway are flash frozen, shrink-wrapped, mass marketed and if they want to send me my barbecue sauce to make a little more money that’s just fine by me. I don’t think I’m going to cry a whole lot about missing th
