[beaconstudios]

I didn't mean to imply that land area was the constraint - the constraint is energy/fuel use, traffic, and other symptoms of inefficient resource use.

We should be aiming to design houses so that minimal HVAC is necessary to maintain comfortable conditions, not building ramshackle houses in the desert and patching the inefficiencies with massively energy-consuming devices.

The broader point I'm trying to make is that we should be aiming for effective improvements in living standards - and there are two components in effectiveness, correct orientation and efficiency. American suburbs are pretty backwards in terms of cost/benefit: they're expensive to maintain infrastructure-wise, they isolate people from each other, and you have to drive for an hour to get to anything leading to even more expensive car-centric infrastructure. We should be aiming to fulfil human needs on a planetary scale, which means efficient use of resources.

[rmah]

Sorry, that post was my attempt at a bit of data humor :-) I actually agree with everything you're saying.

[beaconstudios]

ah sorry, the medium doesn't always lend itself to tone-based jokes! I see it now, haha