Urban sprawl redux

In the Arizona desert stands Acosanti, an incomplete ecological city that is being looked at by some as a model for making cities cleaner and reducing the standard of living depreciating effects of urban sprawl through self-suffiency, pedestrian travel and clean energy.

This is of interest to China, who is already in the process of building their first "eco-city" to accommodate their rapidly expanding populace.

As the human population swelters and we run out of livable real estate on Earth, it's an interesting and possibly necessary concept for cities to be mapped out and their resources managed instead of the philosophy of almost unchecked expansion and consumption many larger cities seem to live by now.

It's not like we're moving off this planet anytime soon.