Las Vegas

Auto-oriented development meets the democratization of luxury.  You can call it Las Vegas which simply represents the extreme version.  Both phenomena represent success stories that are dismissed and/or disparaged by the smart set.  And both phenomena are also symbiotic and irrepressible.

The experts, instead look for "smart growth" which challenges both phenomena and criticizes them as "wasteful".  Unable to admit that the critics are deeply offended by the revealed preferences of a vast segment of the middle class, they stoop to rhetoric.  But finding the sweet spot price-and-quality combinations that work in the market place is anything but wasteful.  It is the opposite.  Calling it "waste" is a cheap shot reach for rhetorical advantage.  Its use really signals analytic ineptness.