Apocalyptic Urbanism

My old colleague Dan Gardner passes along a great story from Fast Company, reporting on a meeting of New Urbanists in Atlanta. They're all still pining for a return to the 1850s, though a certain amount of realism seems to have set in -- amongst some of them, anyway. The movement's leading guru, Andres Duany, was there and had this to say about the prospects of everyone returning to farming:

Duany conceded growing food is hard work, which is why his agrarian communities would still end up hiring Hispanic laborers to do the dirty work. But "you don't pretend they don't exist," he said in a particular utopian moment.

For some, the apocalypse will clearly be less apocalyptic than for others.