ABSTRACT
Land use and how and where people live are complex subjects at the center of a growing debate over the efficiency and equity of contemporary land use decisions and patterns. Choices deemed sensible for individuals, households and businesses can have less than desirable consequences when viewed from the perspective of a community. In this sense, Schmid writes that:
As long as we praise individualism and selfish maximization, we will get the world as we now see it – a collection of local boosters and real estate rent collectors … [along with a] hurried, harried, congested, polluted lifestyle … We are caught in a grand prisoner’s dilemma where the dominant choice is a trap.
(Schmid 2003: 717)