Little Boxes Still Made Of Ticky Tacky

I took these pictures at a Woodbury, MN strip mall. It was tricked out to look like it's just down the street from Beaver Cleaver's house -- there's even a bank pretending to be Louis Sullivan's Owatonna Farmer's National -- but most of the businesses are national franchises.

There's a lot of recent residential building nearby, but this is not the only commercial development seeking those people's custom. Find the steeple on the horizon in the top picture. It's about an inch in from the margin. That church used to be out in the country (we're looking back toward Saint Paul). Now it's at the west end of this commercial building spree.

All built on credit that could have gone toward wind turbines, photovoltaics, permaculture, etc., the kind of development that could create wealth instead of sharing it out. How many of these buildings will be shuttered in ten years?

How many apple trees or hazelnut bushes could I have put in the ground for what that planter costs per year?