This is an interesting point. But if the regular travel to and from the bedroom communities is a cleaner, safer alternative to the near constant-rush-hour traffic that is possible in larger US cities ... couldn't that make the bedroom community development plan sustainable and economically available to the workforce? It seems like as good a way as any other of weening the USA off of the teat of Exxon/Texaco/Shell is to recreate the same life-style without the daily car culture taking over the beginning and the end of the day. I suppose driver-less cars might do it. But only if they would VOLTRON into something cooler. Folks that live in places with passable public transit (Seattle, SF, NYC, Chicago) might not recognize how most cities in fly-over country absolutely still require a car for daily life. But short of some cataclysmic event ... of which Japan has seen many ... the future of centralized governments and their nation/state is easy to imagine more like Toyko less like Dallas.