Old suburbs are gradually woven into a genuine town fabric while new suburbs cannot be created because of the growth boundaries. Rural areas retain their character with a gradual shift towards sustainable practices. In this new story, every erg of energy and gram of matter is stretched farther, providing increasingly durable goods and services which meet more fundamental needs. Toxicity is simply designed out of the system, while waste is turned into a valuable resource. Utilities and urban infrastructure systems are designed and regulated to thrive on a decreased throughput of energy, water, and materials.
Buildings conserve resources and are recycled at the end of their life.
In the story communities are now embracing, organizations profit by decreasing resource use and restoring the landscape. In other words, profit enables healing. Organizations which rely on extravagant patterns of resource use, on toxic processes, or on compromising the integrity of ecosystems find markets drying up as people around the world vote with their dollars for a sustainable world. As those of us struggling to work within the new story know, we need to design a new form of economics which can allow millions of people around the world to perform the great work of reweaving human and natural communities. I do not know exactly what shape such an economics will take.