The Power of Neighborhood

The NY Times has an article on the impact of high fuel costs on globalization. Manufacturing and not agriculture is the focus, there's only a couple paragraphs on food) but the same economics are at play. (There is a reference to the end of avocado salad in Minnesota in the winter--apparently a doomed species.)

I think I'd take it with a pinch of salt--transportation costs probably aren't the most important cost factor in most productive activities--but as we're reminded, evolution works using marginal differences. There may be more prestige and class differences. After all, the spice trade from the East Indies encountered high transportation costs but still found markets in Europe.