Economies of Elegance...

people decry scarcity but in a world of plenty it makes you ask yourself what do you really want. we are told we want everything in a cheap world. but if everything you own is cheap what do you value? Think about it, when food was scarce, a Rubeneque figure was the ideal of beauty, in a world of abundant food, rail stick thin became a sign of beauty (ok maybe sometimes societies overshoot in different ways). in a world of too many goods, why is profligate spending and consumption the norm instead of refined taste and priority?

in design we speak of blessed constraints that force elegant solutions. could we create an economy of elegance?

imagine you have a huge opportunity to move somewhere you really would want to go but there's a catch there is only room for half your current lifestyle. What stays and what goes with you?