Is Architecture Flat?

Last night I finished reading Tom Friedman's "The World is Flat."

Naturally, I began to situate the arguments of the books in the context of the practice of architecture and urban design. I need to think and research some more since so many facets of the profession and academy will be shaped by the forces, stategies, and flows of captial, information, labor, and education desribed in the book.

I should have read a little more carefully and listened intently to lectures in Advanced Contemporary Theory. Benjamin, Jameson, and others would be of help right now. Maybe Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man," another book I have started, will shed some more light on the economic and cultural determinism that advanced technologies will facilitate.