That power-law comparison between major freeways and air travel routes is quite misleading, IMO. The highly dense road networks surrounding the major cities (i

That power-law comparison between major freeways and air travel routes is quite misleading, IMO. The highly dense road networks surrounding the major cities (i.e. around Los Angeles, Bay Area, Seattle, Houston, New York-to-Florida, etc.) are left out, but for comparison to air travel they need to be included. Doing so would generate a very different map (with a very different power law). The freeway map shown looks like the major truck-freight corridor for transporting goods (many collected at coast ports from overseas shipping) across the country to warehouses and distribution centers, certainly not what most people use for travel by car. Hence, comparison to air travel doesn't make much sense. As far as centralization and decentralization, for most things this comes down to technological limitations (ignoring the issue of economic monopolies blocking local regions from adopting the latest technologies). Local agriculture and local energy production are a lot easier to maintain (and benefit from no transport costs), than say, local chip foundries. Maybe someday cheap 3D printers capable of spitting out nanoscale RISC-V products in someone's garage will be available, but certainly not anytime soon.