wasteful wasteful wasteful.

I don't know about the towns in which every one else lives on here, but when I drive through the town I live in I see a lot of wasted space. I see new buildings and stores being built, while there are older ones that have held "FOR RENT" signs in their windows for a good two or three years now. Not exaggerating. Why are we so wasteful? Put in a park or a playground; I doubt America needs another shopping mall or McDonalds. Is it like this everywhere in America? I'm genuinely curious to know this answer. Do all cities across America like to waste their land? For all of our efforts to make green communities and green homes; we sure are cutting out a lot of our natural green.
We must spend millions of dollars to build buildings that don't need to be built. We have enough supermarkets, apartment complexes, and fast food restaurants. We don't need to keep building more.
I grew up in a really small town. For those of you from Oregon, you know how small "the gateway to the mountain" used to be. I'm talking about the home of the Mountain Festival; Sandy, Oregon. My dad still lives there actually, and I go out there about one or two times a month. It's town has grown immensely! It's almost sad to go out there. What used to be forestry and parks turned into a Fred Meyers, a Burger King, and an up-and-coming Walgreen's. There's a town, Gresham, less than 15 minutes drive from my growing hometown that has all of these stores, times two. Sandy didn't need the money, there was enough traffic from the mountain seekers to keep the businesses alive. It was just a sad expansion.