Emotionally many of us are focused primarily on the future for our children, personally and collectively. Is some ways, once we have children, our focus shifts. For some parents and grandparents all the functions of neighborhoods can be viewed in relation to development of children.
To enumerate: safety for our children food for our children land and environment for our children health for our children care of our children and work (economy) to support our children.
This pattern tends to ensure the Survival of the community, the culture and the species. My fear is that the exponential increase in complexity and the resulting increase in Stress has the effect of shortening our time horizons for planning and narrowing the range of options considered in solving problems.