Absolutely nothing about our march into the future has made things more local. I'm going to need more evidence to believe this will be any different.
edit-Here's a potential factor to make energy local - but just a supposition: A desire for power to be generated at smaller, localized scales. i.e. Power becomes near-free through the use of tiny nuclear plants - so tiny even your most stalwart against it perceives it as safe enough at that tiny scale.
If anything, the cause of the most recent real estate crash (and subsequent rise) was the overwhelming covariance of real estate trends throughout the country/developed world.