Navigation techniques
In the final HTML version of the hypertext/book project each page will have a navigation column with collapsible index headings. This may tempt the drop-in reader to further exploration.
But this may also encourage the impression that the text contains a series of discrete modules, and so work against complex textual effects that depend on the gradual and growing interaction of sections of the project with one another.
What is at stake here is the balance between freedom of access and more complex textual structures. The web has created expectations that all the "action" will be on a single page, which will then link to another relatively complete page. This works well for informational hypertexts, poorly for literary hypertexts, and not very well for the kind of argumentative and expository text the Sprawling Places project is trying to be. This pressure from the web pushes the text back towards the step-by-step procedures of the book version.