Sleeping with the enemy...

A week or so before I moved out west to the ranch of my childhood longings, I had a dream in which a new series of apartment buildings (with requisite stucco and red tin roof details) had been erected throughout the property. I asked my friend why she didn't warn me that this was slated to happen. She said I ought to be grateful as our house didn't look down on the developments as did hers. I said "But I wouldn't have moved out here had I known."

And indeed, a large developer has purchase 700 adjacent acres on which a grid will soon be scripted for high-end architect-designed housing.

This dodgy little town – which despises most form of government and would cast its fate to whatever wind happens to be blowing by on a given day rather than act as steward of its own destiny (because of the greater fears of what a government led by neighbors might conceive) – of course lies just beyond the burgeoning forts of Oro Valley and Marana, and their gleaming phalanxes of SUVs and homeowners who, like members of the Foreign Legion, have amassed here from far-off places like Michigan and Minnesota.

Change will come. (Or not, if we are depleted of oil and water. That will produce change in the form of famine that will most certainly stave off any notions of growth and progress. I am sure a not insignificant minority here find this a preferable option, begging the question: are these truly the last people I want to be stuck with in the proverbial life boat?)

It does seem many if not most of the local wells are now dry and there are new reports that the Colorado River (upon whom much of the state – and certainly Maricopa, the 4th most populous county in America) is at record lows. One might think this would act as deterrent to the housing boom. Alas only a momentary dip in the market is staving off the grafting of new developments on the steep and rocky hills next door, where we walk our dogs in the late afternoons.