I'm pretty much East Coast in terms of my frame of reference, though I have travelled and spent time in other areas such as the Pacific Northwest (San Fransisco northwards to Oregon and Seattle), Boulder City, Nevada, and Denver, Colorado.

But those pictures of development in the middle of dry scrubland/desert are unbelievable, as unbelievable as the homes I saw being built on the coast in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia - this had been prevented in the past, but the evidence of homes built less than 20 feet above high tide, with nothing stopping the waves but the gently sloping beach, itself moving sand, was stunning. But beaches are luxury, however defined, as was Marin County in the mid-80s- houses built on hillsides that wouldn't last a decade, much less the next truly heavy rain or an earthquake.

But this is thousands of people at a time, involving not so theoretical hundreds of millions of dollars for the housing alone, much less the possessions of the people moving in - bought on debt or not, they also represent a necessary component of the current economy by providing an ever larger amount of space to fill with consumer goods. Creating emptiness to fill seems an American specialty (I'm spending this week getting rid of stuff - The size of the housing is also incredible - somehow, it seems more stark out West.

Even in E.T., you can see how alien the suburb is in its surroundings (which tend to be Hollywood augmented in a number of ways), but this is something else - this is truly nowhere in a sense that had never occurred to me. My memories or riding a motorcycle out from Vegas involve stark landscapes with little built in the emptiness, especially the park, military, and reservation land.

But like the building on the beach, it seems as if building in the desert is no longer treated with even minimal restraint.

I agree with all said here. My only objection is the implied criticism of the people. There's no reason for sacrifice unless there is, well, a reason. And there has been no reason given by our "leaders" or media. In my retirement I taught at night school (working adults) at a local college. Even some of my better students would have had a hard time graduating from the high schools I went to in the 50s. They work much harder than I ever worked, have much less time for fun that I had as a young guy, and have no experience of political activism. In the 60s you couldn't graduate cum laud unless you had made at least a feeble attempt at overthrowing the gov't. And yet, things then were many times easier for young people than they are now. (Maybe not for some blacks and latinos who have been able to make it into the middle class since then.)

This generation is struggling so hard to maintain a lifestyle their parents achieved so easily. They just don't know yet that it is impossible. There needs to be a political movement that tells the truth about these things. Otherwise there will be massive chaos and bloodshed as the wheels come off the cart.