In this broadside on land use and misuse, Michael Perelman begins by surveying the economics involved in building communities away from urban centers—the capital gains, profits, and losses. Perelman assesses the monetary damage as well as the social damages that result from such processes. He also notes, albeit in an aside, the racism that underwrites the drive toward building in exurban areas.
Perelman then attacks the then-contemporary plan to divert water resources from Northern California to Southern California — a plan that, from his point of view, wastes resources so that an infertile desert might become the site of a land boom.
Perelman ends by reflecting on the ultimate costs of this mismanagement of natural resources, declaring that the Sahara desert was once one of the most fertile areas on the planet. The question he raised was: would California be next?
