Suburban Dreams

Re “When Life Gets Messy In A Model Home,” April 7.

Southern California is quickly turning into one massive suburban corridor, which will soon stretch from Bakersfield to San Diego. Writers like [Karima] Haynes could do far more to educate the public if they looked past the subjects of barbecues and lizards, and instead looked at how we Southern Californians are contributing to the demise of the very dream we hope to enjoy. Consider the breakneck pace of developer-driven construction in our few remaining desert / ranch areas north of Los Angeles. Doesn’t Haynes understand that the bothersome rumbling of the bulldozers in the development next door was once the same sound of her home being built? Doesn’t she see that the seemingly innocent purchase of her own home emboldens developers to keep their destructive juggernaut going until there isn’t a shred of open space left? Doesn’t she understand that her neighborhood on the outskirts of Los Angeles will one day become as congested and crime-ridden as the Valley suburbs so many are fleeing, and that this expansion into the hinterlands increases a state population that is already having historic problems dealing with shrinking water and energy resources?

There is a simple remedy to this kind of self-serving and shortsighted economic trend. One, don’t wipe out our remaining rural areas by being a party to their destruction. If you don’t put money in developers’ pockets, they won’t keep building. . . . Two, seek to revitalize our existing neighborhoods so that they are more livable. And three, don’t accept as inevitable the idea that our area’s population must rise, and therefore we need to build more homes and freeways. If there are no places for new people to live in, they will stop coming. The notion that we must make way for the hordes that are coming is an idea perpetrated by our friendly neighborhood developers to make you think you need them. Don’t buy it!

If we work with just these ideas to inform our actions, then we can get developers out of the pockets of our city councils and hopefully out of our lives for good. The alternative is to wait until they run out of land to wreck. Do we really want that?

WILLIAM TUCKER

Glendale