Neo-Topographic Essay

I always say, “I grew up in Phoenix…before it was Los Angeles.” It is supposed to be a joke, but it reflects my sense of sadness and loss, back in the 70s and 80s, as I watched the octopus of suburbia and the tentacles of many multi-lane highways ooze out across what had been, for me, a beautiful, mysterious, and comforting desert landscape.

Progress, they say.

Now, condos and a golf course cover up our old, secret underground fort where my buddy, Rick, was bitten by a rattlesnake. Farther north, a golf course and resort nix any ideas we might have of rock climbing on routes like “Renunciation”, “Red Ball Jets”, and “The Steps” at the Carefree Boulder Pile.

I saw the same thing in San Antonio, Texas, where we lived for some ten years: suburbia pushing ever outward from the epicenter…

Progress.

I continue to see the same thing wherever I go…Virginia…St. Louis…Albuquerque…Tucson…Denver…Sacramento…and so on…and so on…and so on…

More progress.

Too bad we can’t decide to concentrate (and maybe reduce!?) our population. It would make for more cost effective everything, from health care, to transportation, to electricity costs. But, we all want that “American Dream” and the one sixteenth of an acre plot of grass and the one hour daily commute that goes with it. Even I have participated in “the system” as it is.

Thus, a new project is born (Well, Robert Adams has already done it, but maybe I can do sort of a version 2.0 update).