Courtesy Friends of the Scenic Drive
I thought of an old movie as I was driving on Scottsdale Road from Shea Boulevard to Pinnacle Peak Road, passing more commercial buildings where stately saguaro had stood in the 1980s. In the movie, a TV weatherman drives to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where he finds himself living the same day over and over again.
The year “Groundhog Day” was released, I found myself “on the road” seeing the same thing over and over again. America was becoming a vast Groundhog Land, a land where every place looked like every other place because of insensitive development and urban growth. I feared that the natural beauty and qualities that distinguished many communities would eventually be replaced by a landscape of nowhere.
On the Road
During my 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s, I traveled the breadth of America. Initially, it was to see the West’s national parks, national monuments, scenic drives, and other special places. After I married, my wife and I returned to enjoy many of these places. Later, we took our kids to see them too. Meanwhile, my 40-year career in the burgeoning software industry took me to many of America’s metropolitan areas again and again.
As I revisited many towns — Jackson Hole, Sedona, Laguna Beach, Colorado Springs, Pasadena, and San Antonio spring to mind — I noticed that the distinctive characteristics that I had found attractive had been somehow diminished. As I left a motel or hotel in a metropolitan area, I sometimes experienced a split second when I didn’t know where I was because there was little to differentiate the built environment from that of other communities.
At the time, I wondered how the people that lived in all those places could let that happen. I thought; “What a shame. What a crime!”
Related Articles
Scottsdale Scenic Drive Post 1. Roadside Sprawl Heading Our Way? – Published 5/27/2014
Scottsdale Scenic Drive Post 2. Road to Groundhog Land – Published 5/28/2014
Scottsdale Scenic Drive Post 3. Four Henchmen of Urban Sprawl – Published 5/28/2014
Scottsdale Scenic Drive Post 4. Roadside Gorilla – Published 5/31/2014
Scottsdale Scenic Drive Post 5. Dig Reveals Original Sprawl Solution – Published 6/1/2014
Scottsdale Scenic Drive Post 6. Two Game Changers – Published 6/11/2014
Scenic Drive Post 7. After the Crash, An Update – Published 6/12/2014
Scottsdale Scenic Drive Post 8. New Scenic Drive Commercial Zoning? – Published 6/29/2014
Related Websites
Related Websites
Friends of the Scenic Drive (www.scenicdrive.org)
McDowell Sonoran Conservancy (www.mcdowellsonoran.org)
City of Scottsdale, Preserve (www.scottsdaleaz.gov/Preserve
Recent Comments