I live in southern California, where a "native" is someone who has been here longer than his neighbor. The mantra is, "I've got mine, now don't screw it up for me by moving in." Growth is, especially in places like this, inevitable. Sprawl is not. The trick is to manage to accommodate the increasing population without paving over all arable land and places of beauty and peacefulness. But, the "me" people win most of the time and pragmatism prevails over reason more often than not.

It has been said that N.I.M.B.Y. was invented hereabouts. The idea that a prison, school, factory, airport or park may be widely accepted as necessary - just so long as you don't put it HERE, is no joke. I don't subscribe to this credo. I can't stop the world, and I'm not ready to get off. I'm seeking balance. I just want to be able, one day, to take my grandson to a place that inspired me and share it with him. Hopefully, that place won't simply be a line in a song.