Sprawl

When I was a teenager, my family owned a horse we named Cherokee. We lived in Tarzana, a suburb of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley. I would ride a few times a week on and off trails in the rolling hills nearby. Each year more and more subdivisions were developed in the hills and valleys where I used to ride Cherokee with a friend and her horse. When I would return from college for the summer and later for visits from the midwest after I was married, the places where I rode my horse were no longer there. We would drive only a few blocks from my home and see miles of subdivisions, where 10 years earlier there were no roads.