From Inside Tucson’s Business:

Living in denial: Your house used to be ‘way out there’ too

By Hugh Holub

One of the fascinating things about Tucsonans is their fervent opposition to new development.

I can remember back in the 1950′s when people were all upset about the new development “way out east” – Broadway and Craycroft. That was when the population of the Tucson metro area was around 100,000 people.

The ironic thing about Tucsonans is their complete lack of comprehension about where they live.

I will assume for the moment that virtually all Tucsonans who have any concerns about growth and land development live in single-family detached houses, townhouses or apartments.

Most of the houses in Tucson were built by homebuilders, either as part of subdivision development or as custom-built homes.

While Tucsonans complain about building new homes, someone built their home.

I always thought homebuilders ought to put a plaque somewhere on every house they build listing the name of the company that built it, all the sub-contractors and the date it was built. I’d even add a permanent “house box” somewhere in the wall with the original construction plans for the house.

But the house didn’t just spring up out of the desert without some kind of land development activity to create the building site.

Again, I am one of those increasingly few people who can remember the vast open spaces of desert that stretched from Country Club out to the Rincon Mountains, with scattered ranch houses out there. The same going north of River Road.

More….

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 17th, 2011 at 5:51 am and is filed under politics, tucson life and heritage. Tags for this post: growth of tucson, land development in tucson, Tucson. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.