Urban Sprawl
Urban Sprawl - Problems of the Land
Two men stood in the office, leaning over a desk and staring at the satellite photo on it. Although they weren’t moving, anyone that bothered to look at them would be able to see them scratching their heads. “There’s just no more open land that I’m seeing, Harold,” said one. He was of average height at 5′9" and built like a sack of potatoes.
“What about here, Frank? All that open land. It’s going to waste just sitting there under water. We could drain the land, put up office buildings, houses and apartment buildings for their employees. Of course, we’ll need roads to get from one building to another, and grocery stores and shopping malls to feed and clothe all the people that’ll move in,” Harold said as he pointed out 2,000 square miles of untouched land on the satellite photo of southern Florida.
“Great find, Harold. We’ll make a fortune with all that open land,” Frank said as he clapped Harold on the back for a job well done. Already seeing millions of dollars in their minds, they started making plans for buildings, roadways, and canals to divert the water to other locations, heading home to their families at the end of the workday. “Harold made a great find this morning, Sherry. What looks to be about 2,000 square miles of open land. Do you realize how many buildings that much land can hold? We’ll be millionaires, baby,” Frank told his wife over dinner.
“But what about the animals, Daddy? Where will they live?” came his 6-year-old daughter’s voice.
“They’ll move to other homes, Ginny. This is what’s called progress,” he explained as he moved his gaze to her.
“So, the Mommy and Daddy animals won’t be with their babies anymore?” Ginny asked, giving a terrified look. Frank smiled and took her onto his lap, placing a kiss on her cheek.
“The Mommy and Daddy animals will be with their babies, but they’ll move to a new home so that the babies can make more and new friends.”
“Oh, and then we can move into their old homes?” He smiled.
“Exactly. Go finish your dinner, baby.” She hopped off his lap, looking much happier that the animals would be just fine, and went back to her seat, finishing her Steak Alfredo. Over the course of the next 20 years, Frank and Harold’s company sold some of the lands to other companies, all of which erected building after building, created road after road, and dug canal after canal. Ten years later, all the land had been developed, and there were no more animals in the area as they had been trapped and moved elsewhere or killed by the construction traffic.
“Today, animal rights activists mourn the loss of one of the world’s oldest species,” said a woman over the nightly news. “The last surviving American Alligator was found dead this morning in its habitat at the Central Park Zoo. Just a short 30 years ago, these animals were a common sight in the southern region of Florida. When told of the news, Stuart Ramsey from PETA had this to say:
“Due to urban development and our population’s continuous rise, we have lost one of our world’s oldest species. A species that was in existence when the dinosaurs were around. The American Alligator will now be used as an advocate and a reminder of what our great nation and all others are doing to the animals of our world. If we don’t stop our destruction of their homes, more species will go extinct. It is truly a sad day for the world to have lost one of the hardiest species. We, here at PETA,-”
“It’s called progress, dude,” Ginny said as she muted the television. “Obviously, it wasn’t that hardy of a species anyway. I mean, come on. It died in a freaking zoo. If it were out in the wild, it’d have been run over long before now,” she said, rolling her eyes. She flipped the channel to another news station and unmuted the television.
“I was looking at a satellite photograph of the U.S. just a couple days ago,” a guy was saying to a reporter that was on the street. “There’s really no unpopulated land left to build on. The only way for us to build anything now is to go up. But that’s where the problem comes in. We can only go so high before we hit our stopping point due to oxygen levels and air traffic.”
“Okay, there’s not that many people in the States. Wow. People are blowing things so far out of proportion, it’s not even funny.” Ginny muttered to herself as she muted the tv and switched on Crash Test Dummies.
