Look What They're Doing to My Town
A few thousand techies and I pitched in and built the industry that made the PC you're reading this on possible. In the process, we scraped off all the orchards and replaced them with housing developments and industrial parks. Signs like the one below sprouted up at the edges of fields of flowering fruit trees.
All this is to say that I have no right to complain about housing developments.
The sign was put up at the southeast edge of San Miguel de Allende, the town Jean and I picked to retire in partly because of its 18th-Century ambience: the cobblestone streets, the colonial houses and churches.
We all knew development was coming. Last year permits for 600 new housing units were issued. Still, I was startled to see the tall crane towering over the Caracol. Of course, they're commonplace in the 21st Century, but I somehow didn't expect to ever see one in San Miguel.
It's not that I come up this hill for the view. This site is on a busy, winding highway with narrow shoulders, so you can't pull over and gaze. But if you peer through the girders, you can see the San Antonio Church.
You better go look at it now, and kiss it goodbye, 'cause when the skin goes on this condominium tower, all you're gonna see is stucco.
The north end of town hasn't been spared the development pressure. This sign announces a gated community that makes the condo tower look puny. Note that the sign is in English! This undoubtedly is to convey a classy cachet to bilingual middle-class Mexicans looking for vacation homes.
I mean, the developer couldn't be pandering to retiring Norteamericano baby boomers, could he?
No expense is being spared in this architect-designed community: golf course, clubhouse, community center, huge hand-laid stone wall.
So what the hell is this thing? Looks like part of a nuclear power plant.
Clint, the distinguished owner of Chiapas the Parrot, says he heard it's gonna be a huge golf ball sitting on a tee. Classy.