What do you think, Daveed? The Tejon Ranch will probably get a high-speed rail stop. This is massive. Like a brand-new Thousand Oaks, kind of. Or, would it be like a brand new City entirely? Like a brand new Santa Barbara lapping up the California Aquaduct?
Planned Development there would be proximate to some substantial wilderness, which the state is thankfully taking some steps to conserve. As a kid, I grew up proximate to the woodsy forests northwest of Houston. Those woods and coral snakes, cottonmouths and copperheads - they're gone. So are the pumas. Do you remember the pumas - our version of the mexican Jaguar?
Is developing Tejon Ranch smart? Does this advance ideas of prosperity? Or is it the tip of an iceberg representing the death and destruction of life as we now know it? Which wouldn't be an entirely bad thing now, would it. Revolutionary evolution is a grand premise. Change is inevitable.
As wikepedia notes, TRC is one of the largest private landowners in California. (ProLogis bought Catellus in 2005 for $5.5 billion (a relative bargain!).
Maybe it is time for a brand-new City to be developed right in the midst of wilderness. If done right, perhaps quite delightful. I just don't know. If done wrong, damn disastrous.
Some aspects, uncontextualized with the bigger picture are already disastrous in my opinion.
For instance, I've always been curious about the motivation for placing that giant Ikea warehouse just past the Grapevine so far away from the urban core of Los Angeles. It scares me to think about how mostly diesel trucks transport that stuff - or, is that Ikea serviced by rail only? It should be rail-only! Berkshire Hathaway owns both BNSF and MidAmerican Energy. They'll probably buy First Solar, soon. They've invested substantially in BYD thanks to Charlie Munger. What's next? The Grand Tejon Ranch, you think?They'll even have Geico Stadium there someday, perhaps
Where are we going and how are we ever going to get there?
If you and I can figure out how to make a time-machine, remind me to buy Catalina Island from James Lick (oh, and ask him for a Piano, too!).
-WrW
No comments:
Post a Comment