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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold and Silver Juniors, Mid-tiers and Producers -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: loantech who wrote (62688)	1/4/2009 1:59:27 PM
From: No Mo Mo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 78426

I drove through Maricopa last week on the way back to San Francisco from Casa Grande. For perhaps 20 miles we drove through scrub desert, a few highly irrigated farms, one massive cattle feedlot....but mostly empty country. Out of nowhere the tan and terra cotta walled communities sprang up as we headed west. There was NO infrastructure other than the road. The stoplights at the intersections had hoods and weren't functioning. Over the walls we could see only a very few residences with X-mas decorations or vehicles. Hard to say how many were occupied but traffic was LIGHT given how many houses were there. Perhaps two miles into where the developments started, we hit the main north-south commercial avenue. I felt like I was in north Dallas or Scottsdale. Each side of the road was filled with brand spanking new, large retailers and restaurants. All the architecture had that overblown, amusement park look of "consumption as entertainment". The entire place was set up for autos - no pedestrian life at all. There was traffic but it seemed quite light for the holidays. We busted out the atlas just to confirm how far we were from Phoenix proper b/c it all seemed so abrupt and out of place. There was no escaping the conclusion that a few guys sat around the map and said, "We'll put a town right......here". You could give me a house down there and, if I had to live in it, I wouldn't take it. My folks have a large, brand new development right behind their little complex in Casa Grande (between Phoenix and Tuscon). It was finished about a year and a half ago. They think one in six or eight units has the lights on. It's eerie....and it's one of many just in their city. They've been wintering in that area since the mid-90's and they still can't figure out where the people who buy these houses work to make a living. I can't either.