“Take a last look,” William Whyte told the readers of Life in 1959. “Some summer's morning drive past the golf club on the edge of town, turn off onto a back road and go for a short trip through the open countryside. Look well at the meadows, the wooded draws, the stands of pine, the creeks and streams, and fix them in your memory. If the American standard of living goes up another notch, this is about the last chance you will have.”

Why? What was the problem? “Go back toward the city five or 10 miles,” Whyte wrote. “Here, in what was pleasant countryside only a year ago, is a sight of what is to come. No more sweep of green – across the hills are splattered scores of random subdivisions, each laid out in the same dreary asphalt curves. Gone are the streams, brooks, woods and forests that the subdivisions' signs talked about. The streams are largely buried in concrete culverts. Where one flows briefly through a patch of weeds and tin cans it is fetid with the ooze of septic tanks. A row of stumps marks the place where sycamores used to shade the road and if a stand of maple or walnut still exists the men with power saws will soon be at it. Here and there a farm remains, but the ‘For Sale’ signs are up and now even the golf course is to be chopped into lots.”