The Siren Call of Perilous Development Land

The disaster in Oso, Wash., occurred in an area that was known to be prone to landslides. That fact points out what is likely to be an increasingly contentious issue, in the face of some persistent and so far unstoppable trends: population growth, the over-exploitation of fragile environments, and climate change. The contentious issue, in a nutshell, is government regulation. Typically, if a plot of land is attractive, marketable and, even better, “close to nature,” then developers as well as their clients do not want to be told that they can’t build on it – even when the odds are good the area will sooner or later be subject to an expensive and possibly deadly disaster.