This is what you will see on so many corners of Phoenix, Arizona. When the bulldozers come in and rip every shred of the desert away, flatten the land and then abandon it, it becomes a barren wasteland of burned grass and trash. And if you are one of the citizens living near one of these patches in America’s sixth-largest and obviously wealthy city, you may not see any improvements here during your lifetime, as developers enjoy building new, financially more lucrative communities with bigger houses and bigger shopping areas rather than working on infill to raise property values. You might think the city government would care? Not a chance, it sees greater tax revenues from new neighborhoods, too. In any case, these older neighborhoods are destined to become ghettos as anybody with enough brains and money moves into the new McMansion communities sprouting up 40 miles further out in what used to be desert. If you don’t believe that we leave our great economically powerful cities to fall into disrepair, go on and visit Detroit, Buffalo, Superior, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Akron, Toledo, Syracuse, and Flint – some of the fastest shrinking cities in America, or are they too practicing this model of xeriscape?