It use to be

I grew up in an age before modern residential "development".
The house I spent most of my childhood in was built by my parents on a new street at the edge of the city.
At the time around here people bought a lot, drew up plans and built their house the way they wanted it.
When you looked at your land you had to imagine the sea of blackberry brambles cleared away and decide which trees to keep.
On a street like our construction happened piecemeal.
Maybe one house a year would go in.
Even when they extended the street up the hill through what had once been a shortcut to school and a playground of dirt paths this slow pace continued.
In the winter houses under construction became the bombed out battlegrounds of our neighborhood snowball wars.
In the summer we'd sneak down to building sites in the evening to play on the idle earth movers.
All year round we'd scavenge for scrap wood and fresh nails for tree forts in the unattended, half built homes.
It was exciting.
These days big developers buy land by the acre.
They scrape the land bare, down to the red mud and throw up line after line of identical houses.
They name the developments "Oakwood Estates" and other tacky names that stand at odds with the rape of the land.
I pine for the before times.