My “Neo-Topo” Project Continues into 2018 (Frederick, CO)

Wyndham Hill, #11, Frederick, Colorado, 2018

Neo-Topographics

Being back in Colorado temporarily has given me an opportunity to go back out to those areas of Boulder County and Weld County that are rapidly being undeveloped (sic) into suburbia.

From Great Plains to Great Shames. (Yes, I’m a hypocrite. I grew up and have lived in suburbia myself.)

It has been a year since my last visit out here and the developers have been as busy as the proverbial honey bees of summer… plowing up the ground, trenching, paving, hammering, framing, roofing… building, building, building (jobs!)… whilst, in and around these new Brady Bunch dream homes, the oil pumps dip up and down like hungry mosquitos (jobs!) and the fracking sites erect their bland, opaque, and towering walls o’ security (more jobs!).

Given that all of these developments are, of course, based on the automobile as the primary (only?) system of transport, we can expect traffic counts to climb steadily with each completed subdivision and un-unique strip mall…yes, busier roads…more crowds…less wildlife…fewer farms…the raptors move on to more tranquil fields…all as each newly-arrived family giddily unpacks their cardboard Mayflower and Bekins boxes in pursuit of the Great American Dream o’ Prosperity and Happiness.

Where are our philosopher-kings, I might ask, who could lead us toward a more sustainable (and ultimately happier???) way of life? Yeah, right. No one majors in Philosophy at the university anymore, The business of America is business, dontcha know. Socrates is long dead.

But beware. Where will it eventually lead us? As cranky and crusty, and now-deceased, old Ed Abbey once grunted, “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”

(NOTE: For an explanation of the term “Neo-Topo”, see my original blog post, The New New Topographics School of Photography, May 8, 2015. For my collection of Neo-Topo images, see ONGOING PROJECT: The Colorado Front Range – A Neo-Topographic Essay under the Portfolios tab.).

Some images from last Saturday (18 August, 2018)…

The balloon and American flag mark the model homes and sales office for the Wyndham Hill subdivision. Note that in the second photograph, the balloon has floated away (due to strong winds blowing the tether every which way–including loose):

Wyndham Hill, #3, Frederick, Colorado, 2018

The balloon finds freedom in the stormy skies above one of the several oil pumpjacks in the area:

Wyndham Hill, #4, Frederick, Colorado, 2018

A basketball hoop, SUV, three-car garage, 2,500 square feet of living space, 45-minute drive to Denver (non-rush hour, mind you), and an American flag on the white picket railing–the American dream realized. Eventually, the view of the mountains will be obscured by more homes and the current “Road Closed” barrier will disappear as progress continues its inexorable (for now) march:

Wyndham Hill, #6, Frederick, Colorado, 2018

One of two fracking sites just down the road from Wyndham Hill at Highway 52 and west of County Road 5:

Frack Site, #1, Hwy 52 and CR5, Frederick, Colorado, 2018

A couple more views. In the first photo, I like the symbolism and irony of a damaged sign naming a construction company that has adopted this section of highway for litter control–we worry about beer cans on the highway shoulder but are fine with the fracking site: