Comment on the LA Fires

I was horrified by the Los Angeles fires last week, especially because so many human mistakes contributed to the horror. I found the following quotation enlightening:

"The way that American home builders keep pushing out into new territory, developing parcels of land once considered unsafe for residential construction, is an architectural version of the way that banks and lenders have acted over the last decade, practically tossing money at borrowers once dismissed as too much of a credit risk. The goal in both cases is to maintain a pace of growth and expansion that is ultimately unsustainable." -- From "It's time to recognize, not defy, wildfire risks" by Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer , October 28, 2007. Fire photo also from the LA Times.