You know exactly what I am talking about. Mine was called "Rancho Bernardo," known by the locals simply as "RB." It was one of several master planned communities along Interstate 15 in the Northern San Diego county. Near us was Rancho Penisquitas, and Carmel Mountain Ranch. I lived on ranches. And why not? In the 1800's General Kerny and is troops were besieged on Mule Hill (just down my street) by the Spanish during the Spanish-American war (they fought their way out eventually). But for some reason, most the southwest charm has gone out the town (save for the city covenant in RB which insists that all commercial development there must have RED tile roofs).
"RB" is utopia. It is always fun and cruise around RB in your Sport Utility Vehicle. You really feel like you are floating in some sort of heavenly landscape. First thing is, the weather is absolutely perfect. Every day is a sunny day (well, practically). But, there is always a light breeze, so it never gets too hot, and it's not humid. Everything is clean, there is no graffiti or tagging. Even the oldest houses there (build WAY back in 1975) have yards that are manicured to perfection. Everyone is definitely friendlier in RB. Go up RB Center drive and turn left into Bernardo Heights. Here you twist and turn around gentle hilly streets with names like "Sencillo Drive" and "Mirasol way". Incidentally, my parents live on Old Winery Road. There is actually a functioning winery down the street where my parents lived that makes about 100 bottle a year. My parents house sits on an old vineyard. It is a suburban paradise. I think it is the closest thing to Utopia that this planet has seen.
"RB" has state-of-the-art shopping. For this we drive through Bernardo Heights and on to Carmel Mountain Ranch. This is the newest community in our area. It has all the best commercial stuff. It has a Juice Club, an In and Out Burger (complete with the bible passage numbers on the bottom of the cups), a California Pizza Kitchen, a TGIF's, a Sportmart, a Price Club, a Home Club, a Pacific 10 theater (all 10 are THX equipped) along with about a hundred other stores, all arranged in the "Regional Mall" layout consisting of no interior "mall", but instead having each store so you can park right in front of it.
Now it is time to see what the master planned community is all about. We cross Caramel Mountain Drive (driving under the enormous American flag in the Price Club parking lot) into the industrial park. Ah, the industrial park, complete with rolling grassy knolls and trees that gently sway in the Southern California breeze. The first complex we see is TRW, Military Electronics and Surveillance Systems Division. I think some people have this image of all those top- secret satellites that can see and hear who-knows-what?, and all those "smart" weapons of war, and Patriots and such are made in some top-secret government lab out in Nevada or something. No, they are made right here, in the heart of Suburbia. You know some crazy shit is going on in there. Their entire complex is surrounded by a high fence topped not with barbed wire, but razor ribbon (colored green to fade into the landscape a little better). I drove in there to drop my resume off once (Yep! I was applying for an internship there), and the security was military. The guard at the gate saluted people driving out. Saluted the Engineers! Another interesting building, incidentally, is one in the RB business park owned by McDonnell Douglas. It is this huge, windowless box that sits in a valley, but stands about 7 stories high. Rumors has it they test explosives in there. My guess is that they are doing top-secret jet propulsion work... but anyone's guess is possible. How do they do it? How do they put the most top-secret engineering labs Nation right in the middle of a community? Wouldn't information leak out through someone about what was going on in there? Well, no... if the employees want to keep their jobs. My friend Jeff's dad works at TRW, so he gives me the scoop. It goes something like this "This project is top secret. You are to talk to nobody about it, not even your closest family members. If word about this project leaks out, it will be terminated." Of course, I don't think that TRW would terminate the engineers on that project... necessarily. But you get the idea. Jeff's neighbors were frequently questioned by TRW security to see if any strange happenings were goin' on over at the Ogi house. I guess they were wondering if Mr. Ogi was setting up that satellite broadcasting dish on his roof to beam up those scanned blue-prints to Russian... actually, who are we fighting now? Who is the enemy? Why are we still building the electronic brains for weapons of mass destruction? I'm not sure. Feel like a Juice Club and a CPK? Oh yeah, absolutely!
And these companies, these manufactures of laser- guided death, these electronic eavesdroppers... the same people who enslave you with their system of "credit", what do they give to the community? Well, they are the community. Like I said, these companies produce a little utopia around them. You have an economic base of highly paid engineers and programmers, thousands of them. People on the "Ranches" of northern San Diego county have plenty of money. This is because these neighborhoods support some of the most high-tech engineering firms on the planet. Do you see where I am coming from? Who exactly are these "Master planners?"
I was raised in a master-planned community. After getting out of college with an engineering degree, I was probably going to move back there, where I would find a wife, and marry, and have children, and those kids would grow up in utopia also, go to school, and come back, have kids, grow up in utopia, do good in school so they could go to college....
This was, of course, until how I saw how the rest of the world lives... the world outside of master- planned communities...