Tracy Hills, CA (2021 - 2024)
Tracy Hills is a new master-planned community being built on the former dry grazing fields that slope down to the flat desert floor of the San Joaquin Valley, two hours east of San Francisco.
Large freeway billboards indicate the locations of the new villages coming soon. The grasslands have been graded and paved. Cheaply constructed houses made with weak beams, thin plywood and flimsy plastic siding sprawl the landscape. Rolls of artificial turf are piled up in the landscape, ready to be unfurled into new lawns.
Even in the midst of a climate crisis, rising housing costs are pushing families into the far-flung “exurbs” like Tracy Hills, which are being built out beyond the suburbs. The American dream of owning a single-family home means these developments continue to thrive despite state and local officials’ recognizing that they only exacerbate the climate change problem.
