ABSTRACT
In 1994, I packed my bags, kissed friends and family goodbye, and with my infant son boarded an airplane bound for a city in the Midwestern United States. As we descended through the clouds, I viewed a patchwork of earth below. Farmland. Wooded areas peppered with houses and small bodies of water. As we continued our descent, an increasingly suburban landscape sprawled below and beyond. Tract homes and housing developments, trees, sidewalks, and Lilliputian cars zipped along the freeways. The plane circled the airport once before landing.
