CAMBRIA, CA -- Moviegoers may recall the scene from Barry Levinson’s fine film Tin Men, in which the feuding aluminum siding salesmen (played by Richard Dreyfus and Danny DeVito) momentarily set aside their enmity when both are hauled before the special "Home Improvement Commission," which is investigating the deceptive sales practices of people like Dreyfus and DeVito. The film is set in Baltimore in 1962, and this bureaucratic commission befuddles our lead characters because it has the power to be judge, jury, and executioner. Both Dreyfus and DeVito lose their licenses in summary proceedings. "What kind of government is this?", DeVito asks. "I think it’s the future," Dreyfus laconically replies.

The future is in full swing here on the central coast of California, where I endeavor to spend the end of summer each year. This is the part of California that time forgot, where it could still be 1969 or 1977, where people give their children names like Zuma and Blaze-Elation (real names of some neighborhood kids), and head off to the Esalen Institute north of here for massage therapy and rolfing. I tried to crash Esalen on the day of the "Harmonic Convergence" in 1987; when they refused entry, I told them matter-of-factly that I would just astral-project myself inside. "That’s cheating," came the straight-faced reply.

In other words, this is the California that operates by the creed "Do Your Own Thing." Everything goes--unless your "thing" happens to be building a house. Propose to do that and you’ll unleash a puritanism that surpasses the most extreme caricature of the Religious Right. One way to observe this is to read the local weekly paper, The Cambrian, which, like most weekly community papers, fills its pages with recaps of Aunt Martha’s latest bridge club meeting. But the front page is wholly devoted each week to a chronicle of the latest BANANA efforts. (BANANA is an acronym for "Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere or Near Anyone"--NIMBY on steroids.)

Last week’s paper had three page-one stories in this vein. The first recounted the efforts of environmentalists to block the building of eight ranchettes on a 756 acre parcel near here. Building one house for every 95 acres was said to be environmentally harmful. Story two detailed the efforts of the North Coast Advisory Council--a non-official body intended for the explicit purpose of mau-mauing against development before the county supervisors--which now wants to have its own official "liaison" to the notoriously anti-growth California Coastal Commission.

The third story explained that no more building permits would be issued this year because of concerns over the lack of water. Cambria only issues 64 building permits a year anyway, but this year they have stopped at 32. This is not a new problem; over the last 25 years, proposals to build a reservoir, a desalinization plant, or other water storage facilities have always met with a stonewall of resistance.

This is what much of the rest of the nation can look forward to if it embraces the more extensive political controls over land that "smart growth" demands. It may be the future, but it only works for people lucky enough to have a home already.

--By Steven Hayward