In Mobile County, dirt-road subdivisions are scattered across the map in defiance of all the principles of modern planning. Some development is more typical of the Third World than of a modern American urban county. If you take a dirt road leading off Two Mile Road in south Mobile County, you might eventually wonder whether you've stumbled across a trail into the past, when roads were created by wagon wheels lumbering through the grass and forest. The road consists of two sandy ruts with a crest of grass growing between them. It snakes through mud puddles, past neat houses and mobile homes.
Most inhabitants are Cambodian immigrants.
Behind Smokerise, a middle-income subdivision off Airport Boulevard near the Mobile limits, a dirt road meanders through a neighborhood of cluttered yards. All sprang up without the guidance of a comprehensive countywide plan or the oversight of a professional planning staff. But we do. Freedom isn't at stake here, because nothing about modern development is free in the long run. Some municipalities require a certain amount of land for park space and, possibly, land for a school.