Suburban sprawl. It has largely engulfed my home state of NJ. It continues to do as urban cores rot and rust while green lands spring forth new housing developments and shopping centers. This situation reminds me of a bacteria or mold culture growing in a pertri dish. The colony starts out as a small dot on the substrate and grows into a bigger dot. As the nutrients in the substrate are consumed, the colony spreads out in all directions, consuming new nutrients as it goes. Simultaneously, abandoning the now nutrient deficient center. This forms a a donut appearance. Holding a match under the middle of a sheet of paper produces the same effect as the fire first burns a hole in the center and then spreads outward, consuming the entire sheet.

"In Boston, for instance, the first ring, Route 128, was built 5 miles out from the city. Then a second ring, I-495, went in about 30 miles out. A third ring, a combination of I-195 and I-90, now lies approximately 45 miles from downtown. While the population of Boston's city center had declined from 800,000 to 500,000 since 1970, the population of the Boston metro area has grown by 5 times to 4 million. During this period, the amount of space these people take up has increased to 10 times the area of the original city. As this pattern repeated throughout the Northeast, the natural landscape was disappearing faster than at any time in history." -- from a well written article in ArcNews.

at least, I do not work for a private company that makes $$ off of this pattern of land squandering growth. Now, my efforts contribute to saving postage stamps of fragmented ecosystems in the face of the ever growing donut.