I made my first real trip out to Anza-Borrego today, saw me some rams and some oasis and some petroglyphs, but what I really noticed was the signs and bumper-stickers about the power line project. People's Power Link has information about a project to cut through the middle of Anza-Borrego with power lines.
It may not seem like there's a lack of open space when you travel east of the city, but what's not part of Anza-Borrego or Cleveland is ranchland, and when it becomes economical for the ranchers to sell it to developers, they will. That's why we have to protect what we do have. One thing I've noticed San Diegans pride themselves on is being Southern California, but not being LA. A good way to keep not being LA, in fact to get even more unlike LA, is to preserve that open space.
Open space erodes easily. It's nice to have Miriam Bear Canyon, but the 52 freeway forms the northern boundary, and frankly the Regents Road parking area is ridiculous - it has to take up a quarter of the canyon, and I've never seen it even a tenth full. It's almost as if city planners were nervous about letting there be too much contiguous land surface without some kind of road on it, and they couldn't help themselves. And current property owners - nature preserves will drive up the value of your property. Even wonder why the Bay Area is so expensive? Parks everywhere, and people want to live there, that's one reason.
Meanwhile, do we still need to keep our lights on? Yes - and what's not helping is our antiquated power grid. What do we need? More nuclear. Yes, I really said that in a pro-nature blog post. (Don't agree? The co-founder of Greenpeace does.) It's the greenest option we have at the moment.