The Los Angeles Times took a long look at the future of tiny Borrego Springs in a front-page story today. The Times examines the land speculation by a Sherman Oaks developer named Gregory Perlman.
The Times says:
He’s spent close to $45 million so far — but he has also closed down one of the town’s two grocery stores and inadvertently bulldozed a nearly 2-mile path through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. On June 30, he’ll shutter the Casa del Zorro for a summer overhaul, the first time anyone can remember that community institution closing for an entire season.
And so, if a desert outpost with fewer than 3,000 year-round residents and no traffic signals can be said to buzz, then Borrego is buzzing. Are Perlman and his partners visionaries who understand that this patchwork of ranch houses, mobile home parks, golf courses and desert dirt is the last piece of paradise left in Southern California? Or are they obnoxious latecomers who will ruin it?