I recently accompanied my mother and stepfather to tour various condo complexes in the New York Metro Area. As they near retirement, they are considering selling their house and moving into one of these communities.

This little excursion confirmed for me a phenomena I had been perceiving since 9/11, of unprecedented sprawl around this area. As you probably know, the housing market exploded overall in the last few years, but it especially did so in New York City suburbs. I theorize it was due in part to the fear-factor as people fled the city proper. I had already been seeing signs of this sprawl when I would go downstate to visit my family: intense traffic in the town square area of (what was once) my tiny hometown.. witnessing inordinate human density in shopping districts of the county (leading me to nickname Westchester the new sixth borrough).. and finding it commonplace to see childhood friends buying houses as far north as Putnam and Dutchess counties while still commuting to work in New York City..

Allow me to provide some contrast.. Around the time my folks moved there in the 70's, anything north of the Bronx was still considered 'upstate' or 'the country'. Prior to that, at the turn of the century, my town consisted of italian immigrants who mined the marble quarry and constructed the Kensico Dam. When I grew up in the 80's, Westchester was plenty wealthy, but my town still had a blue-collar feel. To characterize: back then, let's say if you were a landscaper, that meant you and you cousin Vinny made your living busting your ass all day at some doctor or lawyer's house. Nowadays in Westchester, this means you are only slightly less rich than said doctors and lawyers and you and Vincent pick up day-workers in your truck and have them work for you. Granted, the precursors were evident during my childhood, as I watched huge swaths of woods razed for new corporate parks. But I never imagined the reality that we see now.

I can't help but imagine this urban sprawl continuing to spread out until it connects in the middle with the sprawl of other cities. William Gibson forsaw this, and at this point it doesn't seem so fantastic (in both senses of the word). Give another century of this and could be looking at a true-to-life Coruscant?

OK, so if corporate parks were building blocks of the first phase of this movement, the mega-condo-complex is making up the second wave. So yeah.. When I mentioned that my folks were looking at condos? I wasn't talking an acre or two carved out into a cul-de-sac. We're talking massive self-contained burgs rubber-stamped down by the newest lords of corporate development. ..some of which tout the likes of multi-featured recreational centers with indoor pools, integrated golf courses, internal shopping centers and their own movie theatres! They're one step away from being contained under a glass dome.

OK these complexes aren't exactly a new idea, but they had until now been pitched mostly to the 55-and-older crowd (ie. the proverbial 'retirement community'). One of the more famous of these golden-years-getaways is The Villages. If you are a glutton for punishment like me, you may have seen their commercials on Fox News. Hawking 'free golf for the rest of your life'*, and offering itself as "America's Favorite Hometown", The Villages is proving to show the potential for unintended side-effects when founding these kind of hamlets.

*or 3 years, whichever comes first

For one, putting all these affluent seniors together in one spot with an abundance of free time resulted in some unlikely intermingling, as the community physicians reported outbreaks of herpes and HPV amongst the residents. A doctor attributed "Viagra, a lack of sex education and no risk for pregnancy for the spike in sexually transmitted diseases at The Villages" and said it was worse than when she had worked in Miami.

Combine this with the fact that tornados recently took out a swath of The Villages (instead of a trailer park for once) and you have to wonder if these places have some pretty bad karma. Perhaps God does have a sense of ironic justice?

So what happens when we take this pre-fab community concept, open it up to young families and transplant it to the New York suburbs? I theorize that the larger these settlements get, the more the issues of urban and lower-class life (which the residents were seeking to insulate themselves from in the first place) will ironically emerge from within. And rampant STD's could just be the beginning.

While I was visiting these places, I wondered what will occur when we plug families with kids into the equation. I know how traditional suburbs can spoil a child, but imagine the uber-brats that these cloistered neighborhoods will produce. They say in the suburbs noone can hear you scream. But I have a feeling thats all these folks will hear in 15-20 years as their kids begin to exhibit teen angst. I like to imagine that the adolescent rebellion will be in exponential proportion to the isolation of these communities.

Picture if you will, a future in 2027 where Woodland Hills or The Harbors at Haverstraw are now ruled internally by rival teenage mini-gangs. It's The Warriors, but the stage is set amongst a lush gated golf coure community instead of Coney Island. The Furies stake out the 9 hole, while The Rogues rule over the tennis courts. I can hear the battle-cry now: Warrrr-iorrrs!! Come out to playy-ayy!! ..at the fully-featured clubhouse and recreation center!

Through this gentrification I have been relocated to the Capital Region - the silver lining being that I have managed to escape this intense development... at least until the New York and Boston sprawls connect to form the conurbation of a Neuromancer-esque future.