Local forms of this phenomenon have always been around, but have seldom been extensive enough to seem anything but picturesque. A farmer sells off a few riverside lots, for example, because he can't plow that part of his land anyhow, and is happy enough to make a little money and at the same time oblige some county-seat acquaintances who want a place to loaf and fish on weekends. So a few tarpaper shacks go up with privies for sanitation, and perhaps someone hauls in an old school bus and props it on concrete blocks for his own vacation home. Here a jolly time is had by all with full knowledge--since they are locals, aware of how things around them work--that sooner or later the river is going on a rampage and will carry away the whole little community, with small loss to anyone. [Illustration] [Illustration] Exploitation changes the picture, however, as exploitation is wont to do. If a whole neighborhood of farmers seeks such profits, or if real estate men get into the act, or big development corporations that may be operating from almost anywhere in the country, the scale enlarges and purple prose may appear in the metropolitan newspapers to lure nostalgic suburbans out to examine an assortment of lots sliced fine for maximum yield and priced most often according to their proximity to water. Water is usually involved, for it is the fundamental outdoor attraction, whether it is a mountain creek or a river or a made pond or a deep bay off the lower estuary. Its ultimate pollution is often involved as well, for sanitary arrangements tend to be rudimentary and inadequate for concentrations of people, especially when the "second homes" start turning into permanent homes with the retirement of their owners or their sale to younger locals. This latter process, too, sometimes leads to a future demand for schools and other services whose need was not foreseen by local governments when they permitted the development.