Exurban Development Generates Discontent, Arson

"More and more upscale subdivisions...are invading the woods and tobacco farms [drawing families] willing to make the longer commute to work in exchange for a more bucolic lifestyle.

Here, waiting for them, is a blue-collar subculture of directionless young people cresting into their 20's in dead-end jobs...

Initially, investigators thought environmentalists who had opposed construction of the subdivision...were behind the fires. Instead, when...the identities of the other suspects began to spill out, an entirely different and much more puzzling scenario emerged...

Attacking a new housing development may well have been a way for locals to mark their territory."

Thanks to Abhijeet Chavan