Brad has evidently not heard the acronym before, and his bark of laughter hurls a bit of devilled egg at the lapel of Owen’s blazer. Owen doesn’t flinch, and courteously waits while his host’s large, square face—itself a space that invites development—chews through the uncongenial complexity, the sterile conflictedness, of his guest’s reply. “The developer,” Brad complains, “isn’t even from Massachusetts—it’s some California megafirm that comes in and knocks down every tree and puts up this horrendous spread of McMansions, jammed in as tight as the zoning allows. We’ll wind up looking like Watertown.”

“Sounds horrible, Brad, but, hey, it creates jobs, jobs in one of the few American industries they can’t take overseas. Listen: every town in this country was once a farm or a forest. If you right-wing tree-huggers had been in charge, nothing would ever have been built. Cabot City would still be a river full of fish. Haven-by-the-Sea would be Nothing-by-the-Sea. It would be a heap of clamshells beside some rotting wigwams.”

Brad presses his lips together and looks as if he might sputter; he squints over Owen’s shoulder to see what other of his guests need attending, what pleasanter conversations he might join. “There has to be a balance,” he finally decides.