Marketplace MadnessOn a Friday afternoon I traveled with two other English class buddies to a rather ordinary farmland off Highway 101 and adjacent to the Promenade. From the car window we looked out at a seemingly endless cabbage field, bordered by at least an acre of black dirt. It seemed strange that the busy Promenade ended abruptly in this sea of ​​land. To the left you could see cars speeding on the highway. The field looked plowed, yet it looked like no one had worked there for a while. Weeds grew sporadically on the black earth. His sight spoke of half-hearted agricultural efforts and negligence. We decided that a pass of this field would deliver all it had to give visually. However, the surrounding controversy requires a lot of research to understand. This field is the proposed site for the San Luis Marketplace, a shopping center larger than any single construction project in the history of San Luis Obispo. Driven by curiosity, I studied the field in the hope that I could learn more than I saw at first glance. The field contains Salinas Soils, the most productive soil type found in the county. Salinas soils are alluvial, containing nutrients and minerals brought down from the hills by rainwater. The fertility of the soil makes it a very productive field for cultivation, producing crops many times a year. The dark black color of the soil indicates how fertile it is. This made me think of something my girlfriend's mom said. She works at the El Dorado County Agriculture Department and came here a few weeks ago. When he passed the camp Dalidio exclaimed “Wow! Look how black the earth is!” The owner of the property, a farmer named Ernie Dalidio, entered into an agreement in 1992 with entrepreneur Bill Bird to build a forty-acre shopping center on the property. Market supporters say the mall will generate a huge amount of sales tax that the city can use to support the community..