“SUPPRESS[ING] OUR WAY out of the issue” is good shorthand for a range of things that structure the lived reality to which I and many other nonrural dwellers are accustomed. In California, the landscape of suppression is easy to find once you start looking: dams, seawalls, sand fences, netting, debris basins, concrete-lined creek channels, and the occasional plastered hillside—all dedicated to keeping water and rocks from moving in ways disadvantageous to people and property.
