Who Are The Westerners?

Cottonwood Mall,
Albuquerque, NM (AllenS)

(Wallace Stegner, American Heritage) ... Physically the West could only be itself. Its scale, its colors, its landforms, its plants and animals tell a traveler what country he is in and a native that he is at home. Even Western cities owe most of their distinctiveness to their physical setting. Albuquerque with its mud-colored houses spreading like clay banks along the valley of the Rio Grande could only be New Mexico. Denver’s ringworm suburbs on the apron of the Front Range could only be boom-time Colorado. Salt Lake City bracing back against the Wasatch and looking out toward the dead sea and the barren ranges could only be the Great Basin. But is anything except their setting distinctive? Continued