Good fences make good neighbors

Good fences do, as Carl Sandburg said, make good neighbors. But more: good fences (boundaries) are essential for life. Dr. Shapiro in SciAm.com wrote how a boundary is one of the first preconditions for life. On a walk outside Wimea, Hawaii, along a road lined with fences, miles of fences without a break to walk through, I thought about what is fenced in and out. Fences keep in the cattle and keep out the rustlers, making for happy cows. The pasture is a viable, living region. Other regions are not.

Is the US, soon to be fenced north and south, a viable region with a suitably permeable membrane, or not? Is it an area of increasing order and decreasing entropy, or a decaying organism?

The land on the other side of the fence, scrubland, has no cows, houses. But it is owned, is private, is held for a time when it will be valuable as a construction site for condos. Nothing wrong with those. But consider: The population of the Big Island before Captain Cook "found" it in 1788 was more than it is today. This land supported more people than it does today. Fenced, subdivided, worked as it is today, is it as alive? Doubt it.