Harvey Whittemore, shown here testifying before the Nevada Legislature in 2001, has pulled all kinds of strings to build a new city on previously barren desert. Photo by K.M. Cannon. Click image for enlargement. Graphic by Mike Johnson.

My heart says I should rage against Coyote Springs, the massive development straddling the Clark County-Lincoln County line 60 miles north of Las Vegas. The political juice employed by high-powered Reno lawyer-lobbyist Harvey Whittemore to obtain the land and get the project going is, at the very least, distasteful.

What's more, environmentalists are upset about the impact of Coyote Springs on the threatened desert tortoise and other sensitive wildlife, both from bulldozing habitat and from groundwater use. Whittemore proudly argues that he has gone the extra mile to address environmental concerns -- the development contains 12,000 acres of nature preserves and open space -- but a lawsuit filed last week by two groups contends that federal studies were circumvented to benefit Coyote Springs.

Normally, these issues would have an American-born egalitarian and corruption-averse journalist like me in a furious lather. But there's another side of me that is impressed by Whittemore's big dream and tenaciousness in making Coyote Springs happen.

From all indications, Whittemore is pouring his heart and soul -- not to mention his time and money -- into this project, which, to give you an idea, is twice as big as Summerlin and faces twice as many political, legal and logistical hurdles.

What Whittemore is really building is not a "project," but a brand new city. Where Summerlin and Green Valley were basically tacked on to an existing urban area, benefiting from proximity to existing resources and people, Coyote Springs is flying solo.

It's not unlike Las Vegas a little more than 100 years ago, when mining mogul William A. Clark decided to build a town site alongside his new railroad stop halfway between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles.

At the time, Las Vegas consisted of just a few scattered ranches. Clark built a town in a hot, dry, remote location that most sane men avoided like a swarm of killer bees. Against all odds, Clark's town grew into a city and ultimately into one of the planet's most popular tourist destinations.

If you haven't been through the Coyote Springs Valley, you should know that it's even more desolate than the Las Vegas Valley was at the turn of the 20th century. At least Las Vegas -- Spanish for "the meadows" -- had spring water bubbling out of the desert floor. Coyote Springs was described recently by the Los Angeles Times as "one of the most inhospitable places in the country." (To be fair, the same could be said about parts of Los Angeles.)

So, Whittemore has a bunch of advantages that the average developer does not enjoy. First, he is a savvy wheeler-dealer in the halls of the federal, state and county governments, so he gets things changed and approved where many others would fail.

Second, Whittemore has friends in high places. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is a longtime friend. There's no question Reid has helped smooth a pitfall-laden pathway for Coyote Springs. Reid's son, Leif, is Whittemore's personal lawyer and works on the Coyote Springs project.

But even with these advantages, Whittemore is making a bold gamble. This is a project that could come to fruition, with an incredible 240,000 people one day calling Coyote Springs home, or it could fall on its face, leaving a master-planned ghost town succumbing to the hostile elements along U.S. Highway 93.

My prediction is that Coyote Springs will succeed. It may not in the foreseeable future hit its almost inconceivable goal of 240,000 residents. After all, master plans almost never end up looking like the original drawings, and market forces -- national, local, etc. -- are likely to have their way with such a long-range vision.

But it doesn't take a genius to see that the Las Vegas metro area is going to expand horizontally in the coming decades. The so-called Manhattanization of Las Vegas is a drop in the bucket compared with the potential for suburban and exurban growth. And the rising cost of living here is driving people to cheaper pastures.

The Pahrump Valley, 60 miles west of Las Vegas, is the first frontier. The town already has 36,000 residents, and developers have plans to build tens of thousands of homes there over the next 10 to 15 years. If the water holds out, Pahrump could have 70,000 to 90,000 residents before the boom times subside.

The second frontier is Mesquite, Clark County's fastest-growing community by percentage for several years running. At 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, Mesquite might be a tad too far away for those who want to commute to the big city. But it's an easy drive from fast-growing St. George, Utah, and a very popular spot for retirees.

A subset of the Mesquite trend will be seen in the Overton-Logandale-Moapa area, 50 miles northeast of Las Vegas. The longtime home of the county fair is gearing up for a growth spurt of its own, as several developers have proposed large residential projects there.

Turning south, development plans in Mohave County, Ariz., cannot be ignored. The Kingman and Bullhead City areas are ballooning as we speak, but a lot more growth is on the horizon. Much of it is linked to the opening of a new bridge over the Colorado River that will reduce traffic delays crossing Hoover Dam. When the dam bypass opens in 2008, developers hope to turn open stretches of the Grand Canyon State into a new Las Vegas suburb.

Coyote Springs is part of the inevitable expansion of the metropolitan area beyond the mountain ranges surrounding Las Vegas.

And while environmentalists are justified in raising questions about Coyote Springs and in expecting government officials to follow the rules and enforce the laws, Whittemore's development should not be characterized as somehow more egregious than what's happening in Pahrump or Mesquite, Moapa Valley or Mohave County.

In each of those places, square miles of desert are being bulldozed, and in each place, massive amounts of water are being consumed. And in each case, wildlife are being affected negatively. Yet environmentalists save their howls for Coyote Springs.

Whittemore, the back-scratching smooth operator, is a natural target for those of us who don't like to see anyone get special treatment. But Coyote Springs is far from unique in the relentless quest to develop the desert.

Geoff Schumacher (gschumacher@ reviewjournal.com) is Stephens Media's director of community publications. He is the author of "Sun, Sin & Suburbia: An Essential History of Modern Las Vegas." His column appears Sunday.