This is my neighborhood. I live in Austin, just south of Oltorf, between Lamar and South First, on the west side of the train tracks. My neighborhood used to be called Low Theodore Heights which was kind of weird. What's a 'low height', and who the hell was Theodore?
Now my neighborhood is called Cinnamon Sola, for South Lamar, and Cinnamon street. Or something.
When I moved here, the whole neighborhood was wild. We had foxes and deer, owls and red tail hawks. Also peacocks, guinea fowl and turkeys. A neighbor down the street raises goats. People are always trying to give us goats and dogs because we have a big yard, but we resist. Watching his goats makes me glad I didn't get a goat. Though the goats have an acre to roam, they spend most of their time on the front porch looking in his window like bored children in search of cartoons. I'm convinced any animal you raise will eventually want to watch TV with you. It's only natural.
Austin is growing, and my neighborhood is only a few miles south of downtown, so it was inevitable that our urban forests would be torn down to make way for high density town houses. But since the land is hilly and rocky, the only way to build is through a process that resembles strip mining.
And all those foxes and squirrels and rats and raccoons-- god, so many raccoons!--had to go somewhere.