The housing crisis is affecting the desert in a bad way. It's become the dumping ground for tossed TVs, abandoned boats and battered appliances, all chucked among the construction trash left by contractors and landscapers.

"Some people don't even bother to drive into the desert, they just dump it on the side of the road, that's how lazy they are," said Tom Warden, senior vice president of community and government relations for The Howard Hughes Corp., an affiliate of General Growth Properties and developer of Summerlin.