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And for some it is the realization of the American Dream: middle-class homes in suburbia - surely the last community that will be so built in San Diego - with two cars in nearly every driveway. The only sign of civilization on the horizon is a string of telephone wires running north to south.

As far as the eye can see there stretch flatlands and gullies blanketed with sagebrush and weeds. At their western terminus, though, the community stops abruptly beyond that edge lies a great frontier.

The streets extend out onto the land like vast tentacles which each year grow longer and gather up more and more earth. Drive them for more than twenty minutes and you will swear you are an unwitting participant in some huge maze experiment. Up one and down another - each street looks the same as the last one.

EXCHANGE IT UP MIRA MESA MOVIE

Could they actually be movie props with nothing behind the facades? They are lined up like dominos along flat, straight, long roads. There is a surreal quality to these houses. All of them come in earthen tones with dull white faces and brown-shingled roofs. About the only variation in the houses is their height - some are one story and some are two stories. To drive the streets of Mira Mesa for any length of time is to understand fully the meaning of the word monotony. It is an incongruous vision, a blemish of sorts. After miles of nothing but mustard fields and dense chaparral, there suddenly appears a mass of hundreds - or is it thousands? - of brown rooftops, each one identical to its neighbor. The panoramic view of this community from Interstate 15 suggests a mirage.

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