Close your eyes and picture America.

What first comes to mind?

Times Square, the Golden Gate Bridge,

the Lincoln Memorial and Reflecting Pool perhaps?

For many, the image of the United States

is a Western one, an endlessly unspooling road

with scrubby desert either side.

The West is a real place, of course,

but it's also an imaginary one

where people find freedom, start again,

prove their strength.

Thatelier, plus relatively cheaper housing and lower taxes,

is drawing tens of thousands of Americans westwards.

Yet the West is also ablaze with wildfires.

Smoke obscures those big skies.

Water is becoming more scarce.

Temperatures are stifling and projected to get even hotter.

It's an old Western theme, man versus nature.

And this time, nature has the upper hand.

This is Checks and Balance.

I'm John Prado, the economist U.S. editor,

and each week we take one big theme

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