the Foothills lifestyle

For a long time now I've said    '...the Foothills is pretty much built out, so that what you see is what will be, with few exceptions',
But now I find that I've got to back-pedal on that statement a bit.
On June 14th I wrote Last Big Development which talked about the 54 new homes that A.F.Sterling was building in the Foothills along Sunrise Dr by La Paloma, along with new commercial/retail space.
Then in New Concept for the Tucson Foothills I wrote about RiverWalk, a new development of 120 homes, plus restaurants and shops, that offer a style of housing and lifestyle that has not been available in the Foothills, 'til now. 
When I made the' pretty much built out' statement, I was thinking -traditional Foothills residential - an acre lot for one single family home. There are very few of those lots available.
But the developers, builders and investors, have found a way to utilize land that doesn't fit with that traditional concept of Foothills living, and in doing so, to broaden that concept and introduce new types of housing and lifestyle choices.
I never thought I'd be saying this, because I'm crazy about the traditional Foothills style of living, it's why I moved here, but I welcome these new concepts, and think they'll be very good for the Foothills. They're going to introduce the Foothills to people who are not interested in the traditional Foothills lifestyle, and probably wouldn't have considered living here, 'til now.
I think this all started -though maybe that wasn't the intention- with the explosion of new condos that have become available in the last couple of years in the Foothills. The new condos have made low maintenance, moderately priced housing in an upscale area, available to a lot more people.
You can buy a one bedroom condo in the Foothills in a great area for around $150K. While you could do the same thing a few years ago, there was a very limited supply of condos in the Tucson Foothills and they were mostly bought, sold and inhabited by second home-owner winter visitors. Today, with many more condos available in the Foothills, I see a lot of younger people interested in buying a condo as their primary residence in the Tucson Foothills.
Riverwalk, and to a lesser extent the A.F Sterling homes in Paloma Ridge, have begun to turn the definition of Tucson Foothills living on it's head. And that's a good thing, because it will add a new dimension to what it means to live in the Foothills, and in doing so broaden the appeal of the Tucson Foothills and help to diversify the population.