In a half-mad lunge towards urban renewal, between 1971 and 1973, the city knocked down nearly 1,300 buildings, mostly along its waterfront, and for years huge sections of Newburgh were reduced to rubble, as if a war or a natural disaster had passed through.
That line began in the parking lot and, once inside, filled huge sections of the arena's seats where thousands of bleary-eyed homeowners, some there for up to 36 hours, waited to see a counselor or to meet with Spanish-speaking advisers.
In the meantime heroin and crystal meth have arrived, ravaging huge sections of the town, both black and white.
But many entrenched interest groups, including state-owned enterprises, public banks and midlevel officials who run huge sections of the economy, are more comfortable with the status quo.
They are also keen to build an oil pipeline from Alberta to Oklahoma, a project that would endanger water resources and threaten the vitality of huge sections of farmland.
Their density made them vulnerable to crime and violence, to plagues (nature's bioterrorism) and to fires that routinely devastated huge sections of cities.
Huge sections of the roofs and walls were missing, and those that remained rattled incessantly in the near gale-force wind.
Huge sections of urban and suburban San Diego, including almost all of the downtown and the residential neighborhoods in Chula Vista, Vista, El Cajon, Lemon Grove and National City, were off limits.
Through forcible expulsion or leverage gained by stripping families of identities, property documents and food ration cards, the central government has sent huge sections of its citizenry into destitution and camps.
By 1863 the local tribes effectively controlled huge sections of Klamath, Trinity and Humboldt Counties, leaving settler communities cut off from one another.
