Excerpt:

RUBIDOUX - The thoroughbreds that pranced on the lush lawns at Emerald Meadows Ranch are long gone and their stables pulled down.

The modest homes that were snapped up like hot cakes are all gone, too.

And the small industrial park on Rubidoux Boulevard that was at the center of a tug-of-war between a 73-year-old widow and Riverside County's Redevelopment Agency has been bulldozed.

But the 278 acres where the ambitious Emerald Meadows master-planned community was to rise remain ungraded and weed-choked, a testament to the country's economic malaise.