By Force of Endurance

In October 1992, my son Rob and I took a trip through Tohoku, the earthquake-stricken province in Japan that accounts for about 8 percent of the country's economy. The interior was bucolic and arresting, with trees changing color in the mountains, the crunchy Fuji apples for sale at neighborhood stands and farmers at work in perfectly aligned rice paddies. What was jarring was the level of road and port building – blacktop and concrete spreading out like Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere."