Abstract

Environmental control, complex systems of communication, modern services, and our pyramiding population have made the urbanization of once forbidding land areas both practical and desirable. Herein lies a paradox; while technological accomplishment leads to the solution of one major social problem it creates yet another. The more successful we are in satisfying the dominant population's need for expansion, the more problems that are created for a minority ethnic group—the American Indian. The Indians and their remaining preserves, once isolated from the general population, are now easily within the reach of urban expansion. Indeed, in many areas the non-Indian urban communities already meet and encroach upon Indian lands.

The famous resort city of Palm Springs, California, is partially situated on land owned by the Agua Caliente Indians. Phoenix, Arizona is rapidly approaching the several Indian reservations which surround it, and Scottsdale, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, already has inched onto the Salt River Reservation. This pattern is repeated in many of the nation's growing urban areas.

How will the Indian suffer this exposure? What legal problems are posed by this contact? What solutions are there for the conflicts arising out of this inevitable association? These are the subjects of this comment. Before discussing the legal problems which this Indian-urban association poses, the Indian civilization should be examined. The threshold question concerns the "cultural gap" which the Indians will have to face in a highly competitive, disruptive urban society.

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