This is a time of tremendous building projects. Yet these building projects are not the result of necessary expansion, but of defensive expansion. These are very different circumstances for the Nephites, and they are preparing for a long and difficult war. It must have been a tremendous building effort requiring the reassignment of large numbers of people, since all of these fortifications and new cities are begun in the space of one year on the various borders of the land of Zarahemla, including the northern border where there has been no threat to date in the history of the Book of Mormon.