The Big Picture: Human Landscapes in SW Florida

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/09/human_landscapes_in_sw_florida.html

by ojbyrne • 16 years ago

21 5 16 years ago

This is kinda a big issue in SW florida at the moment. The big picture showcases a lot of these empty homes in the area, but some of the cities in the area continue to sell development permits to developers, who continue to build more empty houses, which sort of ruins the landscape. Why do developers continue to build when there are so many empty homes? Who knows, maybe people are really vain and want to buy a house/condo which wasn't foreclosed on, or maybe the houses/condos are just built in a bad spot. In any case, a hot topic in the south.

etm117• 16 years ago

My gut feeling is they keep building because otherwise they go out of business. If they can open a development and slowly build a few houses (and get them sold) then they can continue to build out the development.

Based on those pictures and your comment, I would prefer that Florida re-issue licenses to contractors to continue building on sites that were half built before money ran out. This minimizes the continued over-development and keeps small communities from being stuck with a large HOA bill for the entire community when only 1/4 of the houses are sold.

cma• 16 years ago

Most of the layouts with water almost look like Peano/Hilbert type curves http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-filling_curve

brc• 16 years ago

It's interesting to see failed developments that have never gone anywhere. My first instinct is to say : start re-using these instead of building new ones. But then the reason they failed is because nobody wanted to live there, for whatever reason. Those reasons are probably still there, so any attempt to make them 'work' is doomed to failure. Best to just let it be. Eventually the two or three occupants will move on and then nature can reclaim the land.

dennisgorelik• 16 years ago

1) This is such a good collection of photos and many comments are pretty insightful too. 2) It was interesting to get familiar with arguments of anti-sprawl crowd. 3) I personally don't see any danger in the sprawl. Quite the opposite -- it's scary how quickly abandoned development turns into jungle in Southern Florida. 4) It was pretty insightful to learn that real-estate boom/bust cycle is very typical for Southern Florida. Could it make sense to buy a home there now while the prices are close to the bottom?

The Big Picture: Human Landscapes in SW Florida

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