by Carl Hiaasen
"We could pass some tough coastal zoning ordinances."
"Naw, that'll never work. Pedro's lawyers would find a loophole somewhere."
"Chief, wait, I've got an idea! You know those funny little mushrooms that grow down by the creek? The ones that make the armadillos bark like coyotes?"
"Yes, the magic mushrooms."
"Well, suppose we invited Pedro and his crew back to dinner tonight. This time it would be our treat, a second thanksgiving."
"Hmmmm. A garden salad would be lovely for starters. Coonti roots, garnished with mushrooms."
"Yes, a bounty of mushrooms, Chief. And, later, cream of mushroom soup. Then, for the main course, wild buzzard stuffed with mushrooms."
"That should do the trick."
"After such a meal, Pedro and his men will totally forget about building anything on our peaceful beach. No more conquering, no more pillaging. All they'll want to do is run with the rabbits and fly with the hawks."
"Which reminds me, you'd better lock up the livestock."
"Good thinking, Chief. These men have been at sea for a long, long time."
Retail flops fail to stop mall frenzy
February 8, 1989
This is a terrible time for mall freaks.
First, Branden's announced it was closing. Not only was this bad news for Branden's employees, but also for several South Florida malls which had counted on the big department store as their "anchor" to bring in customers.
Four—The Promenade, Town & Country, Colonial Palms and The Fountains in Broward—are suddenly stuck with about a jillion square feet of retail space, of which there is already a gross surplus.
In South Miami, the long-troubled Bakery Centre was clobbered by the abrupt closing of the Bodyworks spa and adjoining Sports Rock Cafe. Certainly it was an interesting idea while it lasted: Presumably you were supposed to pig out on the cafe side, then burn off the fat at the gym. Only in America, and only in a mall, could such a concept be born.
The shutdown of Bodyworks was the final blow to the Bakery Centre, which has announced that it's converting from retail to office space. Meanwhile developer owner Martin Margulies and the bank that loaned him the dough are suing and countersuing each other over why the loans aren't being repaid.
A new fire station that Margulies had promised to build in exchange for the mall approval is still just a sketch on paper. Gee, what a surprise.
The Bakery Centre fiasco is not a unique story. All over South Florida, shopping malls are in trouble for the simple reason that there are too many of them. A recent study showed a glut of 2£ million square feet of shopping space in Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Vacancy is high, tenant turnover is high, foreclosure is high.
Still they build more and more of these megaturkeys—a mystery, unless you understand the symbiosis of greed. Developers usually don't lose a dime on dead malls—they get their money from the banks. The ones who really take it on the chin are the small, independent shop owners trying to make the rent in an air-conditioned ghost town.
Yet zoning boards lustily endorse mall after mall, seemingly oblivious of the fact that many of these projects have no prayer of financial success.
A perfect example: A few years ago, an economic study done in Broward reported that there was so much empty retail space that it couldn't all be filled until well into the 21st century.
Officials conveniently chose to ignore the experts, and continued to rubber-stamp every shopping mall that came up on the drawing board. Their groveling allegiance to developers is best manifested along a two-mile segment of University Drive in Plantation, where there are now no less than five malls and shopping centers.
If the Russians ever decide to bomb us, this particular stretch of suburban claptrap is where they'll start. The aerial resemblance to a munitions dump is uncanny.
Any idiot could have predicted that not all these malls could make money—any idiot except the ones who approved them; the elected ones.
Here's one idea you won't hear from government planners: Don't build any more shopping malls until the ones we've got are at least 90 percent occupied—and the stores are actually making a profit.
There's a radical notion. No one suggests such a thing because it means saying no to fat-cat developers and their lawyers. Saying no to a mall is like saying no to growth, and saying no to growth is like spitting on the flag.
Why, what would we do without another multiplex cinema—a dozen theaters, each no bigger than a tollbooth! Where else but a mall could we buy our apricot bagels? Where else could our daughters get their ears pierced?
And, most of all, what would we do with all that open space if there were no more shopping malls? Oh, I suppose you could plant some trees, put in a playground or maybe a ballpark for the kids.
But what neighborhood would ever go for something so dull when it could have its very own J. C. Penney and Wicker World and Orange Julius and parking lots as far as the eye can see.
We're talking quality of life.
A message to outsiders: Florida's full
January 5, 1990
The latest census figures show that the 1980s was a decade of astounding migration to the South and the West. Florida continues to draw new residents like a dead marlin draws flies. Between the 1980 census and July 1, 1989, the state's population grew from 9.7 million people to an estimated 12.7 million people—an increase of 31 percent.
Anyone who says this is good news needs to have his head examined. It's a disaster in the making, an avalanche of humanity with which our state has no prayer of coping. As it is, we don't have enough roads, schools, police, water, affordable housing or health care. We apparently don't even have enough electricity to operate our toasters during a cold snap.
Yet still they come to Florida, in hopeful hordes, at a rate of about 900 a day. What accounts for this lemming-like behavior? More to the point, what accounts for our welcoming them so cheerily?
To hear some civic boosters talk, we should all be proud that so many folks are dying to be our new neighbors. It's as if we've all pitched in to make this a little slice of paradise, with lots to offer.
Hogwash. We had nothing to do with it. People move to Florida for the same reasons they've always moved to Florida: to get warm and stay warm. No matter how crowded or crime-ridden this state becomes, it'll always look better than a dying factory town on the shore of Lake Erie in the dead of winter.
Florida is where folks come when things get unbearable back home. It's been that way ever since they invented air-conditioning and bug spray.
Only three states grew faster in the 1980s: Arizona, Alaska and Nevada. None is in any immediate danger of becoming urbanized; Arizona's entire population is no more than that of Dade, Broward and Monroe counties together.
It's more reasonable to compare what's happening in Florida with the trend in other populous states. In the 19805 we absorbed more new residents than New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio or Texas. Only California (which has considerably more space) took in more people than we did.
Every year Florida's population grows by about 320,000—that's an entire city larger than Tampa. Every single year.
This must stop if the place is to be saved. Stanching the flood will require higher taxes, tougher laws and a few courageous politicians who aren't afraid to say enough is enough. Try to find just one.
Not that the cataclysm has been ignored. The 1980s was the decade in which state legislators embraced the term "growth management" and passed important laws to try to improve local planning. Not a week goes by that some university scholars or blue-ribbon panel aren't conducting a symposium on growth and all its implications—social, economic and environmental.
Some of the brightest people in Florida are hot on the case. The problem is, the faucet is still running.
And too many people are getting rich off the migration to admit that it's a peril. The money that fuels political campaigns tends to come from people who prosper from rampant growth
and development. They cannot conceive of a place where these things would be controlled or, God forbid, halted.
Ironically, many who are suggesting such remedies were once migrants themselves. They see Florida becoming a place very much like the one they fled, and they'd like to prevent that from happening.
So now you want to slam the door? reply the guys in the suits; now that you've got your piece of paradise, you want to lock out the others, is that it?
Exactly. Because the alternative is to be overrun, choked and bankrupted; to destroy the very natural beauty that attracted all these people in the first place; to let the hordes keep coming until there's nowhere to put them—and then let our children and grandchildren worry about what to do next.
Damn right we should slam the door, or at least put a shoulder to it.
Gas-tax veto wisely brakes development
May 9, 1990
Lots of people are lambasting Gov. Martinez for vetoing the proposed four-cent gasoline tax, which would have provided several hundred million dollars for road projects.
The critics say the governor's veto was irresponsible. They say it will hurt the economy by obstructing "growth management."
Translation: Without new roads, it's harder for developers to get new projects approved. It's no mystery why the most vocal supporters of the gas tax were road contractors, builders and chambers of commerce.
Maybe the governor didn't believe Floridians wanted the tax, or maybe he truly felt the money would be spent "unwisely and inappropriately." Either way, the veto was the right thing to do.
In what dream world do the gas-tax proponents dwell? It must be a fairy-tale place, where all construction contracts are awarded wisely, where the work is completed within budget, without scandal and always on time.
Where is this magical land? It's not Florida, that's for sure.
The Department of Transportation has suffered through some inglorious budget screwups. In 1988, $700 million in projects had to be canceled or scaled down. Last year the department came up $116 million short for purchasing rights-of-way. The Martinez administration deserves blame for chaotic mismanagement, but at least the governor this year had the sense not to give DOT more money to lose.
It's bad enough that most projects cost millions over budget, and drag months and even years past deadline. The worst part is: By the time these roads get finished, they are already obsolete.
For example, we've been dourly forewarned that the interminable widening of I-95 will be hopelessly inadequate, and that shortly after the highway's completion motorists will again find themselves mired in truck traffic. Wonderful.
Sure, many roads already are perilously congested. And yes, some of the bridges are falling down. Is more money the answer? Not if it goes for highway projects designed to fuel more growth—because growth is the root of the problem.
Florida has too many people in too many cars, and the numbers swell by nearly 900 a day. Until we do something drastic to reverse this trend, there's no hope of having a modern, efficient road system. Government is incapable of keeping pace with such an insane migration.
Some of the projects in the doomed transportation bill undoubtedly would have improved transit, cut down on auto pollution and saved lives. Few would argue the need to widen bloody U.S. 27 in Palm Beach County.
However, prudent taxpayers might question other big-ticket items that would have received funds from the gas tax. For example, would the city of Fort Lauderdale really grind to a halt if A1A were not rebuilt to accommodate commercial development along the beach? This seems an odd priority, considering the plight of less glamorous neighborhoods where people can't even get a simple pothole patched.
Another dubious item was the state's plan to purchase the Sawgrass Expressway, which (like Metrorail) is now being called successful because it's losing fewer millions of dollars than it once did.
Having paid for the Sawgrass once (and for the criminal prosecutions that followed), Broward residents would have been forced to pay again with the gas tax, this time joined by other drivers. That's not progress, it's larceny.
If the Martinez veto ultimately means less road construction for a while, that's not so bad. The worst traffic jams in Florida are caused by road projects that never seem to end.
All of us love to drive on fast-moving, freshly paved freeways, but they don't stay that way very long. They fill up, slow down and clog. The gas tax would have accelerated, not halted, this phenomenon.
Besides, there is something to be said for sitting bumper-to-bumper and contemplating the mess we've made of this state. The real problem isn't roads, and most people know it.
Finally, a leader admits growth is choking state
September 4, 1991
Last week, Lt. Gov. Buddy MacKay uttered one of the most stunning comments ever to exit the lips of a Florida politician.
"In the past," he said, "we've had a policy of trying to stimulate growth. We measured our success by the numbers of people who moved into the state. We can no longer continue to do that."
What refreshing blasphemy! Finally, somebody in elected office has the guts to admit that Florida is drowning in its own humanity.
Every crisis facing the state—water, pollution, crime, health care, traffic, and budget—is the result of too many people, too few resources and gutless leader ship. The quality of life is deteriorating in direct correlation with population growth, but until lately you could find only a handful of Florida politicians willing to come out and say so.
More was always better. To challenge that philosophy was to jeopardize hefty campaign contributions from banks, builders and utilities. Unthinkable! That's why officeholders always talk about "managing" growth instead of stopping it.
With the state government practically broke, the Chiles administration is promoting the theme of "growing smarter." Translation: Help! What do we do now!
The statistics are chilling. Each day, more than 900 people stampede to Florida, and that's not counting illegal aliens. Think of it as adding two entire cities the size of Hialeah every year.
Every day, more than 300 acres of green space are paved for shopping malls and subdivisions. Planners say that keeping up with such expansion requires two new miles of road, two new classrooms, two new prison beds, two new cops and two new schoolteachers hired each day.
In other words, there's no way to keep pace. Nine hundred newcomers a day is insane and ultimately suicidal. Stopping the flow will take imagination and a radical change in the way we promote the state.
Pro-growthers say Florida's got plenty of space to grow—just look out the window when you're on an airplane! And it's true, you can actually see some empty green patches in the center of the state. Unfortunately, that's not where most new residents want to go.
Until now, people who've migrated here were foolishly allowed to settle any place they wanted. Not surprisingly, the coastal cities were overrun—first Jacksonville, Miami and Fort Lauderdale, now Boca Raton, Tampa and Fort Myers. A big mess. Glorified human ant farms.
One smart way for the Chiles administration to modify Florida's metastatic growth is to channel it—by decree—toward more thinly populated areas. Absolutely nobody else should be permitted to settle in Miami until North Florida fills up. It's only fair.
Consider that the density of Pinellas County (anchored by St. Petersburg) is about 3,055 people per square mile, the worst in the state. Broward is second with about i ,026 people per square mile, and Dade is third at 958 per square mile. No wonder the homicide rate is so high.
Now think of Liberty County. Tucked snugly in the Panhandle and bordered by the misty Apalachicola River, Liberty County has the lowest density in Florida—about six people for every square mile. Paradise!
Or Lafayette County, kissed by the quiet Suwannee—and only 10 human beings per mile of riverside. Or spring-fed Gilchrist County, which grows some of the world's juiciest watermelons, and does it with only 22 people per square mile.
W
hy do they deserve all the peace and quiet? It's time for rural Florida to carry an honest share of growth's burden. Think of it as a redistribution of wealth.
Starting tomorrow, Liberty County should take at least 100 of Florida's 900 daily new arrivals. Sprinkle the remainder in Lafayette, Gilchrist, Wakulla, Calhoun, DeSoto and so on.
Give those folks a taste of what we're experiencing down here, and you won't hear any fuzzy debates about "growth management." They'll vote to close the borders.
Guns-for-all law one way to end congestion
May 20, 1993
Rep. Al Lawson sparked a small uproar last week by proposing that every household in Florida should be required to have a gun, and that every Floridian should be trained to shoot.
The man seemed dead serious. He talked of introducing a guns-for-all law during the upcoming special session on, fittingly, prisons. "I don't see any option for the people but for them to bear arms," he said. "Every house would have a gun."
Obviously Lawson isn't from South Florida (he's from Tallahassee), but it's still hard to understand how an elected official could be so grossly uninformed about the demographics of crime. Miami has armed itself to the teeth, but only occasionally does a citizen manage to shoot a criminal. Usually it's a spouse, child, neighbor or pal who gets wasted, in moments of anger, drunkenness or stupidity.
My hunch is that Lawson knew the homicide stats very well, and that we underestimated him. Nobody could be daffy enough to believe that saturating rough neighborhoods with more guns will reduce crime. I think Lawson's true aim was to reduce population, a worthy goal.
Florida's got too many people, yet continues to grow at an insane pace. Virtually every major social crisis stems from overcrowding—crime, pollution, gridlock, failing schools, you name it. The state's going broke trying to provide for its 13 million residents, and the thousands more who arrive permanently each week.