Gerard Vanderleun writes about the decline of Florida, both the Keys and the mainland. It's funny, as someone who is currently living here, and has never particularly liked the place, he makes it sound much worse than the reality seems to me. But then, he's writing as someone who apparently did love it once upon a time, which I never have. I haven't been diving down in the Keys yet (though we still plan to), but he certainly makes it sound uninviting, and I hadn't realized that the deer were in such deep trouble.

Correct me someone please, but didn't the state just move the last homesteader out of the Everglades to work on the project of returning the original water flow? Wasn't that all about not allowing develpment? That was my impression at least.

I have a friend who sold 18 acres in Ocala over 15 years ago. The enviromentalists all but killed the sale because the were afraid the guy who was buying from my friend might (!!!bunny hugger terminology alert!!!) then resell the land to a person or entity who was not enviromentally friendly.

They weren't immediately worried about the guy buying the old homesteaded plot doing anything not earth friendly. They wanted to stop a sale that was years down the road, so as to save the rare Florida Red Peckered Newt or some other nonsense.

If it was that bad 15 years ago, and 4 hurricanes chased some people out while leveling human living areas last year, can Florida be that bad now?

Turn it back over to the Seminoles, the rattle snakes in the St.Johns River and the deer. I am sure the Seirra Club will reimberse all of you down there for the inconvience.

I like the diving in Florida but it is far to flat for my tastes. Besides, I actually like a bit of winter.

My brother lives there. I tell him it is a coral reef with an attitude that it will one day loose.

Amazing, but sea level was once higher than today and floriday was submerged.

Did the early hominids blame global warming for melting the ice caps then I wonder?

The thing is he seems to be writing mainly about the Keys, and South Florida, which is only part of Florida. Vacationers and occasional visitors don't seem to understand that Florida is a large state with a variety of different ecosystems. It's true that South Florida is too crowded -- I was born and raised in Miami and finally escaped at the age of 36 (mumble) years ago, and I pretty much concur that there's more than a touch of Los Angeles about that city. (When I visited LA a few years ago I was surprised at how familiar everything seemed to me, and that wasn't just because I'd grown up seeing so much of it on tv and in the movies.) But Miami seems to be improving since the bad old days of the 80s, and despite the crowding, inconvenience, and high prices I don't think anyone wants the city to return to the dead, end-of-nowhere, place where old people came to die state it was in during the Seventies. As for Key West, it was always a dump at the end of the state, despite the cute homes and laid-back atmosphere. And it's always expensive to live on isolated island communities with limited transportation in and out.

I live in the Orlando area now. It's getting crowded and expensive too, and the traffic is horrible (though I don't have a car right now so I don't feel that as much) and so on. But I think his complaints are more the sort of thing you hear from someone who thinks of Florida as mainly a place to go vacation, not a place to live. Florida's not worse off than a lot of states and a lot better than many of them. His "decline" is the decline of the idea of Florida as a place untouched by the real world. That place never existed except in the minds of northerners in winter.

Actually, my recent experience and the article spans Key West to Stuart.

And some of the insights and observations come from converstations with an old friend who has lived in Lauderdale for over a decade.

A lot does have to do with the Keys I grant you. But not all

I've had Vanderleun's experience at other places. I've lived in other places after their "golden age" or on its tail end. Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose and Phoenix all come to mind. In every case, the tipping point was when the zoning boards were taken over by land developers.

There are times when I drive through one of those places and get a glimpse of what once was and the loss is sad. (I have a rather peculiar sense of what "feels" right in a town and it's getting harder and harder to find that combination of city and greenspace, but not parks, I hate parks--even where I live now is slowly turning into Burbank or Pasadina; my poster children of cities gone bad [my dad grew up in Pasadina--it truly pains him to go there now.])