Friday, November 1, 2013

Lake Worth Is the Coolest City in South Florida

This from one of our favorite pests, Fire Ant. After reading this article in New Times, I have trouble with the following. Anyone else similarly bothered? Click title for link.
Chamber of Commerce types throughout Palm Beach County have long laid the rap that Lake Worth never gets anything done, that city government is a terminal clusterfuck where businesses don't get respect from the obstinately retrograde natives. What about capital "P" progress, they cry?
Screw that. ElDub's stubborn skepticism about developers and assorted other real estate interests has been its salvation, the only thing that's kept it from joining the high-rise parade and get-rich-quick delusions that pave so much of South Florida's landscape. Okay, that may be bad news for those whose homes are about speculation, who dream of the next real estate bubble and retiring in luxury. (Like that's worked out so well anywhere.) But for us reg'lar folks, and especially students and artists and bohemian types (you know, interesting people) it's a godsend. Property values aint the same as human values.
This to me says it all. This is why we have had an eight year long draught, without coherent land development regulations that, thank God, is over now. I guess that Mr. Fire Ant thinks is it fine that the city lost 2/3 of it's property valuation over the same period. I, for one, am not speculating with my house - it is my place of choice to live. Maybe the city could be more altruistic with "reg'lar folks" if it had deeper pockets and did not have to defend arbitrary and capricious land development decisions of the past in a court of law.