I live in Orlando, and my only real complaint about the area is its SPRAWL. The metro area is so oddly laid out that you pretty much need the interstate or a toll road to get anywhere. It seems to take 30 minutes to drive everywhere, and there are some places that look close on a map but actually take forever to drive to.
@@tgosuke i just checked google maps and it looks like it was shot with a shotgun. Also found a car accident just trying to figure out what was up with the lanes on a random road. Florida needs a lot of work, mainly in finding a viable transit system and densifying it cities. (It probably has to be above ground because I can't imagine trying to make tunnels for underground metro in a swamp) They also should tear up all those abandoned roads to help get rid of the crime issue they are causing. (Probably place boulders across the entrances to the right of ways as well, investigate when things get disturbed)
@@potownrob True but lots of metros have hills and lakes and don't have that issue. (i.e. Kansas City, Minneapolis, even Denver has a more organized sprawl than Orlando)
After the 2008 crash, homes in Lehigh were so unbelievably cheap that it became basically a cesspool of crime and vandalism with all the abandoned homes. It wasn't unusual for 3 bedroom homes on 1/4 acre of land to sell for $50k or even less. Residents had to put cages around their AC units to avoid them getting stripped apart for scrap by thieves. You can still see some of that kind of thing even today. Lehigh is one of many, though. Deltona, Palm Bay, Spring Hill, Loxahatchee, North Port, Citrus Springs, Cape Coral, etc etc. The list goes on. These pre-planned communities are absolutely everywhere, and they're a shining example of the perpetual racket that is FL real estate.
I often visit these cities because I live in South Florida, and it was peculiar how many abandoned streets were there and how there were so many gridded streets, thank you for finally explaining the reason why it looks like that.
Haven't watched the video yet, but as a Floridian, I'll say this much: NIMBYs have a lot of control in Florida. In the center (where I'm from) there's no grid system. This isn't inherently a bad thing, similar to how Europe is built and functions well. But central Florida especially has lakes. Tons and tons of lakes. This causes even the best intentioned city planners to struggle in coherent design. There are roads that cut through residential areas, but if a thru-road crosses through an actual HOA-styled neighborhood, then they either build and enforce speedbumps or they annihilate the road connection altogether. Many neighborhoods/communities - like Heathrow - do have roads that cross through the area, but are gated and restricted to residents only. Others like Windermere or Belle Isle have to allow open traffic because they are both legal cities (therefore can't simply ban entrance like an HOA), but they also are surrounded by two massive lakes that have a narrow strip of land available to live & drive through. Thus, Belle Isle has speedbumps and Windermere has roundabouts. Some cities take a better approach at enforcing speeding. Winter Park has a lot of residential thru-roads that are made of brick, which not only looks prettier than asphalt roads, but forces drivers to slow down naturally due to the bumpiness and lack of traction provided by the bricks at speeds over 30mph or so. This brings me back to the NIMBY point, these neighborhoods and cities create rules and laws that force people to route themselves through corridors that cannot handle the traffic, but lack any alternatives. The irony is, I refer to these NIMBY neighborhoods as yeast cultivations. They literally will self-destruct themselves (yeast ferments sugar into alcohol which after a certain concentration level is reached, will kill them). Many of these communities will force their own drivers onto the main roads, refusing to connect in the back with other "undesirable" neighborhoods and instead, opt to have traffic lights installed at their entrance's intersection. Do this enough times and repeat. Don't believe me, look up Winter Garden Vineland Rd/Ficquette Rd/Reams Rd (yes, the road is a Frankenstein monster of previously established roads) on Google Earth and utilizing the timeline feature, examine the construction of lights. I worked at Disney during the building of 6 of these lights and it added an average of 8 minutes - each way(!) - to my already 30-40 minute commute in roughly 1 year. Why didn't I take another route? What other route?! People in Florida get railroaded into these roads like players in a D&D game run by a bossy and controlling dungeon master, it's so infuriating! Alright, that's enough incoherence from me. I gotta get back to work.
Lived in Port Charlotte for a few years. Can confirm the abandoned streets. This is perhaps a separate issue, but compared to VA, NC, and AL that I had lived in previously, Florida cities really seem to dislike trees. I don't know why. You need shade more here than you do up north, but you're less likely to find it. Partially due to less native tall trees, but also because they clear every tree on many new housing developments.
But f'n palm trees are all over Miami which provide absolutely no shade while bus riders bake on the black metal bus stop benches. I hate Florida, it's just ugly and hot all the time. I should know, born and raised in Miami.
Virginia native and resident, I did live in Port Saint Lucie, FL. off and on and one thing is for sure they build and will continue to develop any land that is for sale. I’ve never seen building and commercialization, like they do in Florida, it’s like every week and or day some new strip mall is going up or single story concert block homes, or anything that can be built for that matter. I know other states are experiencing population booms and commercialization, but Florida is whole different territory. I moved back to VA but by goli, the one thing I tell people who complain about fast growth here in VA, I say “try Florida” anyone else😭. One thing is for sure people are and have been moving to Florida from all over for decades and they will continue to, I used to consider Florida for retirement, but I like other states for their climate and or tax benefits so I wouldn’t be upset about not retiring in Florida, by the way I’m 23 as of this writing but never too young to plan out.
@@fl0pZ3 I know right 😭like to be honest it’s sad because so many dream and would die to live or retire in Florida for whatever the reason(s) may be. Luckily I like others states, Florida is not the only state with no income tax, mild winters, or if a state does have any income tax some may be relatively low to include property taxes.
@@TedNewkirk yeah see you know sir, I wouldn’t mind Nevada, just like any state it has its pros and cons, but excuse my lack of knowledge on Nevada. I’ve never visited the state but luckily for me I’m pretty open book to seeing what else is out there; however I do have my preferences like mild winters and either no income tax or at least a low tax burden overall like you stated:). I love my home state Virginia but I wouldn’t be opposed to living in other states and when the time comes retirement.
A couple of things many out of state developers and planners miss when doing projects there... much of State is swamp, lots of sinkholes, there are alligators that love crashing parties and taking dip in your pool, Hurricanes don't suck, they blow, lighting does strike same place more than once, Disney still a big deal there, if you came to watch Space Shuttle launches, you are years too late, Shuttle retired just as is most seniors living there, Golf is close to God, Key West is different than Miami, sharks, snakes, spiders were here first.
There's also the failed suburban community around southwestern Palm Bay, where there's tons of paved residential streets but almost no houses, like Lehigh Acres but not in a grid format. It's called The Compound or The Grid. Also I believe Miami was founded by Julia Tuttle, but all across South Florida there are streets named after Flagler (plus Flagler County just south of St. Augustine).
I always wonder who thought the mixture of super flat terrain, samey architecture and grids made for an appealing mixture. Netherlands is proof that flat places can be pretty, when you make them walkable with good architecture and no straight roads.
Most of Dutch "suburbia" also lacks good architecture. Ever since the 50's all houses have looked exactly the same as all other houses built during that same time anywhere in this country.
Netherlands has the advantage of being moderate to cool for its climate, though. Also isn't really plagued with mosquitoes like we are. We need a lot more work to make our cities walkable. In my opinion Floridian streets should be shaded, either with trees or reflective overhead materials, with cooling zones throughout the street.
@@HigherQualityUploads Yeah no. Back when we were still 80% swamp we had huge amounts of musquitoes. We however have so much urbanisation and developtment we now terraformed the country into not being a giant swamp anymore. That took alot, alot, of work. The only difference between Florida and the Netherlands is that we got some respite from the mosquitos in winter. That and Florida is much larger.
@@RK-cj4oc Only 31% of Florida is wetlands and nearly all is the Everglades. No matter how much development there is mosquitos are unaffected by it because they live near fresh water.
*next project for you: look into Lakeland, halfway between Tampa and Orlando, often where wags say that, if you needed to give the state an enema, this is where you should place the tip. I moved here in 2007 to nurse my ageing parents, and now feel rather stuck in a place where the traffic is horrendous, and because of no city planning prior to 30 years ago, it just gets worse and worse. as a senior citizen, I am happy to stay home near the hearth, however, I still feel somewhat trapped*
My ex parents live in Lakeland, been there so many times and I never understood how traffic can be so bad. I live in Southern California now and even our traffic isn't as bad as what I've seen in Lakeland
Everything you said is true. Florida’s suburbs are boring, most lack sidewalks and the traffic here is horrific! And with every nook and cranny of the state legislature controlled by Republicans it’s become just another southern Police state…..stifling and oppressive. Can’t wait to move out west upon retirement soon.
If you ever find yourself in Port Charlotte, I'll give you a tour. I've lived here for 20 years and I am very familiar with the abandoned areas. I even venture out there for photography every now and again.
One of my favorite books is Paper Towns by John Green and one of the talking points of the book is those abandoned settlements. It's really good beyond that though and I just want everyone to be aware of it.
I remember liking that book. I also remember that one of the main points was that American suburbs were pretty soulless places to live and urban areas were the only place one can live a fulfilling life. Don’t really agree with the last part but it definitely fueled my hatred for my suburban town I grew up in.
Florida had an earlier real estate boom in the 1920s. (It's sort of the subject of the first Marx Brothers movie THE COCOANUTS.) But the bubble burst, just like with Wall Street. St. Augustine, the place that attracted Flagler, is actually the oldest town in the USA! (Founded by Spain in the 16th centuries, it's been Spanish territory for almost 300 years and US territory for only 200...)
i've always been wondering why these places are the way they are, as i've always found them strange. its honestly terrible that more and more places are being filled with suburban developments, as they're so unhuman and inconvenient. thank you for covering this topic!
I live in fort Myers and because of the car centric design and absolutely abysmal zoning of cape coral, the traffic here is absolutely unbelievably horrid. Cape Coral with only a residential town with no businesses, and then Fort Myers is where all the jobs are. So naturally everyone that works in Fort Myers, lives in Cape Coral. Around 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. everyday it's a complete gridlock to try to go over the two Bridges to Cape Coral. My usual commute to work is only 15 minutes. But if I have to leave to go home at 4 p.m. my commute is now an 1hr 40 minutes.
If the country was smarter in the 50's and 60's it could have prevented people moving to Florida swamp land by making more of it national parks and nature reserves.
I grew up in Port Charlotte and remember all the empty streets, and how part of Quesada Ave was closed off and unmaintained for lack of development. Everything changed once Veterans Blvd was built in the mid-to-late 90's. Port Charlotte filled in considerably since then. Eastern North Port, right above Port Charlotte, is still dominated by the empty streets you describe. When I first got my drivers' license I'd explore around there. No stop signs or street names. When I think about street grids running through the woods, I think of North Port. There's also a community like this in Hendry County, and how could you forget to mention the one in the Everglades? (Collier County)
Rather ironic that Florida's boom was partly due to Henry Flagler's involvement in building railroads here. And now we have very few at all. Hopefully Brightline brings passenger rail comes back to Key West someday...
It will not. The rail line to Key West was destroyed by storms too many times in the past. Long gone are the days when one could rebuild it on the cheap and not have to care how many lives it took to do so. Also, much of its former right of way is now the South Dade Busway and will become part of a new BRT line from the Dadeland South Metro station to Florida City.
Leheigh Acres reminds me of Salton City on the salton sea, a massive sprawl centered city with houses scattered sparsely across the city making it look abandoned
As a lifelong Florida resident, I’m glad you made a video on this issue. These development patterns and failed master planned communities aren’t limited to South Florida, just look at Navarre (large unincorporated grid) and Sunny Hills (failed Deltona Corporation planned community) in the panhandle.
Born in Florida in 2000s just watching and hearing the full video really hurts as I love this state and I always thought I saw good potential in my state
Florida still has potential. Areas like Lakeland and Ocala are starting to see a lotta growth and the Tampa Bay Area is one of the fastest growing areas in the state meaning hopefully they can do something with places like Thonotosassa or Mango.
Hey beaver, I grew up in Loxahatchee groves and oddly enough became an urban planner. When you were talking about the grid pattern of Lehigh I hoped you knew about Lox so it was nice to see you covered it in your video. Unfortunately, the town has recently let in development so our rural way of living is sadly being replaced by those same sprawling developments in the name of profits. Great video though!
In Pennsylvania they have a LEHIGH County, it's pronounced lee-high, and there is Lehigh in Iowa, again pronounced Lee-high, did you find contradictory pronunciations or just take a guess?
@@alexdaley7616 I'm finding that with a lot of video producers lately. One told you a telephone operator gave you dial tone by inserting a cord with plug into a hole on a switchboard, what could be farther than the truth, after commenting the video producer gave no indication of reading the comments. Then there's videos with pricing in Japan one adjusted 1.10 rate another 1.25 on the same date. Neither explained double pricing for one occupant.
How could you hate Florida-man and all of his weirdness? Ok seriously…I lived in NJ and FL…NJ is just one continuously suburb. There is very little rural land left…mostly in the southwest corner. You want to see abandoned land, try Camden, NJ. There are hundreds of abandoned crime-filled lots. There are plenty of other cities like this in NJ: Paterson, Newark, etc. New Jersey takes the cake in awful suburbanization.
I'd have to disagree. As someone born + raised in NJ, I know NJ has some of the highest transit usage in the country since many of the suburbs originated before the fifties and most commuters to NYC use transit. There is lots of train service and bus service at least a decent distance from many areas, and transit-oriented development is definitely on the rise. Just visit Woodbridge, Edison, Princeton, North Brunswick, Long Branch, Montclair... the list goes on.. You'd have to visit other states to REALLY see the cake taken in awful suburbanization, like Texas and California, and yes, Florida.
you talking about AC becoming popular in the 50s makes me think of Phoenix, Arizona. THAT would make a good video. The population of Phoenix was VERY low before air conditioning.
Oh yes, same with Las Vegas, N V, that plus the Hoover Dam/Lake Mead. N V was the LEAST populated state before A K was granted statehood at least than 300k(yes, even W Y and V T had more people), now they are the 32nd most populated at around 3 million and growing.
A city that is a sea of sprawl and located in a desert that gets so hot (50°C aka halfway to boiling) plasic melts and planes are grounded. (Air density is too low and they don't get enough lift before they run out of runway)
@@JordanDrewVideos My sister does too, and granted she has never been the brightest bulb in our family, so that is understandable. She shared a pic of herself with her legs in her swimming pool there, even that will never make me want to move to the Southwest just for the water crisis alone. Speaking of PHX, talk about a textbook example of urban sprawl, yikes. No thank you!
As strange as the ghost cities are, they're fairly insignificant. More people are affected by suburban blight in the places completed 60-70 years ago surrounding the 4 major cities ... places like Pine Hills or Pompano Beach.
Old legend… due to the fact that Henry Flagler was originally from the Miami Valley area in Ohio, the “Miami” name was selected to entice Flagler. It is a fact the city is named after Ohio’s Miami Valley.
Flagler lived around the Cleveland area, and the Miami name seems to have come from the Mayaimi people native to Florida, completely unrelated to the Ohio Miami.
@@cinnanyan Miami’s name was originally Cape Florida…the fact a Floridian tribe has a similar name is coincidental. Miami is named after the place and tribe from Ohio.
I live in the Tampa area and yes, we don’t want more “development”. We love the natural settings and the rural feel of our state. The more people migrating/relocating and moving in, the more loss of the Floridian identity. For every 100 people, only 5 might be born and raise Floridian.
Resident of this dumpster fire. You hit the nail on the head,but also a lot of the oldest burbs’ are now some of the most impoverished parts of the state due to lack of access to jobs,education,and general amenities.
As a native Floridian I will tell you that we need to put the development in check. For years now I'm just watching anything natural slowly start to disappear. Beautiful wooded lots are completely bulldozed, cookie cutter neighborhoods go up, and then 4 foot palm trees are planted for landscaping. It's sad. I seriously wonder where all of the displaced animals go.. Due to Covid and the economic repercussions we have thousands and thousands of people moving here to FL now. People are in bidding wars bidding over asking price many times sight unseen because they're moving from out of state. Not a good sign for us. We just hope the developers don't tear the heart out of everything.
Same here and I agree buts it too late the damage has been done with no end in site with all these greedy slash and burn everything developers..Florida was once a wet state now it's a concrete state..
You should look at poinciana the hugest suburb in the Orlando area.Ranked worst for commutes and only 2 main ways to enter and exit.Traffic is so terrible on the pleasant hill road.People coming home from Orlando and Kissimmee have to wait since traffic backs up to Kissimmee.Plus my friends that lives in the communities by that 1 main road has to wait about 5-10 minutes to get on the highway.Keep in mind that’s putting the metal to the pedal .
That sounds just like oakleaf/argyle area of jacksonville where everyone has to travel ina one way road over buckman bridge to work over in jacksonville and make traffic on the way back in the afternoons you might as well park and chill before going to work and do overtime to avoid traffic
The Miami of Australia is the Gold Coast. I wonder how that stacks up. Australia is officially the most sprawle-urban country in the world, and to great detriment to quality of life
With a country the size of Australia urban sprawl is explainable. Continent sized yet 26 mil population. Everyone should be living in their own castle.
@@RK-cj4oc That is the common 'folk-etymology' explanation, but it is simply that. It is not actually the truth, just an attempt at cause and effect. Suburbs from the 19th to early 20th centuries were natural suburbs, that is, semi-rural attachments on the outsides of urban zones (cities). This is where we get the old quaint cottage suburbs from. They filled in that niche of demand. At the turn of the century, when Australia was getting wealthier, many people disliked the 'blight' of working class poor people who lived in cheap terraces (such as Surry Hills, this has reversed now though) and looked towards the romanticism of living closer to nature but with convenience near enough to the city. This was sustainable, because only people who wanted this built this for themselves. The denser urban form grew naturally too and gave these suburbs more cosmopolitan areas. After WWII, following exactly the same way as America, Australia decided to change the way things worked and instead massively subsidise suburban-style housing as an _urban_ building block, and seeing the car as the future, created strict regulations which ensured car-dependence (minimum parking, street widths, etc.) and sprawl. This essential created a disconnect between the old form of organic growth into a mass-produced model of homes. This was affordable because land was indeed relatively cheap, and if you make a lot of something, it lowers the price. We immediately run into a problem though, because the urban footprint expanded to the size of a city with say 30 million people with only 5 million. This meant that standards and infrastructure were no longer a part of the urban formula. Again, this is a series of trade-offs, but choice has also been sacrificed here so individuals can't choose very well based on their circumstances. Australia's fertile Crescent isn't big enough (or endless as once imagined), and the naturally increasing value of central land (because of convenience, and also zoning laws which segregate everything and remove any possibility of village-like feel) means that wasting a lot of land (setbacks, front lawns) costs a lot of money. This is one of the reasons why Australia's house prices are so high when we have so much land but a small population. Our urban footprint imagines us to be a country of 115 million people (that is also how many resources we used in 1996), when we're hyper exclusive. This makes housing an investment instead of a right, as social housing has also dwindled from 40% to just 4% of supply. So basically, while land abundance helped start of sprawl-monopolistic policies, those restrictive policies (not in the right direction) means more expense for less quality. And the lack of other forms of housing (such as missing middle) creates constraints, and also limits the imagination to personal experience, creating stereotypes such as of the poor worker and drunk wandering dirty slums or ghettos as anything else (from the past, incorrectly). It is the same story for transport -- Australia is an ideal country for healthy forms of travel, as the majority of us still live an average distance for the majority of trips, but the infrastructure makes this unsafe and ensures we spend more money on expensive monopolies which don't pay back to the community (such as 'stroads').
Cape Coral sucks. When I was 10 to 12 my dad lived there. So this was 2004-2006. It’s just flat, and a bunch of empty homes. With shopping plazas. It just sucks there. It has to be the most boring place I’ve been to. I haven’t been there in 16 years though so maybe it’s better now?
Loxahatchee is pretty nice I have some uncles who live there the urbanization is the result of West Lake a new city that’s been built on the land of a former citrus orchard that used to be there they widened Seminole-Pratt Way and the old Winn Dixie even reopened the growth seems explosive but the new “City” section not has half of its housing built/ occupied the Western half is still getting its line and pipe laid but it’ll shake up the feel of what used to be The nice rural part of Palm Beach county
Love the vid! Lehigh Acres is insane; per Zillow there are currently about 3.4k empty lots for sale in the community out of 4.1k total listings -- about 5 out of every 6 listings. Oddly enough, the vast majority of actual homes listed for sale are priced at over $300,000. What's weirder is that these homes aren't condensed to some wealthier outlier in the area; they're scattered pretty evenly. Homes going for $300k-$400k aren't particularly large either, mostly 3 & 4 bedrooms. Who exactly are these houses marketed to? I can see the appeal for the houses that are closer to Ft Myers, but what about all the rest? Paying $30k for a lot and building a home of similar size from scratch should be half the price at most; enough to make buying a turnkey home feel like a robbery. What a weird place.
One interesting showcase for Florida development practices is The Villages. The city of over 80k is unincorporated because it is entirely PRIVATELY OWNED. Not like, each plot is owned by an individual, but the whole city is a private corporation with a board elected by landowners (not voters). It was also founded by an out of state businessman. Most of the city is exclusively for retirees, and children and pets aren't allowed. It's so gross.
California city sucks imo. Florida mega suburbs were at least planned with downtowns. CA city has no downtown officially just some street that happened to be “citified”. It was supposed to rival Los Angeles yet they couldn’t be bothered to build a town center or a freeway network?! No wonder it failed
But Port St Lucie doesn't have abandoned neighborhoods. That city is packed and will keep on growing. Tne section west of the interstate is known as Tradition and southern Grove, a development turned expansion of the city and have opened a fed ex distribution center, a new Amazon fulfillment center.
A lot of Lehigh has ditches running through it so the roads don't connect or the roads curve and end up in a completely different spot than you'd expect believe me I'm out there every week
Coming from Naples. The gris system is so user friendly to navigate and tourist love it. Our town is booming so much house prices have more than doubled in the past 3 years and everyone is moving to Lehigh
Hey I have a small stretch of these kinds of areas right down the road from my house! I used to love exploring over there as a teenager. You meet some weird people but if you aren't hostile they are nice and will wave and smile. Though they are becoming far and few between, pretty much the last empty abandoned planning near me saw its first new house last year and now there are about 3 more being built. It was so fun to explore when I could though and I am very nostalgic for my times walking those roads with headphones in.
I remember reading a book in middle school and the neighborhood the kid lived in sounded exactly like rotunda acres, he described the wagon wheel shape with the missing section as well as the school in the center of the neighborhood, there's wooden boardwalks to the school because its too mudy to walk through
A natural follow up? The Western US versions of this... California City and Salton City specifically... One designed for 400,000 people the other? 40,000.... The First has 14,000 residents? The other? 5000...
yep grew up in port charlotte. lived there from 2009 to 2020. im 21 now. port charlotte actually feels really safe in most of it. I walked the streets and skateboarded everywhere even in the middle of the night from age 13 on. wont lie kids from those schools did like to jump people tho. although it has gotten better there was and is a severe lack of pedestrian infrastructure. One time my friend and I biked from quesada all the way down eljobean following google maps for the bike route and we just ended up trudging our bikes through dirt for miles. we ended up abandoning the bikes and asking someone to come pick us up. there are more sidewalks along that route now but it still isn't sufficient. almost all 41-crossings are an accident waiting to happen and i have almost been hit walking from the mall towards quesada a few times from drivers not paying attention. onloading and off-loading areas to I-75 are mildly dangerous but are pushed closer to punta gorda in one direction and north port in another. midway is an absolute deathtrap and stretches for miles without real safe crossings despite there being elementary schools ahead. (i biked to those as well). the rest of port charlotte is sprawling suburbs with hardly any sidewalks with paved but rough roads. (insufficient for boards) biking is a necessity for those without cars but its not prioritized which is evident by some of the accidents that have happened over the past few years. Kings Highway is also a deathtrap which is also evident by recent years accidents. / also there are a lot of canals. this isn't really a problem as most of them are separated by walls (which is bad in its own ways) but it narrows down the areas where gators can get out which means more in those areas. Also a lot of these walls just invite stupid kids to do stupid things. I even went in these canals as a five year old. I've seen people accidentally fall in to them and I've seen dumb people just jump into them. there are many areas where if a person fell in it would be almost impossible to get them out within a reasonable amount of time. I can literally go on forever on issues with port charlotte, punta gorda, and north port especially if taking the environment into account. It's literally atrocious. I'm open to answer any questions anyone might have about this area is they want. (i also lived in cape coral and fort myers for awhile)
I was just looking through the state on Google maps, and... good God... what a nightmare. There are so many places like this, it's absurd. I would not live there if you gave me a house for free and then paid me on top of that to stay there.
The thing about Lehigh Acres road design is it's not a true grid. It can be a mile or more between intersections. Only a few roads go all the way through East to West or North to South due to the canals
Lehigh Acres made me instantly think of The Acreage which is labelled Loxahatchee on Google. Only the area west of Royal Palm Beach(along Seminole Pratt Whitney Rd.) was originally called Loxahatchee. To the north was the pre planned neighborhood complete with dirt road grid (except a few paved collector roads) zoned 1 dwelling per acre when Royal Palm Beach was a much smaller town/village. It's taken many decades for it to grow to it's current size.
Yeah Florida is doomed… it’s also the greatest example of people not giving a shit about the enviroment. I thank any Floridian who is actually doing something to preserve what is left of the everglades
*South Florida is doomed North Florida will be just fine without the Everglades. Will also be safe in the very far future when sea levels swallow up South Florida.
I have noticed the grid design for florida too. Its just big oversized roads with oversized intersections that all square up to a large super grid with a type of grid inside of that with yet another grid inside of that.
a grid design is not a bad idea and FAR FAR FAR better then your typical windy cul-de-sac laden suburban sprawl. This grid design is not too bad if planned correctly, it's just they built it far too extreme.
There's a ring in hell for developers that do this. 2809 1st St SW, Lehigh Acres, FL 33976 And... 2809 1st St W, Lehigh Acres, FL 33971 Carinal directions on street names should be for referencing purposes only, and not for two different roads.
Back in the late 60s, they wanted to build an airport in the Everglades that would have been five times larger than JFK Airport, the Tamiami Trail was planned to be converted into an expressway because of it. You should do a video about it, the history of the planned massive airport is very interesting.
I'm from Palm Bay, and it's basically like this. Housing prices are only dropping and our future is not very promising. I would go into local politics to help fix the issues, but I don't even know I would help fix things.
With all of the sink-holes and bad planning mentioned in the video, how much larger can Florida as an economy and a population grow? The state is growing due to the massive growth of business opportunities and the massive influx of people from other more expensive to live in states with larger and more established economies. Will Florida changes its policies and planning to adapt to population growth or will Florida's population and economy reach a plateau due to geographic limitations?
Flagler did NOT found Miami. The only reason he extended the railroad to Miami was because of Julia Tuttle. She is considered the Mother of Miami. Otherwise, good video. I hate the development patterns in Florida as an Urban Planner.
My only hope for Florida is more TOD based around the old railway stations/stops of Flagler's original line... Aka Brightline... If that corridor was used correctly to its full advantage it would do wonders to pull traffic off the freeway system of Florida.. It also needs to be double-tracked and electrified for 125 mph/200 km/h+ service if you ask me so that means fencing and OBVIOUSLY more crossing gates since the DOA count from the project is now nearly 60 I think....
City of Mandan ND has a development called Lakewood that became popular because of the canals they built that is connected to the river. Look into that. It’s pretty cool history. The crazy thing about it there is a sewage plant near these rich neighborhoods and you could smell it if the wind moves. People still buy those lots
This is one of your best videos. If I could just give one piece of advice, I would say keep pictures up for longer or have more of them, and have less of the video taken up by the screen with the beaver and the earth in the background. Take it or leave it, would just make it more interesting to watch!
I live in Wellington the city that borders Loxahatchee to the south. I used to drive to school through Loxahatchee everyday but its so dark and creepy with little lights its actually dangerous to drive there. Almost all of the people at Loxahatchee are farmers or suburbanites looking for cheap homes but its really a pretty mediocre place to live compared to Wellington or Royal Palm Beach nearby which is shown by the home values.
No! durham is a city where they wanna build one million dollar apartment size condos in downtown which durham is not that great , then you have to be a millionare to live in cary raliegh apex morresville (btw these are cities that could all fit in raleigh but they just choose to make chunks To call them differently, oh and i forgot law enforcement doesnt give you breaks with speeding and you constantly have to go thru dui checkpoints throughout the week
I'm not a fan of the Floridian sprawl either, but I can't blame Florida for capitalizing on northerners moving down. I think this video explains a lot about Modern Florida and how is has become a destination for Snowbirds and those seeking refuge from taxation.
I live just north of much of what you are talking about in Venice. Basically the same thing happened, except in the 1920’s. I would like to ad a couple of things. First is North Port, Port Charlotte, Rotunda, and Cape Coral was just hit by hurricane Ian, they have a lot of problems now. You might be surprised to know that in the past few years North Port has been one of the fastest growing cities in the US. This is mostly due to Sarasota County has basically built itself out of affordable housing. You talked about the crime. In the 1980’s North Port was where drug planes landed because of the paved roads with no one living on them. My understanding is that Florida has a law requiring paved roads so people can’t be sold worthless swamp land. Talk about road to hell paved with good intentions. Rotunda has an even crazier story. The developers wanted it to be opened up to a waterway so boaters could get to the Gulf or other great water areas we have. The State said no we won’t let you do that. They built it anyway believing that if they built it the State would back down. State didn’t and you have a lot of waterfront properties without access for boats. My understanding is it was supposed to be built like Atlantis, round. I don’t know what you meant about the airports. However Florida has a long history with aviation and World War II, but that’s a different. Nice history story. You connect some dots for me.
An an urban planner, I agree completely with your argument. But this video lacks any supporting evidence other than your opinions, historical facts, and photos. What about livability indexes, environmental reports, crime reports, street view videos, actual statistics that give us a view into living there, and the development styles financial impacts on Florida and municipal governments? I just think this video has a good story, but lacks care and substance to really showcase the history, story, and arguments presented.
I live in Orlando, and my only real complaint about the area is its SPRAWL. The metro area is so oddly laid out that you pretty much need the interstate or a toll road to get anywhere. It seems to take 30 minutes to drive everywhere, and there are some places that look close on a map but actually take forever to drive to.
I think the fact it's so full of lakes everywhere contributes to that too
@@tgosuke i just checked google maps and it looks like it was shot with a shotgun. Also found a car accident just trying to figure out what was up with the lanes on a random road.
Florida needs a lot of work, mainly in finding a viable transit system and densifying it cities. (It probably has to be above ground because I can't imagine trying to make tunnels for underground metro in a swamp) They also should tear up all those abandoned roads to help get rid of the crime issue they are causing. (Probably place boulders across the entrances to the right of ways as well, investigate when things get disturbed)
Don’t forget the hills in the middle of the state there
@@potownrob True but lots of metros have hills and lakes and don't have that issue. (i.e. Kansas City, Minneapolis, even Denver has a more organized sprawl than Orlando)
Fellow Orlando resident. I know your pain exactly. The couple years I didn't have a car were absolute hell.
After the 2008 crash, homes in Lehigh were so unbelievably cheap that it became basically a cesspool of crime and vandalism with all the abandoned homes. It wasn't unusual for 3 bedroom homes on 1/4 acre of land to sell for $50k or even less. Residents had to put cages around their AC units to avoid them getting stripped apart for scrap by thieves. You can still see some of that kind of thing even today. Lehigh is one of many, though. Deltona, Palm Bay, Spring Hill, Loxahatchee, North Port, Citrus Springs, Cape Coral, etc etc. The list goes on. These pre-planned communities are absolutely everywhere, and they're a shining example of the perpetual racket that is FL real estate.
I often visit these cities because I live in South Florida, and it was peculiar how many abandoned streets were there and how there were so many gridded streets, thank you for finally explaining the reason why it looks like that.
Haven't watched the video yet, but as a Floridian, I'll say this much:
NIMBYs have a lot of control in Florida. In the center (where I'm from) there's no grid system. This isn't inherently a bad thing, similar to how Europe is built and functions well. But central Florida especially has lakes. Tons and tons of lakes. This causes even the best intentioned city planners to struggle in coherent design. There are roads that cut through residential areas, but if a thru-road crosses through an actual HOA-styled neighborhood, then they either build and enforce speedbumps or they annihilate the road connection altogether.
Many neighborhoods/communities - like Heathrow - do have roads that cross through the area, but are gated and restricted to residents only. Others like Windermere or Belle Isle have to allow open traffic because they are both legal cities (therefore can't simply ban entrance like an HOA), but they also are surrounded by two massive lakes that have a narrow strip of land available to live & drive through. Thus, Belle Isle has speedbumps and Windermere has roundabouts.
Some cities take a better approach at enforcing speeding. Winter Park has a lot of residential thru-roads that are made of brick, which not only looks prettier than asphalt roads, but forces drivers to slow down naturally due to the bumpiness and lack of traction provided by the bricks at speeds over 30mph or so.
This brings me back to the NIMBY point, these neighborhoods and cities create rules and laws that force people to route themselves through corridors that cannot handle the traffic, but lack any alternatives. The irony is, I refer to these NIMBY neighborhoods as yeast cultivations. They literally will self-destruct themselves (yeast ferments sugar into alcohol which after a certain concentration level is reached, will kill them). Many of these communities will force their own drivers onto the main roads, refusing to connect in the back with other "undesirable" neighborhoods and instead, opt to have traffic lights installed at their entrance's intersection. Do this enough times and repeat. Don't believe me, look up Winter Garden Vineland Rd/Ficquette Rd/Reams Rd (yes, the road is a Frankenstein monster of previously established roads) on Google Earth and utilizing the timeline feature, examine the construction of lights. I worked at Disney during the building of 6 of these lights and it added an average of 8 minutes - each way(!) - to my already 30-40 minute commute in roughly 1 year. Why didn't I take another route? What other route?! People in Florida get railroaded into these roads like players in a D&D game run by a bossy and controlling dungeon master, it's so infuriating!
Alright, that's enough incoherence from me. I gotta get back to work.
It’s not like this elsewhere in Florida from what I’ve noticed. Orlando has this problem a *lot*
Lived in Port Charlotte for a few years. Can confirm the abandoned streets. This is perhaps a separate issue, but compared to VA, NC, and AL that I had lived in previously, Florida cities really seem to dislike trees. I don't know why. You need shade more here than you do up north, but you're less likely to find it. Partially due to less native tall trees, but also because they clear every tree on many new housing developments.
And they put up these useless palm trees that provide no shade at all.
Trees are liabilities in hurrican prone areas. Especially the coasts. The shade is nice but a tree falling through your living room is not ideal.
But f'n palm trees are all over Miami which provide absolutely no shade while bus riders bake on the black metal bus stop benches. I hate Florida, it's just ugly and hot all the time. I should know, born and raised in Miami.
Virginia native and resident, I did live in Port Saint Lucie, FL. off and on and one thing is for sure they build and will continue to develop any land that is for sale. I’ve never seen building and commercialization, like they do in Florida, it’s like every week and or day some new strip mall is going up or single story concert block homes, or anything that can be built for that matter. I know other states are experiencing population booms and commercialization, but Florida is whole different territory. I moved back to VA but by goli, the one thing I tell people who complain about fast growth here in VA, I say “try Florida” anyone else😭. One thing is for sure people are and have been moving to Florida from all over for decades and they will continue to, I used to consider Florida for retirement, but I like other states for their climate and or tax benefits so I wouldn’t be upset about not retiring in Florida, by the way I’m 23 as of this writing but never too young to plan out.
and florida will probably be underwater by the time our generation gets to retiring age 😭
@@fl0pZ3 I know right 😭like to be honest it’s sad because so many dream and would die to live or retire in Florida for whatever the reason(s) may be. Luckily I like others states, Florida is not the only state with no income tax, mild winters, or if a state does have any income tax some may be relatively low to include property taxes.
@@Virtusstrong Funny, I live in Nevada. Mild winters and no state income tax.
@@TedNewkirk yeah see you know sir, I wouldn’t mind Nevada, just like any state it has its pros and cons, but excuse my lack of knowledge on Nevada. I’ve never visited the state but luckily for me I’m pretty open book to seeing what else is out there; however I do have my preferences like mild winters and either no income tax or at least a low tax burden overall like you stated:). I love my home state Virginia but I wouldn’t be opposed to living in other states and when the time comes retirement.
A couple of things many out of state developers and planners miss when doing projects there... much of State is swamp, lots of sinkholes, there are alligators that love crashing parties and taking dip in your pool, Hurricanes don't suck, they blow, lighting does strike same place more than once, Disney still a big deal there, if you came to watch Space Shuttle launches, you are years too late, Shuttle retired just as is most seniors living there, Golf is close to God, Key West is different than Miami, sharks, snakes, spiders were here first.
There is a shuttle launch today at cape canaveral
@@mattwhaley1865 Thank you. Say what??? Shuttle is retired. I would love to see Shuttles return to space.
@@mattwhaley1865 *Spacex launch
There's also the failed suburban community around southwestern Palm Bay, where there's tons of paved residential streets but almost no houses, like Lehigh Acres but not in a grid format. It's called The Compound or The Grid.
Also I believe Miami was founded by Julia Tuttle, but all across South Florida there are streets named after Flagler (plus Flagler County just south of St. Augustine).
Just found it on google street view. Creepy as hell.
It's called the Compound. It's where I taught my brother how to drive.
There is a lot of false information in this video.
She made a deal with Flager for him to extend his Florida East Coast Railway all the the way down to Miami
One of the few good things that came out of this is that the Florida East Coast Railway became a Profitable freight railroad today
I always wonder who thought the mixture of super flat terrain, samey architecture and grids made for an appealing mixture. Netherlands is proof that flat places can be pretty, when you make them walkable with good architecture and no straight roads.
Most of Dutch "suburbia" also lacks good architecture. Ever since the 50's all houses have looked exactly the same as all other houses built during that same time anywhere in this country.
Netherlands has the advantage of being moderate to cool for its climate, though. Also isn't really plagued with mosquitoes like we are. We need a lot more work to make our cities walkable. In my opinion Floridian streets should be shaded, either with trees or reflective overhead materials, with cooling zones throughout the street.
@@HigherQualityUploads Like Fort Lauderdale which is dotted with lots of trees, and looks beautiful
@@HigherQualityUploads Yeah no. Back when we were still 80% swamp we had huge amounts of musquitoes. We however have so much urbanisation and developtment we now terraformed the country into not being a giant swamp anymore. That took alot, alot, of work. The only difference between Florida and the Netherlands is that we got some respite from the mosquitos in winter.
That and Florida is much larger.
@@RK-cj4oc Only 31% of Florida is wetlands and nearly all is the Everglades. No matter how much development there is mosquitos are unaffected by it because they live near fresh water.
Oh, Florida. The further north you go, the further south you go.
Oh Miami. It’s a New York City that doesn’t get cold and a Havana that has no Fidel all at the same time.
You win the internet.
Dude shut up
You say that like its a bad thing
@@cjthompson420 Oh Jacksonville. It is a city full of rednecks and hoods.
*next project for you: look into Lakeland, halfway between Tampa and Orlando, often where wags say that, if you needed to give the state an enema, this is where you should place the tip. I moved here in 2007 to nurse my ageing parents, and now feel rather stuck in a place where the traffic is horrendous, and because of no city planning prior to 30 years ago, it just gets worse and worse. as a senior citizen, I am happy to stay home near the hearth, however, I still feel somewhat trapped*
My ex parents live in Lakeland, been there so many times and I never understood how traffic can be so bad. I live in Southern California now and even our traffic isn't as bad as what I've seen in Lakeland
Stuck, yeah, but you could sell the house and make a fortune!
Young professional about to leave because of rents going up from 700 to 1700 in ten years.
@@davidkee2363 Idk either. Maybe having I-4 Run through it has something to do with it.
Everything you said is true. Florida’s suburbs are boring, most lack sidewalks and the traffic here is horrific! And with every nook and cranny of the state legislature controlled by Republicans it’s become just another southern Police state…..stifling and oppressive. Can’t wait to move out west upon retirement soon.
If you ever find yourself in Port Charlotte, I'll give you a tour. I've lived here for 20 years and I am very familiar with the abandoned areas. I even venture out there for photography every now and again.
I live in Fort Myers, and would love to venture into the abandoned areas for some phootography.
One of my favorite books is Paper Towns by John Green and one of the talking points of the book
is those abandoned settlements. It's really good beyond that though and I just want everyone to be aware of it.
I read that book.I didn't like it but the topic about Florida towns definitely reminded me of that book.John Green is also from my hometown.
I remember liking that book. I also remember that one of the main points was that American suburbs were pretty soulless places to live and urban areas were the only place one can live a fulfilling life. Don’t really agree with the last part but it definitely fueled my hatred for my suburban town I grew up in.
Florida had an earlier real estate boom in the 1920s. (It's sort of the subject of the first Marx Brothers movie THE COCOANUTS.) But the bubble burst, just like with Wall Street.
St. Augustine, the place that attracted Flagler, is actually the oldest town in the USA! (Founded by Spain in the 16th centuries, it's been Spanish territory for almost 300 years and US territory for only 200...)
i've always been wondering why these places are the way they are, as i've always found them strange. its honestly terrible that more and more places are being filled with suburban developments, as they're so unhuman and inconvenient. thank you for covering this topic!
For those who interested in Southern area (especially Florida), I recommend y'all to watch videos by Southern Life.
I thought about them too upon seeing this!
I live in fort Myers and because of the car centric design and absolutely abysmal zoning of cape coral, the traffic here is absolutely unbelievably horrid. Cape Coral with only a residential town with no businesses, and then Fort Myers is where all the jobs are. So naturally everyone that works in Fort Myers, lives in Cape Coral. Around 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. everyday it's a complete gridlock to try to go over the two Bridges to Cape Coral. My usual commute to work is only 15 minutes. But if I have to leave to go home at 4 p.m. my commute is now an 1hr 40 minutes.
If the country was smarter in the 50's and 60's it could have prevented people moving to Florida swamp land by making more of it national parks and nature reserves.
I grew up in Port Charlotte and remember all the empty streets, and how part of Quesada Ave was closed off and unmaintained for lack of development. Everything changed once Veterans Blvd was built in the mid-to-late 90's. Port Charlotte filled in considerably since then.
Eastern North Port, right above Port Charlotte, is still dominated by the empty streets you describe. When I first got my drivers' license I'd explore around there. No stop signs or street names. When I think about street grids running through the woods, I think of North Port.
There's also a community like this in Hendry County, and how could you forget to mention the one in the Everglades? (Collier County)
Rather ironic that Florida's boom was partly due to Henry Flagler's involvement in building railroads here. And now we have very few at all. Hopefully Brightline brings passenger rail comes back to Key West someday...
It will not. The rail line to Key West was destroyed by storms too many times in the past. Long gone are the days when one could rebuild it on the cheap and not have to care how many lives it took to do so. Also, much of its former right of way is now the South Dade Busway and will become part of a new BRT line from the Dadeland South Metro station to Florida City.
@@colormedubious4747 Perhaps in the far future when robots can build stuff on their own...
@@HigherQualityUploads That still won't make the "Overseas Railway" make economic sense.
@@colormedubious4747 They're less expensive than road bridges and cost less, though...
as a person who was born and raised in Florida it sucks living here
Leheigh Acres reminds me of Salton City on the salton sea, a massive sprawl centered city with houses scattered sparsely across the city making it look abandoned
As a lifelong Florida resident, I’m glad you made a video on this issue. These development patterns and failed master planned communities aren’t limited to South Florida, just look at Navarre (large unincorporated grid) and Sunny Hills (failed Deltona Corporation planned community) in the panhandle.
2 seconds into the video and you ain't kidding! Had to move to Floriduh and it's what started my interest in planning and frigging stroads
Born in Florida in 2000s just watching and hearing the full video really hurts as I love this state and I always thought I saw good potential in my state
Florida still has potential. Areas like Lakeland and Ocala are starting to see a lotta growth and the Tampa Bay Area is one of the fastest growing areas in the state meaning hopefully they can do something with places like Thonotosassa or Mango.
Hey beaver, I grew up in Loxahatchee groves and oddly enough became an urban planner. When you were talking about the grid pattern of Lehigh I hoped you knew about Lox so it was nice to see you covered it in your video. Unfortunately, the town has recently let in development so our rural way of living is sadly being replaced by those same sprawling developments in the name of profits. Great video though!
I love your videos man keep it up!!!!
Thanks Florida you really screw it up for all the pedestrians
Your my favorite youtuber right now, keep up the good work!
Im so glad I was recommended you're videos by the algorithm. Great stuff every week
Yes agreed
In Pennsylvania they have a LEHIGH County, it's pronounced lee-high, and there is Lehigh in Iowa, again pronounced Lee-high, did you find contradictory pronunciations or just take a guess?
He pronounces it several different ways, too.
It's just a poorly researched video.
@@alexdaley7616 I'm finding that with a lot of video producers lately. One told you a telephone operator gave you dial tone by inserting a cord with plug into a hole on a switchboard, what could be farther than the truth, after commenting the video producer gave no indication of reading the comments. Then there's videos with pricing in Japan one adjusted 1.10 rate another 1.25 on the same date. Neither explained double pricing for one occupant.
My parents live in Southwest Florida and Lehigh Acres is often mentioned on the news. It's pronounced the same, Lee-high.
Without knowing, i would just automatically pronounce it "leigh" maybe its dyslexia idk
How could you hate Florida-man and all of his weirdness?
Ok seriously…I lived in NJ and FL…NJ is just one continuously suburb. There is very little rural land left…mostly in the southwest corner. You want to see abandoned land, try Camden, NJ. There are hundreds of abandoned crime-filled lots. There are plenty of other cities like this in NJ: Paterson, Newark, etc.
New Jersey takes the cake in awful suburbanization.
I'd have to disagree. As someone born + raised in NJ, I know NJ has some of the highest transit usage in the country since many of the suburbs originated before the fifties and most commuters to NYC use transit. There is lots of train service and bus service at least a decent distance from many areas, and transit-oriented development is definitely on the rise. Just visit Woodbridge, Edison, Princeton, North Brunswick, Long Branch, Montclair... the list goes on.. You'd have to visit other states to REALLY see the cake taken in awful suburbanization, like Texas and California, and yes, Florida.
I grew up in PA 30 minutes from Warren County, NJ and there’s plenty of open space out that way in Warren and Hunterdon counties.
What about places like Roebling?
@@daveassanowicz186 Camden and Detroit are very similar in terms of abandonment of land. I have been to both.
@@timothymoroney9100 What about places like Pittman, NJ?
Beaver always with the good explanations nice vid
you talking about AC becoming popular in the 50s makes me think of Phoenix, Arizona. THAT would make a good video. The population of Phoenix was VERY low before air conditioning.
Oh yes, same with Las Vegas, N V, that plus the Hoover Dam/Lake Mead. N V was the LEAST populated state before A K was granted statehood at least than 300k(yes, even W Y and V T had more people), now they are the 32nd most populated at around 3 million and growing.
A city that is a sea of sprawl and located in a desert that gets so hot (50°C aka halfway to boiling) plasic melts and planes are grounded. (Air density is too low and they don't get enough lift before they run out of runway)
@@jasonreed7522 Yeah I used to live in Phoenix! I know it's terrible 😂
@@JordanDrewVideos My sister does too, and granted she has never been the brightest bulb in our family, so that is understandable. She shared a pic of herself with her legs in her swimming pool there, even that will never make me want to move to the Southwest just for the water crisis alone.
Speaking of PHX, talk about a textbook example of urban sprawl, yikes. No thank you!
@@UnicornDreamsPastelSkies Yup. I drove 25 miles to work every day from one side of Phoenix to the other.
As strange as the ghost cities are, they're fairly insignificant. More people are affected by suburban blight in the places completed 60-70 years ago surrounding the 4 major cities ... places like Pine Hills or Pompano Beach.
Ah, yes. "A garbage dump of sprawl".
Old legend… due to the fact that Henry Flagler was originally from the Miami Valley area in Ohio, the “Miami” name was selected to entice Flagler. It is a fact the city is named after Ohio’s Miami Valley.
Flagler lived around the Cleveland area, and the Miami name seems to have come from the Mayaimi people native to Florida, completely unrelated to the Ohio Miami.
@@cinnanyan Miami’s name was originally Cape Florida…the fact a Floridian tribe has a similar name is coincidental. Miami is named after the place and tribe from Ohio.
Yep it's atrocious. Can't walk anywhere readily.
You missed the biggest scam of all. The infamous " buy some swamp land in Florida" site, Golden Gate Estates in Naples area.
Great video! Keep up the excellent work!
Just found this channel, I really enjoy these videos. Keep up the good work!
I live in the Tampa area and yes, we don’t want more “development”. We love the natural settings and the rural feel of our state. The more people migrating/relocating and moving in, the more loss of the Floridian identity. For every 100 people, only 5 might be born and raise Floridian.
Resident of this dumpster fire. You hit the nail on the head,but also a lot of the oldest burbs’ are now some of the most impoverished parts of the state due to lack of access to jobs,education,and general amenities.
As a native Floridian I will tell you that we need to put the development in check.
For years now I'm just watching anything natural slowly start to disappear. Beautiful wooded lots are completely bulldozed, cookie cutter neighborhoods go up, and then 4 foot palm trees are planted for landscaping. It's sad.
I seriously wonder where all of the displaced animals go..
Due to Covid and the economic repercussions we have thousands and thousands of people moving here to FL now. People are in bidding wars bidding over asking price many times sight unseen because they're moving from out of state.
Not a good sign for us. We just hope the developers don't tear the heart out of everything.
Same here and I agree buts it too late the damage has been done with no end in site with all these greedy slash and burn everything developers..Florida was once a wet state now it's a concrete state..
You should look at poinciana the hugest suburb in the Orlando area.Ranked worst for commutes and only 2 main ways to enter and exit.Traffic is so terrible on the pleasant hill road.People coming home from Orlando and Kissimmee have to wait since traffic backs up to Kissimmee.Plus my friends that lives in the communities by that 1 main road has to wait about 5-10 minutes to get on the highway.Keep in mind that’s putting the metal to the pedal .
If there a car accident on the road .We had situations where 300-400 students were late school and many teachers were late too.
That sounds just like oakleaf/argyle area of jacksonville where everyone has to travel ina one way road over buckman bridge to work over in jacksonville and make traffic on the way back in the afternoons you might as well park and chill before going to work and do overtime to avoid traffic
The Miami of Australia is the Gold Coast. I wonder how that stacks up.
Australia is officially the most sprawle-urban country in the world, and to great detriment to quality of life
With a country the size of Australia urban sprawl is explainable. Continent sized yet 26 mil population. Everyone should be living in their own castle.
@@RK-cj4oc That is the common 'folk-etymology' explanation, but it is simply that. It is not actually the truth, just an attempt at cause and effect.
Suburbs from the 19th to early 20th centuries were natural suburbs, that is, semi-rural attachments on the outsides of urban zones (cities). This is where we get the old quaint cottage suburbs from. They filled in that niche of demand.
At the turn of the century, when Australia was getting wealthier, many people disliked the 'blight' of working class poor people who lived in cheap terraces (such as Surry Hills, this has reversed now though) and looked towards the romanticism of living closer to nature but with convenience near enough to the city.
This was sustainable, because only people who wanted this built this for themselves. The denser urban form grew naturally too and gave these suburbs more cosmopolitan areas.
After WWII, following exactly the same way as America, Australia decided to change the way things worked and instead massively subsidise suburban-style housing as an _urban_ building block, and seeing the car as the future, created strict regulations which ensured car-dependence (minimum parking, street widths, etc.) and sprawl.
This essential created a disconnect between the old form of organic growth into a mass-produced model of homes. This was affordable because land was indeed relatively cheap, and if you make a lot of something, it lowers the price.
We immediately run into a problem though, because the urban footprint expanded to the size of a city with say 30 million people with only 5 million. This meant that standards and infrastructure were no longer a part of the urban formula. Again, this is a series of trade-offs, but choice has also been sacrificed here so individuals can't choose very well based on their circumstances.
Australia's fertile Crescent isn't big enough (or endless as once imagined), and the naturally increasing value of central land (because of convenience, and also zoning laws which segregate everything and remove any possibility of village-like feel) means that wasting a lot of land (setbacks, front lawns) costs a lot of money.
This is one of the reasons why Australia's house prices are so high when we have so much land but a small population. Our urban footprint imagines us to be a country of 115 million people (that is also how many resources we used in 1996), when we're hyper exclusive.
This makes housing an investment instead of a right, as social housing has also dwindled from 40% to just 4% of supply.
So basically, while land abundance helped start of sprawl-monopolistic policies, those restrictive policies (not in the right direction) means more expense for less quality.
And the lack of other forms of housing (such as missing middle) creates constraints, and also limits the imagination to personal experience, creating stereotypes such as of the poor worker and drunk wandering dirty slums or ghettos as anything else (from the past, incorrectly). It is the same story for transport -- Australia is an ideal country for healthy forms of travel, as the majority of us still live an average distance for the majority of trips, but the infrastructure makes this unsafe and ensures we spend more money on expensive monopolies which don't pay back to the community (such as 'stroads').
Aw, that's bad. But there is a light of hope coming out when least expected.
Cape Coral sucks. When I was 10 to 12 my dad lived there. So this was 2004-2006. It’s just flat, and a bunch of empty homes. With shopping plazas. It just sucks there. It has to be the most boring place I’ve been to. I haven’t been there in 16 years though so maybe it’s better now?
Are you normally researching when you take long breaks form youtube?
Usually means I’m busy or a video is hard to edit. This one was a lot longer.
@@BeaverGeography makes sense. At least effort=good content
Loxahatchee is pretty nice I have some uncles who live there the urbanization is the result of West Lake a new city that’s been built on the land of a former citrus orchard that used to be there they widened Seminole-Pratt Way and the old Winn Dixie even reopened the growth seems explosive but the new “City” section not has half of its housing built/ occupied the Western half is still getting its line and pipe laid but it’ll shake up the feel of what used to be The nice rural part of Palm Beach county
Love the vid! Lehigh Acres is insane; per Zillow there are currently about 3.4k empty lots for sale in the community out of 4.1k total listings -- about 5 out of every 6 listings. Oddly enough, the vast majority of actual homes listed for sale are priced at over $300,000. What's weirder is that these homes aren't condensed to some wealthier outlier in the area; they're scattered pretty evenly. Homes going for $300k-$400k aren't particularly large either, mostly 3 & 4 bedrooms. Who exactly are these houses marketed to? I can see the appeal for the houses that are closer to Ft Myers, but what about all the rest? Paying $30k for a lot and building a home of similar size from scratch should be half the price at most; enough to make buying a turnkey home feel like a robbery. What a weird place.
Something must be off with your numbers then. It doesn't make sense that a developer wouldn't build and sell houses if each house could be 150k profit
One interesting showcase for Florida development practices is The Villages. The city of over 80k is unincorporated because it is entirely PRIVATELY OWNED. Not like, each plot is owned by an individual, but the whole city is a private corporation with a board elected by landowners (not voters). It was also founded by an out of state businessman. Most of the city is exclusively for retirees, and children and pets aren't allowed. It's so gross.
What no pets and children. I heard of the villages and saw it on the maps but idk that they didn’t allow kid 🥲😅
so… the self-destructing villages?
By living or talking about Florida you’re already risking loosing your sanity.
Bullshit
You should make a video about California City, CA.
Been there. Why? I'm still trying to figure out. lol
@@JL-sm6cg because it's a similar situation with huge areas of plotted-out land and streets but no development.
@@timg2727 the why? was directed to me. Lol
@@JL-sm6cg lol, gotcha
California city sucks imo. Florida mega suburbs were at least planned with downtowns. CA city has no downtown officially just some street that happened to be “citified”. It was supposed to rival Los Angeles yet they couldn’t be bothered to build a town center or a freeway network?! No wonder it failed
But Port St Lucie doesn't have abandoned neighborhoods. That city is packed and will keep on growing. Tne section west of the interstate is known as Tradition and southern Grove, a development turned expansion of the city and have opened a fed ex distribution center, a new Amazon fulfillment center.
A lot of Lehigh has ditches running through it so the roads don't connect or the roads curve and end up in a completely different spot than you'd expect believe me I'm out there every week
love the channel... dope interesting stuff
Coming from Naples. The gris system is so user friendly to navigate and tourist love it. Our town is booming so much house prices have more than doubled in the past 3 years and everyone is moving to Lehigh
Hey I have a small stretch of these kinds of areas right down the road from my house! I used to love exploring over there as a teenager. You meet some weird people but if you aren't hostile they are nice and will wave and smile. Though they are becoming far and few between, pretty much the last empty abandoned planning near me saw its first new house last year and now there are about 3 more being built. It was so fun to explore when I could though and I am very nostalgic for my times walking those roads with headphones in.
I remember reading a book in middle school and the neighborhood the kid lived in sounded exactly like rotunda acres, he described the wagon wheel shape with the missing section as well as the school in the center of the neighborhood, there's wooden boardwalks to the school because its too mudy to walk through
A natural follow up? The Western US versions of this... California City and Salton City specifically... One designed for 400,000 people the other? 40,000.... The First has 14,000 residents? The other? 5000...
Yeah, I want to see something on Cal City, since I actually went there once. lol
cape coral is one of the most disgusting things i’ve ever seen in terms of city planning
Really great video! also there are a bunch of other examples of these developments in FL such as Interlachen and Flagler Estates
All of New Jersey has entered the chat...
yep grew up in port charlotte. lived there from 2009 to 2020. im 21 now. port charlotte actually feels really safe in most of it. I walked the streets and skateboarded everywhere even in the middle of the night from age 13 on. wont lie kids from those schools did like to jump people tho. although it has gotten better there was and is a severe lack of pedestrian infrastructure. One time my friend and I biked from quesada all the way down eljobean following google maps for the bike route and we just ended up trudging our bikes through dirt for miles. we ended up abandoning the bikes and asking someone to come pick us up. there are more sidewalks along that route now but it still isn't sufficient. almost all 41-crossings are an accident waiting to happen and i have almost been hit walking from the mall towards quesada a few times from drivers not paying attention. onloading and off-loading areas to I-75 are mildly dangerous but are pushed closer to punta gorda in one direction and north port in another. midway is an absolute deathtrap and stretches for miles without real safe crossings despite there being elementary schools ahead. (i biked to those as well). the rest of port charlotte is sprawling suburbs with hardly any sidewalks with paved but rough roads. (insufficient for boards) biking is a necessity for those without cars but its not prioritized which is evident by some of the accidents that have happened over the past few years. Kings Highway is also a deathtrap which is also evident by recent years accidents. / also there are a lot of canals. this isn't really a problem as most of them are separated by walls (which is bad in its own ways) but it narrows down the areas where gators can get out which means more in those areas. Also a lot of these walls just invite stupid kids to do stupid things. I even went in these canals as a five year old. I've seen people accidentally fall in to them and I've seen dumb people just jump into them. there are many areas where if a person fell in it would be almost impossible to get them out within a reasonable amount of time.
I can literally go on forever on issues with port charlotte, punta gorda, and north port especially if taking the environment into account. It's literally atrocious. I'm open to answer any questions anyone might have about this area is they want.
(i also lived in cape coral and fort myers for awhile)
I was just looking through the state on Google maps, and... good God... what a nightmare. There are so many places like this, it's absurd. I would not live there if you gave me a house for free and then paid me on top of that to stay there.
This beaver is worries about drug dealers and crime on abandoned roads in Florida. I'll be more worried about the snakes and alligators if I was him.
Yup. Far more drug dealers in NYC and Chicago than Florida.
I guess you can be afraid of snakes but there’s basically a zero percent chance a gator comes running onto a road and eats you.
A very good history on Florida real estate.
The more I learn about my home state of Florida the more I hate it
The thing about Lehigh Acres road design is it's not a true grid. It can be a mile or more between intersections. Only a few roads go all the way through East to West or North to South due to the canals
6:39 hey I take that personally
It’s LEE-high Acres 🤦🏻
Lehigh Acres made me instantly think of The Acreage which is labelled Loxahatchee on Google. Only the area west of Royal Palm Beach(along Seminole Pratt Whitney Rd.) was originally called Loxahatchee. To the north was the pre planned neighborhood complete with dirt road grid (except a few paved collector roads) zoned 1 dwelling per acre when Royal Palm Beach was a much smaller town/village. It's taken many decades for it to grow to it's current size.
you should do California City next, the stroy behind it is interesting.
Yeah Florida is doomed… it’s also the greatest example of people not giving a shit about the enviroment. I thank any Floridian who is actually doing something to preserve what is left of the everglades
*South Florida is doomed
North Florida will be just fine without the Everglades. Will also be safe in the very far future when sea levels swallow up South Florida.
@@HigherQualityUploads crabs in a barrel
I have noticed the grid design for florida too. Its just big oversized roads with oversized intersections that all square up to a large super grid with a type of grid inside of that with yet another grid inside of that.
a grid design is not a bad idea and FAR FAR FAR better then your typical windy cul-de-sac laden suburban sprawl. This grid design is not too bad if planned correctly, it's just they built it far too extreme.
It's not a grid. The intersections are a quarter mile apart in places and 90% of the roads don't connect because of canals
You named 3 places I have lived. I’m honored. Subbed
There's a ring in hell for developers that do this.
2809 1st St SW, Lehigh Acres, FL 33976
And...
2809 1st St W, Lehigh Acres, FL 33971
Carinal directions on street names should be for referencing purposes only, and not for two different roads.
"Somewhere in south america" ???
Quite a bit offensive, but whatever.
Back in the late 60s, they wanted to build an airport in the Everglades that would have been five times larger than JFK Airport, the Tamiami Trail was planned to be converted into an expressway because of it. You should do a video about it, the history of the planned massive airport is very interesting.
I'm from Palm Bay, and it's basically like this. Housing prices are only dropping and our future is not very promising. I would go into local politics to help fix the issues, but I don't even know I would help fix things.
I was waiting for you to say something crazy like "Port Saint Port" just to see if people were even listening 😂
The ironic part is that none of the three cities at 5:20 actually have a port! 😂
With all of the sink-holes and bad planning mentioned in the video, how much larger can Florida as an economy and a population grow? The state is growing due to the massive growth of business opportunities and the massive influx of people from other more expensive to live in states with larger and more established economies. Will Florida changes its policies and planning to adapt to population growth or will Florida's population and economy reach a plateau due to geographic limitations?
Flagler did NOT found Miami. The only reason he extended the railroad to Miami was because of Julia Tuttle. She is considered the Mother of Miami. Otherwise, good video. I hate the development patterns in Florida as an Urban Planner.
You should talk about northern Indianapolis suburbs ( fishers castleton Carmel and noblesville)
My only hope for Florida is more TOD based around the old railway stations/stops of Flagler's original line... Aka Brightline... If that corridor was used correctly to its full advantage it would do wonders to pull traffic off the freeway system of Florida.. It also needs to be double-tracked and electrified for 125 mph/200 km/h+ service if you ask me so that means fencing and OBVIOUSLY more crossing gates since the DOA count from the project is now nearly 60 I think....
Not Florida 😭
Watch out for brothers …
Honestly tho
City of Mandan ND has a development called Lakewood that became popular because of the canals they built that is connected to the river. Look into that. It’s pretty cool history. The crazy thing about it there is a sewage plant near these rich neighborhoods and you could smell it if the wind moves. People still buy those lots
This is one of your best videos. If I could just give one piece of advice, I would say keep pictures up for longer or have more of them, and have less of the video taken up by the screen with the beaver and the earth in the background. Take it or leave it, would just make it more interesting to watch!
I only put the beaver there when I have nothing to put on screen!
Yeah fair enough, I guess I'm suggesting you could leave each photo up for a bit longer!
I appreciate the history, but could you add more images even if it's just historical aerial photography? Subscribed!
I live in Wellington the city that borders Loxahatchee to the south. I used to drive to school through Loxahatchee everyday but its so dark and creepy with little lights its actually dangerous to drive there. Almost all of the people at Loxahatchee are farmers or suburbanites looking for cheap homes but its really a pretty mediocre place to live compared to Wellington or Royal Palm Beach nearby which is shown by the home values.
What is the best part of Florida? Leaving.
Can you make a video about suburban growth in the Raleigh-Durhamn-Chapel Hill area?
No! durham is a city where they wanna build one million dollar apartment size condos in downtown which durham is not that great , then you have to be a millionare to live in cary raliegh apex morresville (btw these are cities that could all fit in raleigh but they just choose to make chunks
To call them differently, oh and i forgot law enforcement doesnt give you breaks with speeding and you constantly have to go thru dui checkpoints throughout the week
All durham natives have moved to Tennessee to live affordable cause north carolina is just a bunch of new york and jerseys
I'm not a fan of the Floridian sprawl either, but I can't blame Florida for capitalizing on northerners moving down. I think this video explains a lot about Modern Florida and how is has become a destination for Snowbirds and those seeking refuge from taxation.
Subbed! Keep it up!
3:42 I honestly think that looks cool 6:44 never mind 7:48 welp that makes sense considering greystill plays lives there
I live just north of much of what you are talking about in Venice. Basically the same thing happened, except in the 1920’s. I would like to ad a couple of things. First is North Port, Port Charlotte, Rotunda, and Cape Coral was just hit by hurricane Ian, they have a lot of problems now. You might be surprised to know that in the past few years North Port has been one of the fastest growing cities in the US. This is mostly due to Sarasota County has basically built itself out of affordable housing. You talked about the crime. In the 1980’s North Port was where drug planes landed because of the paved roads with no one living on them. My understanding is that Florida has a law requiring paved roads so people can’t be sold worthless swamp land. Talk about road to hell paved with good intentions. Rotunda has an even crazier story. The developers wanted it to be opened up to a waterway so boaters could get to the Gulf or other great water areas we have. The State said no we won’t let you do that. They built it anyway believing that if they built it the State would back down. State didn’t and you have a lot of waterfront properties without access for boats. My understanding is it was supposed to be built like Atlantis, round. I don’t know what you meant about the airports. However Florida has a long history with aviation and World War II, but that’s a different. Nice history story. You connect some dots for me.
An an urban planner, I agree completely with your argument. But this video lacks any supporting evidence other than your opinions, historical facts, and photos. What about livability indexes, environmental reports, crime reports, street view videos, actual statistics that give us a view into living there, and the development styles financial impacts on Florida and municipal governments? I just think this video has a good story, but lacks care and substance to really showcase the history, story, and arguments presented.