Blame the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce

By Alan Farago (aka Gimletye)

From Eye on Miami

The Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce endorsed big-time casinos downtown recently. What else would you expect from an organization whose mission disappeared long ago in the urban and suburban mess it substantially helped create.

This week data cruncher, Sperling’s Best Places, rated America’s Most Stressful Cities, 2012: of the top five, three are in Florida. Why? Because no fast-growing state in the nation allowed itself to be chopped into bits and pieces to favor developers and land speculators like Florida. We sold ourselves – and keep selling ourselves – to the lowest bidder. The result is a predictable mess: TRAFFIC, DEGRADED QUALITY OF LIFE, POOR SCHOOLS AND FAILING INFRASTRUCTURE.

But gee: wasn’t "growth" supposed to pay its own way? When civic activists and environmentalists complained at public zoning hearings or against building permits, that’s what they were told for a hundred years: we need to expand our tax base as quickly as possible to provide the "great" services that government provides its taxpayers. If the muttering of the people grew too loud? Never mind: build sports stadiums and Performing Arsht Centers to please the people.

The game in Florida – long supported by the Chamber – has always been to artificially depress the costs of development. Water supply and water quality, for example, instead of being protected at its source was fobbed off to future generations to worry about. What the housing market crash proves is that all the speculators, sprawl developers and their bankers were dead wrong. There are hundreds of thousands of families in Miami-Dade hurting right now and wondering who is to blame.

Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall ranks as the 3rd most stressful city in America. Thank you, Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce!

For the past 20 years Alan Farago has written, worked and volunteered to advance civic engagement and issues related to the environment and politics. He publishes the Eye on Miami blog and writes under the name, Gimleteye.