I live in Stuart, Florida, which is part of Martin County. As in most of the United States, our economy is in the doldrums. South Florida's economy is probably in tougher shape because of our heavy dependence on real estate development and construction. There is no facet in our lives where that real property does not play a role. It is vital to the economy of the nation. While real estate is one of the important legs on which our economy stands, the dependence on the one facet of land development from farmland to city is what has put the economy of Florida into such free fall. The local economy will not get better until we stop resorting to the same real estate development of the past.

For over a hundred years, Florida has been legendary for its boom and bust cycles. Our land booms are spectacular and our busts just as renowned. On the heavily populated east coast, Florida's development occurred late in relation to the other east coast states. Climate, topography and geography isolated the state until the 20th century. While today Florida has 19 million people and is the fourth most populous state, in 1900 our population of 528,500 people was just above New Hampshire and Vermont on the eastern seaboard.

In what section of the state people lived has dramatically changed over the same period. In 1900, 70% of the population lived in the northern third of the state while only 8% lived in South Florida. While the United States was settled and explored from east to west, Florida was settled from north to south with much of that area under populated. In the 1930 census (the first census after formation of the Martin County), Martin had a population of 5111. It wasn't until 1990 that we had over 100,000 people.

So why is it that Florida's economy has more severe boom and bust cycles than most of the rest of the nation? Our main industries today are agriculture, tourism, trade with Central and South America and land development. Our exponential population growth is due to people wanting the "Florida lifestyle." As the population increased, farmers decided it was more advantageous to develop their property for subdivisions than to continue producing crops and livestock. For the past seventy years, our state and local governments decided it was easier to allow the building of hundreds of thousands of new homes and shopping centers than to encourage a more diverse business development. Read more...