I drove to the Southwest Florida International Airport (Fort Myers) twice today, once to drop off my Aunt and Uncle, and the second time to return home. After the drop off, I headed south on a four-lane divided highway with a posted speed limit of 50 miles per hour toward Alico Road.
Halfway between the airport road and my right turn toward the Interstate I noticed a Panther crossing sign on the west side, something that was new to me. I had heard that the Florida Panther was threatened, or endangered, or at least in some serious trouble, and it occurred to me that the Panther was probably not well adapted to highways. The most astounding thing though was the Panther’s purported destination: about a square mile of the east side had been scraped clean for a new real estate development. One can only wonder what kind of ‘mitigations’ the developer promised to get permission to put a huge industrial park directly in the Panther’s habitat?
As I continued my drive south, I pondered how such things come about. What is it about human nature that causes us to wantonly despoil nature itself? I guess the ‘tragedy of the commons’ is an explanation of sorts, but I sense there is something peculiarly American in the way these things play out.
Florida certainly appears to represent the quintessential mid-twentieth century American ideal (though I imagine Phoenix could substitute). The pace of construction is staggering, with tremendous infrastructure investment drainage and electric utilities, and broad new roads leading into empty fields, ever further from jobs and stores, inevitably followed by strip shopping centers along those roads. It’s the 1950s all over again.
To me, this re-creation of the suburbs of my youth as gated retirement communities with golf courses seems incredibly wasteful. Doubly so, since so many retirees leave these house vacant during the inhospitable summer, yet still air condition their houses to avoid mildew. My first thought was to blame the World War II generation, who invented suburbia in the first place, and then, after we boomers moved away, tried to find the ‘good life’. I suppose that’s what boomers did too: trying to find meaning through a lifestyle.
I also had occasion during my Florida sojourn to visit a friend who had just moved into his new home several miles north of Cape Coral. Apparently, when he purchased his lot years ago, this several square mile swath was completely vacant. Now, there are massive concrete power poles along four lane roads that lead to the horizon, and houses on every third or fourth plot of land. It won’t be long before it is a complete suburb. Already, the traffic is intolerable when the snowbirds are in state, with the evening commute from Naples, some twenty miles south lasting up to 90 minutes.
I think this is all we know how to do: sub-divide, bulldoze, pave, erect houses, and then widen our roads and highways. It’s pretty depressing to contemplate.
So on my way back to the airport, I decided to capture the ironic plight of the Florida panther.
