The american dream that has motivated generations is the hope of owning a home, a sanctuary where the family is safe, and the future secure. Millions of people who have scrimped and saved to realize this dream, are now faced with a nightmare, as sustainable development is imposed upon them.
Florida flourished as "snowbirds" flocked to the warm climate to retire. For every millionaire who bought a condo on the beach, a hundred retired factory workers and shopkeepers bought a mobile home in a retirement park, to enjoy their remaining days fishing and playing shuffleboard with their neighbors.
Some of these retirement parks were created and operated by municipalities. Others were private development projects in which the residents owned their mobile home, but rented the lots. Now, as the planners’ vision of sustainable development crashes across these communities, many of these retirement villages no longer fit the plan. Residents are being forced to find new living arrangements. The land on which these mobile home parks are located, can produce substantially higher tax revenues if the mobile homes are replaced by high-rise apartments and office buildings.
Options for these people are few. a single family home is out of the question. The median price of a single-family home in Florida has more than doubled in the last five years, from $119,600 in 2000, to $248,700 in 2005, according to the Florida association of Realtors.
It is almost impossible to find a vacant lot in Florida zoned for a single mobile home. Lines drawn on planning maps to limit urban sprawl, have forced the price of available land into the stratosphere. If a lot can be found, the cost is prohibitive for a retiree who lives on a fixed income.
The residents of anchor North Bay MPH in Oldsmar, Florida, found eviction notices posted on their doors recently. The park, one of many throughout the state facing a similar fate, is to become the site of a hotel and business complex, which is consistent with the expanded "sustainable community" plan.
Residents of Harbor Lights MHP on Boca Ciega Bay were given the opportunity to buy their park. The price: $45 million, or $100,000 from each of the 450 residents, almost all of whom sank their life savings into a mobile home, and live on social security.
The grand visions of sustainable communities are indifferent to the impact sustainable development may have on real people. Riviera Beach, Florida is planning to use its eminent domain power to take nearly 400 acres, displacing 6,000 people, in order to allow developers to build an upscale waterfront yacht club and business complex.
all across the nation, in community after community, the idea that a man’s home is his castle is an obsolete idea. The right to private property has been effectively extinguished. When government can take whatever it wants, justified by the claim that the taking results in a "public benefit," the Fifth amendment to the U.S. Constitution is, essentially, erased.
The erosion of private property rights is only one of the negative consequences of sustainable development. The idea of free markets is also rapidly becoming obsolete. a free market allows a willing seller to choose and bargain with any buyer, to reach an agreement acceptable to both. Sustainable development destroys this basic concept.
To create a sustainable community, professional government planners draw lines on a map, which deny the owner of land on one side of the line to sell his land at all, while forcing the owners of land on the other side of the line to sell to the buyer of the government’s choice.
This situation is not a free market; it is a government-managed market. Government has seized the power to manage the real estate market, not only in Florida, but all across the nation. Government is using its new-found power to manipulate the market to produce higher tax revenue for its coffers - for the greater public good - with no thought or concern for the individuals who are crushed by its decisions.
The end result of the loss of private property rights and government-managed markets is a government-engineered society. People are forced to live where government thinks they should live, in housing designed the way government thinks it should be designed, at prices artificially inflated beyond the means of many people who are left penniless, with little hope of rebuilding a lost american dream.
Not all americans have bought into this flawed vision of sustainable development. as more and more people feel the pain of "sustainability," they are organizing into community organizations, and joining state and national efforts to warn their neighbors and educate their elected officials. There are still a few people who subscribe to the notion that a man’s home is, indeed, his castle, and are willing to stand at the gate and defend their rights. There is still a remnant of people in this country who value the principles enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. They are assembling now, convinced that neither the gates of hell, nor the halls of sustainable development can prevail against the collective power of people who are determined to remain free.
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