On 4 Jan 2006 09:02:20 -0800, "
wrote:

I dont know who to blame cuz if I lived in one of those gawdawful
places like Ft Lauderdale or Boston I'd think N. FL was paradise too.
I guess I'm also a hypocrite cuz I have lived all over the US before
coming back to N. FL and really loved Wyoming. We still go back to Wy
every two yrs with the kids and I bet I know how the locals there feel
about us being there.

You don't have to be a Carl Hiassen fan to know this is inevitable. A
lot of middle-class Americans have just enough capital to buy in even
crappy parts of Florida, but that's enough to outclass the buying
power of locals. As the boomers age, the prospect of seeing another
frozen-snot winter becomes less appealing, and listening to that
goddamn Jimmy Buffett, the guy at whose sandalled feet you can lay a
lot of the blame for this picture of Florida as an unbroken paradise
for fat-arsed retirees, becomes a sort of mantra.

Add to that the older streams of New Yorkers and Quebeckers whose
roots go back decades, and actual, living Florida folk are an
endangered species, as is the Florida ecosystem.

Good thing you can sail away, eh?
R.