Florida's problematic gated fortresses

[yardwork]

Last edited Fri Mar 30, 2012, 02:33 PM - Edit history (1)

This is an interesting article that contains photos of the gate and the big neighborhood watch sign. Note that the sign directs residents to call 911 or another number. It's a column on the paranoia and hysteria inherent in these gated communities that seek to wall themselves off from the rest of the world:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/28/opinion/burton-florida-gates/index.html



I did some research into The Retreat at Twin Lakes and home prices there have been crashing in recent years (like the rest of central Florida).

In 2008, the condos there were selling at between $106 and $116 a square foot, heavily discounted from the previous prices of $176 per square foot and up.

http://www.407re.com/RetreatatTwinLakes

Now, the community is full of bank-owned units and short sales listed as low as $63 per square foot:

http://www.easystreetrealty-orlando.com/sanford/retreat-at-twin-lakes-townhouses

This tells a story. Luxury condo development, gated community. Then, the housing crash. "Undesirables" can move in. I know how people who invest in "luxury gated townhome communities" think. I can imagine the paranoia setting in as housing prices crash lower and lower and more and more of what racists perceive as "undesirables" move in.

[Ecumenist]

1. Wait a minute Yardwork, We don't know that Trayvon's family aren't one of the original owners.

Plenty of black folks bought doing the boom years. I understand what you're trying to say but I don't think it's fair to assume that they moved in because suddenly the prices tanked and , somehow, had that not happened, they wouldn't have been there.

[ellisonz]

4. I remember reading that...

...the residence he was visiting was the girlfriend of his father, it appears his parents are divorced with the mother and Trayvon living and Miami and his father in Sanford.

[Ecumenist]

5. That could very well be BUT doesn't mean that either the girlfriend and/or

the father owned it. All I'm saying is that black folks do buy and own homes, Heck I have a 3500 square foot home myself. The parent have been divorced for a while.

[ellisonz]

6. Understood.

I'm just pointing out the reported fact regarding the Martin's and that complex.

Interestingly enough, I live in a gated condo complex in a suburb of Los Angeles that is really diverse and we have many Black owners and renters, along with many other minorities (us included), and we definitely have some interesting racial relations including claims of discrimination in regards to enforcement of parking regulations.

[yardwork]

9. I didn't say any of that.

I'm talking about the paranoia that may have been present in some of the residents of this housing development. I have no idea when Trayvon's family bought their unit. Of course, many black families bought during the boom years. I'm not suggesting otherwise. In any case, Trayvon had a right to be there.

I think that you misunderstood my OP. I'm not saying that I'm agreeing with racists. I'm reporting on how they may have been thinking and acting leading up to this shooting.

Edited to add that I reread my OP and I see what you were reading. I wasn't clear and I've edited my OP. My apologies. I can see how you thought I meant that. My fault.

[Ecumenist]

11. I;m sorry that I misunderstood your post Mea culpa

I think there's just so much defensive stances going around. I just didn;t understand the way I should have.

[yardwork]

12. It was my fault. There was a phrase in my post that was very misleading. I fixed it.

When I reread my OP I understood why you thought I'd said that.

[Honeycombe8]

2. Yes, I find those gated communities kinda weird. It is like they are trying to lock...

the world out. I understand about the crime problem in some areas, so I get that, esp as a single woman. But there's something so isolationist and unfriendly about it. The "them" and "us" of it.

But it's one way to go, if there's a crime problem. It does help keep criminals out.

[Ecumenist]

7. No not really. Here in northern California, there's a ritzy gated community called

Rancho Murrieta. It has guard shacks etc. Yet, a few years ago, this young man climbed the wall and murdered his grandparents. When I say that this place is walled, I mean this place is no joke and the front gates are guarded 24/7. and it's in an area of the county where there really isn't much around them, comparatively speaking.

[Honeycombe8]

14. Gates don't ensure someone can't get in. It's a deterrent, like lights, locks, etc. There is no way

to absolutely keep a criminal out. But generally they take the path of least resistance. They go for the easy way. After all, they're criminals. They're not into working hard. (Although a few of them have known to be stupid.)

[yardwork]

10. Actually, the article mentions that gated communities don't seem to keep crime down.

Crime statistics are actually higher in some gated communities. I've read this elsewhere as well.

It's a mindset that is not effective.

[Junkdrawer]

3. Gated Communities become Caged Communities....

Sets the background for the stupid SYG laws...

[quaker bill]

8. I don't know about the family

But this community is fairly close to foreclosure central for the area, the timing and developer are also right. Engle/Tousa was one of the first of the big firms to fall locally. Toward the end of the bubble, a handful of firms in this area were slapping up projects, several at a time and selling them with reverse amortizing mortgages (less than "interest only" payments so the amount borrowed would increase each year) without any of the normal income checks. In some places around there, a person literally did not even have to prove they were employed to get financing.

The moment the market turned sour, a whole raft of firms in that local market went belly up, and well more than half of the residential units were foreclosed within months. Part of my job has been sweeping up after that mess, and Engle/Tousa was a big mess for a while.

People are getting what was very high end real estate for 30 or 40 cents on the dollar, sometimes less.

[yardwork]

13. I have a feeling that Zimmerman's family is involved in the housing crash, not just as owners.

I suspect that Zimmerman's family made substantial investments in the real estate market in central Florida at the top of the bubble. I think that the entire family was panicked by the crash. Somebody got George Zimmerman a job at a real estate finance firm as an "underwriter," a position for which he is clearly unqualified. He doesn't have a college degree or the years of experience required for that kind of job.

It makes me wonder.

[quaker bill]

15. I am pretty sure at the peak of the bubble

my mutt dog would have qualified as an "underwriter". They literally were not looking at qualifications in that market. I really mean this and I know it for fact. Anyone with a pulse and ability to sign documents could get a $300K house. The point was not selling houses, it was selling mortgages to banks, the houses were just the vehicle to do that.

These folks should have gone to jail, and a few of them did, but not close to enough of them.

[yardwork]

16. News reports said that George Zimmerman was employed as an "underwriter" when he shot Trayvon.

Could he have been hired at the peak of the bubble and kept that job that long?

It sounds like he could have gotten this job fairly easily, just by knowing somebody.