I came across this story. It is a sadly perfect illustration, in real life terms, what money is

[silvershadow]

doing to our very culture, heritage, and history, if just left unchecked to do what money wants to do and where ultimately money wants to flow. It is kind of built in to the system, hard-wired I guess in all of us. Maybe we don't actually have a collective responsibility to save every last remnant (such as the old way of life, or the citrus industry in a particular county), but we DO have a collective responsibility to save our national protected sites, parks, preserves, etc.

I realize the two situations don't seem exactly related, but they kind of are. Money is ultimately changing us. :/

Interesting article:

http://www.tampabay.com/news/growth/with-development-looming-17-overgrown-acres-are-all-thats-left-of-pinellas/2271953

With development looming, 17 overgrown acres are all that's left of Pinellas County's citrus industry

Kathryn Varn, Times Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 5, 2016 11:37am

LARGO — In the days when the Pinellas County air smelled of sweet orange blossoms, Bobbie Smith would weave barefoot through her family's maze of citrus trees to the pond where her grandmother fished from her perch on an empty fruit box.

Back through the grove, where a Buick and GMC dealership now showcases its shiny cars, workers employed by Smith's uncle, Al Repetto, sold fresh-squeezed juice and orange ice cream to regular customers and tourists from up north.

It was Orange Blossom Groves in its prime, thriving in a county where branches weighed down by juicy citrus ruled the landscape. Now, an overgrown patch home to coyotes and mangled trees are the last vestiges of the roughly 13,500 acres of large commercial groves in Pinellas County 60 years ago that made it one of the top citrus-producing counties in Florida. But it won't stay that way for long.

Fittingly for the state's most densely populated county, a developer wants to clear the 17-acre property at U.S. 19 and Belleair Road and build 136 townhouses.

more at link: http://www.tampabay.com/news/growth/with-development-looming-17-overgrown-acres-are-all-thats-left-of-pinellas/2271953

[hunter]

1. Most places of my childhood are now very affluent suburban wasteland.

I wouldn't want to live there.

[Nay]

2. I grew up in Largo and lived in a house that backed up to one of these groves.

It breaks my heart to see that even this last area is being developed, not just because it is the last, but because the area is so overdeveloped already that traffic is impossible, AND in just a very few years the area will be suffering from rising seas. I just came back from visiting there; there is no restraint, no acknowledgement of the environmental/overcrowding impact. It's full speed ahead with development so the big contractors and real estate moguls can rake in the last dollars before the water closes over everything.

To me, Florida is the microcosm of the human race's inability to keep from wiping itself out with its own gaping greed.