Yet More News Unreported
The Heat and LeBron!
Broward County
Fresh Water Useage
1985 2005 %
Per Day
Gallons 235,280,000 586,760,000 149%
Per Capita 209 gallons 337 gallons 61%
SOURCE: Florida Statstical Abstract
Still More News Unreported
uperficialNew Building
Permit Trends
NOTE: Still more dark economic trends
unreported by your Sun-Sentinel Lite
Family Units
Broward Single Multi
2000 9,148 2,689
2001 8,296 2,490
2002 5,704 6,317
2003 3,880 4,338
2004 4,784 3,925
2005 3,609 3,342
2006 3,350 3,166
2007 1,754 2,179
2008 908 1,256
Decline (90%) (53%)
Family Units
Florida Single Multi
2000 106,115 48,962
2001 118,482 47,707
2002 128,298 56,976
2003 128,298 56,976
2004 186,858 68,542
2005 209,158 78,088
2006 146,236 57,002
2007 70,030 32,521
2008 38,709 22,333
Decline (174%) (54%)
SOURCE: University of Florida
Bureau of Economic & Business Research
The Shrinking "Face" of Growth
New Housing Units
Beautiful Rockpit Estates
Average Built Per Year
Built In Broward Miami-Dade Florida
2005-08 3,228 5,994 97,443
2000-04 12,542 15,087 216,099
1990-99 12,823 11,917 154,225
1980-89 14,905 15,148 195,358
1970-70 23,309 20,472 172,479
1960-69 12,621 13,145 88,200
1950-59 7,290 16,430 70,290
SOURCE: US Census Bureau
Read All About It - NOT!
Vacant Real Estate*
*Still more scarey stuff your Sun-Sentinel
won't report - or doesn't know about.
Vacant Housing Units Census
City 2000 2008 % %
Parkland 173 708 309% 72%
Coral Springs 1,815 4,865 168% 10%
Oakland Park 1,007 2,616 160% 36%
Margate 2,026 4,136 104% 1%
Pembroke Pines 3.307 6,479 96% 10%
North Lauderdale 645 1,196 86% 31%
Dania Beach 1,839 3,382 84% 42%
Plantation 1,755 3,200 82% 3%
Cooper City 166 302 82% 8%
Lauderhill 2,941 5,265 79% 12%
Coconut Creek 2,084 3,696 77% 11%
Florida 965,018 1,603,395 66% 18%
Fort Lauderdale 12,394 20,567 66% 18%
Sunrise 2,353 3,862 64% 5%
Pompano Beach 9,299 14,881 60% 28%
Tamarac 2,327 3,621 56% 8%
Broward County 86,598 130,830 51% 8%
Lauderdale Lakes 2,226 3,199 44% 2%
Hollywood 8,753 12,542 43% 3%
Deerfield Beach 5,951 8,531 43% 13%
Hallandale Beach 6,791 9,529 40% 12%
Miramar 2,847 3,780 33% 55%
Davie 2,602 3,037 17% 22%
Weston 2,367 2,110 (11%) 26%
SOURCES:
Housing Vacancies - US Census Bureau
Census Increase – University of Florida
Buyers' Market?
Broward County - 2008*
Vacant Housing Units
City Units Vacant %
Hallandale Beach 26,450 9,529 36%
Pompano Beach 57,688 14,882 26%
Fort Lauderdale 91,551 20,567 23%
Lauderdale Lakes 14,369 3,199 22%
Dania Beach 15,617 3,382 22%
Deerfield Beach 41,254 8,531 21%
Florida 8,684,100 1,603,395 18%
Lauderhill 29,152 5,265 18%
Hollywood 69,961 12,542 18%
Broward County 802,069 130,830 16%
Margate 25,644 4,136 16%
Coconut Creek 24,857 3,696 15%
Oakland Park 19,205 2,616 14%
Tamarac 33,622 3,621 11%
Pembroke Pines 62,405 6,479 10%
Sunrise 37,306 3,862 10%
Miramar 37,864 3,780 10%
Coral Springs 46,646 4,865 10%
Plantation 35,765 3,200 9%
Weston 22,839 2,110 9%
Parkland 7,590 708 9%
Davie 38,231 3,037 8%
North Lauderdale 14,329 1,197 8%
Cooper City 10,389 302 3%
SOURCE: US Census Bureau
*2008 marked the early stages of what has come
to be called "The Great Recession."
WHUT-EVAH!
Miami Bound
First the Good News:
One of the greatest players in the history of the game has signed with The Heat, Miami's professional basketball team.(See www.toetagdiary.com)
While in Broward, County Commissioners have approved a new $220 million main courthouse for downtown Fort Lauderdale.
Now the Bad News:
According to the US Census Bureau, the median household income in Miami-Dade County declined 5% between 1990 and 2008 – in constant 2008 dollars.
While in Broward, Census data reveal the median household income declined 3% during the same 18-year period – again in constant 2008 dollars.
The True Face of Diversity
Broward County's
Have and Have Nots
In the 21st Century
Politicians and the Mass Media have
convinced the average citizen that diversity
is all about racial and/or ethnic identity.
Which is total manipulative bullshit.
Fact is, real diversity has always involved
the Haves and Have Nots – as anyone damn
well knows while struggling to survive in the
depths of today's so-called “Great Recession.”
City Median Household Families Living
Income Below Poverty
Parkland $111,951 2.6%
Weston $95,454 3.2%
Cooper City $94,000 1.6%
Coral Springs $77,032 5.8%
Plantation $68,604 5.3%
Miramar $67,412 6.2%
Pembroke Pines $63,026 4.4%
Davie $60,667 6.2%
Fort Lauderdale $52,345 11.8%
Broward County $52,236 8.3%
Sunrise $50,148 5.7%
Dania Beach $48,015 10.2%
Coconut Creek $47,582 6.0%
Margate $47,217 9.4%
Hollywood $46,501 8.2%
N. Lauderdale $45,758 18.9%
Oakland Park $44,051 10.2%
Deerfield Beach $43,794 11.2%
Pompano Beach $43,350 11.9%
Tamarac $42,029 7.6%
Lauderhill $38,748 17.8%
Lauder Lakes $37,021 15.5%
Hallandale Bch $35,099 15.7%
SOURCE: US Census Bureau
Welcome to Babel County
Broward may have become Babel County – with a future similar to the Bible's famous example of linguistic diversity.
How so?
As a newspaperman for most of my professional life, my journalistic efforts have been defined by two simple conceits which:
One – There are people who care about “the common good.”
Two – They are motivated (and able) to improve their “community”.
This is why, at 72, I've adopted the role of an aging Cassandra via a series of posts on this blog detailing various data that suggest that --- as a community – Broward Doesn't “Work.”
Trouble is, reality suggests that my diminishing time on this planet might be better spent folding paper bags, or watching tractor pulls on ESPN.
Why?
Simply put – and like the 300 million-plus citizens of 21st Century America – Broward's 1.7 million residents are motivated by a very narrow and narcisstic sense of “community.”
Even worse, while most Broward residents have a clear idea of what's “good” for them – they rarely, if ever, are motivated by any sense of “good” that is “common.”
In short, yesterday's e pluribus unum had been replaced by I'm entitled.
Which is how and why Broward today “works” like a bucket of crabs – where dozens of disparate socio-economic and political groups battle for their proper place in the sun.
And so we have, for example:
Hispanics sub-divided into -
White
Black
Latin American
Central American
Mexican
Cuban
Puerto Rican
European
Native-born
Foreign-born
Wealthy
Middle Class
Low income
Young
Old
Educated
Uneducated
Of course, it's even more absurdly diverse, disparate and confusing among Broward's “Non Hispanic Whites” and “Non-Hispanic Blacks – be they Zionists from from New York versus Born Again Baptists from Georgia, or Jamaican nurses versus a Haitian landscapers.
Nor can we ignore the aggressively insular world of the retirees.
Or the complex needs of families with children in school.
Or home owners versus renters.
Or gays versus straights.
Or victims versus perpetrators.
And so on.
Further compounding the problem, are Broward's equally divisive sub-communities geographically divided into the Eastern Shoreline Affluent, the Decaying Low Income Center along 1-95, and the Western Upwardly Mobile Consumers.
Nor can we forget how Broward's 1.7 million citizens are further sub-divided into residents of 31 different cities – each with its own jealously guarded status and turf.
And finally, we have whatever passes for Broward's civic, political and business leaders-- most devoted followers of Our Lady of Perpetually More for Us and Less for Them.
All of which leads me to one final existential question, which is:
Who do you like in a good tractor pull – Ford, Farmall or John Deere?
Broward's Toothless "Watchdog
Another Reason Why
Broward County Doesn't Work
Safely ensconced on the 9th floor of the Sun-Sentinel building in downtown Fort Lauderdale, the newspaper's shrinking staff covers most of the events of the day by telephone, email, fax and press release.
Call it the Blanche DuBoise Syndrome – where a newspaper staff “depends on the kindness of strangers” to cover the events of the day.
So much for the Sun-Sentinel's role as a watchdog for its increasingly disinterested and declining readership.
Trouble is, the community is very much the worst for the Sun-Sentinel's journalistic impotence.
Take the recent headlines involving Lauderhill's Brampton Court apartment complex – where some 250 residents were forced to evacuate their apartment homes after city inspectors determined the 36-year-old building was unsafe.
In covering the story from their lofty perch high above downtown Fort Lauderdale, what the newspaper's reporters have yet to discover – among a great many other key details – is the identity of owner of the decaying apartment complex. :
Which serves as a sad metaphor of what's wrong with journalism by Fax, phone, email and press release.
For example:
One - With 352 units Brampton Court is one of 31 low income apartment complexes owned by the Atlantic Housing Foundation, a Texas-based 501c3 (non profit) corporation headquartered in Southlake, Texas – an affluent suburb of Dallas with some 21,000 residents.
Two – The Texas address of the Atlantic Housing Foundation is the same as the Windover Health Club LLC, a Florida 501c3 (non profit) corporation.
Three – Also located at the Atlantic Housing Foundation's address is the Sonterra Texas Investment Corporation, a for-profit real estate investment firm.
Four – with 35 years in commercial real estate, Daniel B. French is listed as an officer of the three above corporations.
Five – IRS data and its website suggest the Atlantic Housing Foundation hires independent contractors to operate maintain the 7,300 apartment units it owns throughout the Southeastern United States.
Six - In Florida, Atlantic Housing owns and operates five low income apartment complexes with nearly 2,000 units in Largo, Lauderhill, St. Petersburg, Sanford, and Tampa.
Seven – As a non-profit corporation, Atlantic Housing Foundation's 2008 income tax report listed $51,370,486 in rental income from its properties --- assets of $312,224,897 with liabilities of $403,374,294.
Eight – The purchase of Atlantic Housing Foundation's low income rental properties in Florida was financed with some $270 million in tax-exempt bonds issued by the Capital Trust Agency, a non profit corporation created by the tiny Florida city of Gulf Breeze, a community of some 6,000 residents south of Pensacola.
Nine – While the total taxable value of the entire City of Gulf Breeze is less than $900 million, the city's Capital Trust Agency has issued more than $1.2 billion tax exempt revenue during the past ten years.
Ten – In October of 2006, Gulf Breeze and Capital Trust Agency were cited in an 18-page Bloomberg Markets in-depth investigative article detailing a $7 billion “scandal” in so-called “black box bonds” – including a $220 million bond deal involving Capital Trust Agency of Florida.
Eleven - Capital Trust, Bloomberg Markets reported, was an “invisible” public authority that “consists of three people working out of a ranch house that's situated behind the police station in the city of Gulf Breeze.”
Anyhow....
The above should be enough to spark the intellectual curiousity among most journalists with the intellectual curiousity of a common house cat.
However, I'm reminded of the question Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid kept asking as they fled a mysterious posse of relentless riders.
Like “Who are these guys?”
Which is a question the Sun-Sentinel has yet to ask of the people responsible for all the Hard Times for residents at Lauderhill's decaying Brampton Court.
And probably never will.
But then what can you expect from the toothless and impotent journalistic watchdog that still has enough balls to call itself “South Florida's leading information provider”?
.
May be PC Offensive!
WARNING!This post in my on-going series "Why Broward
Doesn't Work" may offend certain politically
correct readers.
Broward 1990 2008 %
Total Population 1,177,048 1,754,846 49%
US Born 1,057,214 1,183,870 12%
Foreign-born 198,274 523,136 164%
SOURCE: US Census Bureau