cans herded to the coasts to live, permanently or on regular or extended
holidays. Private developers and eager local and state governments obliged
private landowners, but it was the Army Corps of Engineers (again) that
sanctioned the dredging and straightening of creeks, the digging of canals,
and the draining of thousands of acres of wetlands, using spill from mas-
sive excavations to build (relatively) high and dry landscapes for safe home-
sites and convenient business districts. When environmentalists recoiled
in horror at losses of wildlife habitat, natural fish hatcheries, and estu-
arial function—as early as the mid-s—the corps resisted or ignored
checks by Congress, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and private conserva-
tionist groups.
Florida, the lowest southern state with the longest coastline, was (and re-
mains) the epicenter of reengineered hydrology and runaway development.
During the late s and early s, however, in a move astounding in
its secrecy and state-corporate collusion, the Walt Disney company bought
miles of orange groves and wetlands near Orlando, established a private
government for its domain, and built Disney World, transforming a low,
pastoral landscape into a soaring tourist attraction, the biggest in the East,
that supports a year-round population in sprawling suburbs. Northeast of
Orlando, along the I- corridor from Jacksonville toward Daytona Beach,
good well-drained farmland is now under wholesale conversion to gated
golf course community developments. This despite the shocking news, in
, that Florida’s water supply is compromised by pollution and limited
in relation to population growth, which passed million in the cen-
sus, heading for at least million by .^7
It is South Florida, however, that has become the most elevated of all
southern coastal places. Limestone foundations support impressive sky-
lines of office towers and multistory condominiums, from Palm Beach to
Miami and from Tampa–St. Petersburg to Naples. Canalization sanctioned
by the Army Corps of Engineers yields more and more (and more expensive)
‘‘waterfront’’ property, which is essentially fill from canal digging. Truck
and auto traffic—and air pollution—renders life hectic and dangerous to
all but the sequestered wealthy. Recall that Gail Fishman, the Miami native,
writer, and conservationist, can no longer bear to visit her hometown and
has fled to Tallahassee. Carl Hiaasen, another Miami-Dade native, famously
remains, and his arch send-ups of South Floridian life appear in theMiami
Herald. Hiaasen likely finds release, too, in his series of over-the-top ‘‘eco-
logical’’ novels featuring a disaffected ex-governor, now gone feral in the
Everglades, and a mad young man obsessed with highway litterers and fat-