topics include: rich blight; urban disinvestment; hollowed-out tourist economy
Seeing a mow & blow landscaping crew leaf-blow the entire parking lot of a building that’s been left vacant for years is like watching a cleaning crew swab the decks on the sinking Titanic.
The noise is offensive on such a high level, because it’s not just about the actual noise, which is bad enough.
The sheer staggering economics of a society where some people are so filthy rich that they can leave an entire oceanfront commercial building sitting. For YEARS.
In my 2015 talk for the inaugural Elevate conference (a sort of annual mini Ted talk -style event for Daytona Beach), I referred to this phenomenon as “rich blight.” You can still see it either on my YouTube channel or on the Elevate youtube channel or both.
It’s possible to look up a property “owner” (=hoarder)’s identity on the county tax website but seems like it’s always some shady-sounding “mysterious jibber-jabber name LLC” , based in Offshore Evadia with no phone number and just a PO Box.
I used to occasionally look up these land-hoarders and write them postal mail, politely asking them to rent out or free up their buildings, and sometimes even offering them information & free marketing assistance (which I felt i had a vested interest in doing because I live here and we need to build a real community here), but of course I never heard back.
The sad thing is, this Starbucks was a super successful location. The employees liked it here (not in small part because they could see the ocean out the takeout window, and breathe in fresh sea breeze) and they earned good money, and there was generally a robust line of customers (among others, a lot of students from the local universities came all the way over the bridge to study and collaborate here), and a nice vibe in there considering it was a corporate establishment.
”Successful” obviously means something different on a corporate level than it does on an employee and customer level. Maybe shareholders supersede store profits in terms of importance? I don’t know enough about it to know for sure. Can only imagine.
But by golly they have the time and attention to leaf blow an entire parking lot that is always going to have sand on it, because hello, we live next to the Atlantic Ocean.
(Side note: What is it with men and needing to vacuum up the entire great outdoors, I always wonder. And actually, it’s not the men’s fault, I think it’s a thing in wyt soupremasee culture / respectability politics.)
If you are interested in the topic of urban vacancy/disinvestment, I recommend you check out the following pages:
Strong Towns
Planning Peeps
Also, I’m going to be pasting a link to an article about land banks. Land banks can be a great tool for communities to take back ownership of their places, and put it in the hands of locals who actually lives there and care. Of course, enough of the elected officials and other PTB in a place have to be on board that that’s a priority.
This might sound strong to some of you, but I think that buy and hold landlords are engaging in parasitic behavior. I’m not gonna lie, I have often sympathized with people squatting a building.
(Altho, squatting seems to have become less of a thing over the years, as surveillance techniques and punishment have become more extreme. And furthermore, the overlords have persuaded members of the working classes to rat each other out to code & cops instead of feeling solidarity. I’m not saying squatters are necessarily great neighbors, but I will be honest, I have felt safer and more community next to houses of squatters than right across the street from a police station.)
Parasitic owners: Free up your damn buildings if you’re not going to use them! The empty lots too! And in the meantime, quit the stupid leaf blowing. It’s noisy and smelly and obnoxious. It’s the wrong combination of too much life and not enough life. Intrusive landscaping fussbudgetry plus vacant building equals double bad.
Further reading:
“Why Land Banks Matter“
(communityprogress.org; October 28, 2024): “For neighborhoods burdened by systemic disinvestment; vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties often become symbols of neglect. They pose social, economic, health, and environmental hazards to communities and residents. Addressing these properties requires intervention at multiple points and systems—and one powerful tool many communities use to address vacancy and promote equitable development is the land bank.”