Lawyers, Guns, Money (and Wetlands)

A Review of The Swamp Peddlers: How Lot Sellers, Land Scammers, and Retirees Built Florida and Transformed the American Dream, By Jason Vuic: University of North Carolina Press

By Tony Palermo, AICP

Florida has many Port Charlottes. So says Jason Vuic. He would know. He grew up here in Charlotte County.

???????????????What does he mean by that? Florida is dotted with community after community of single-family homes, vacant lots, and even subdivided swampland – sold on the installment plan – typically?$10 down and $10 a month. Since the 1950s billions of dollars worth of residential property – some of it sight unseen – was sold to retiring northerners dreaming of their own paradisial place in the sun.

???????????????The Swamp Peddlers: How Lot Sellers, Land Scammers, and Retirees Built Florida and Transformed the American Dream tells the tale – actually many tales – of how Florida got drained, dredged, developed, bought and sold one lot at a time by?Elliott, Robert and Frank Mackle, Jr.?(the Mackle Brothers), Leonard and Jack Rosen (the Rosen Brothers), and a host of other legendary salesmen of sunshine.?The pages round up a murderers' row of crooked salesmen, even more crooked lawyers, more than a few guns, some sex, drugs, celebrities, and a whole lot of money.?The Swamp Peddlers reads less like a history text and more like a Carl Hiaasen novel come to life.

?Only it’s a little too real.

???????????????“The swamp peddlers were everywhere there was a swamp to peddle,” said Wayne Daltry, FAICP the former Executive Director of the Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council – one of just many local planners who were sourced, quoted, and paraphrased throughout.

???????????????Port Charlotte. Port Saint Lucie. Rotonda West. Spring Hill. Cape Coral. Lehigh Acres. They are all in there. Chapter after chapter. Story after story.?One subdivision at a time, Vuic explains why so many elderly people from the Midwest journeyed to Florida’s west coast (even before there was an I-75) -?and how all the "Yankees" from the big cities first settled the east coast via I-95.?Vuic laments the?legacy planners know so well – thousands of platted single-family lots;?whole communities with no water, no sewer, and roads paved with “grassphalt”;?not to mention inadequate spaces for schools, churches, or decent places for the people to live, work and play.

???????????????“It's definitely fun to read, but what could be more depressing to professional planners?” asked Bill Spikowski, FAICP, another good source of information about Florida’s platted land past.?Spikowski and Hubert Stroud’s “Planning in the Wake of Florida Land Scams”, Journal of Planning Education and Research, circa 1999, is just one of many impressive citations by the Punta Gorda native.

It was supposed to be a pensioners paradise. Or was it a paradise lost??Vuic digs and documents the incalculable loss of fish, birds, wetlands, open space, pine flatwoods, and all that had to make room for Florida's development long before there were rules about platting, planning, and preserving the environment – which is what attracted people to move here in the first place.

???????????????The author was raised in Punta Gorda. His parents were well known, both educators in Charlotte County. His dad was assistant principal of East Elementary. Mom was a librarian at Port Charlotte Middle School.

???????????????Vuic escaped the formerly swampy confines of Midway Boulevard, Elkcam Boulevard, and Baltic Avenue.?He graduated from Wake Forest University, got a master’s in history from University of Richmond, and a Ph. D. (history again) from Indiana University in Bloomington.

???????????????Vuic now makes his living as a writer and historian – specializing in creative nonfiction – and settled down in Fort Worth, Texas.

???????????????Vuic’s first book was 2010’s “The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History.” In 2016 he helped us relive the nightmarish Tampa Bay Buccaneers 1976 and 1977 seasons with “The Yucks: Two Years with the Loosingest Team in NFL History.”

???????????????And now he’s come home again to peddle “The Swamp Peddlers” – a subject which I am sure is near and dear to the heart of Charlotte’s favorite son.

???????????????I have to say, it’s a good sympathetic read, for planners, non-planners, and anyone with an interest in how Florida got to be so “Florida.”?Seven crisp chapters take you on a journey though time, space, and every swampy part of the Sunshine state. There are literally a lot of bodies buried in these 200-plus pages (with cool illustrations and priceless vintage ads from the 50s).

I agree with another key Vuic source, Max Forgey, AICP, the former Community Development Director for Charlotte County.

“There have been some good books about Florida’s historic land scams, and I have read many of them.?Jason Vuic’s book stands on its own, melding superb scholarship with knife-edged wit,” Forgey said.

Vuic even makes a random reference to the 2011 APA Florida program “Plat-a-Palooza” held in Cape Coral sponsored by the Promised Lands Section (page 182).

Is it depressing? Perhaps. But it’s honest. And it’s from the heart. Unincorporated Port Charlotte and its elderly residents make easy targets for ridicule. Florida is always good for a punch line – whether delivered by Florida men like Hiaasen, Dave Barry or Craig Pittman. If you like those legendary Florida authors, you will like Vuic’s takes on his home town and home state. Sometimes home can be more like Pottersville than Bedford Falls?– especially to the young, the working class, and those who wonder if?the land they live on is under a wicked curse.

Florida has many Port Charlottes. But with better planning, and an appreciation of our sorted past,?maybe we can break the curse – and figure out how to navigate the swamp together.

Tony Palermo, AICP, is a Charlotte County resident, Assistant Community Development Director for the City of Fort Myers, and Vice President of Section Affairs for APA’s Florida Chapter.

Join the Promised Lands Section in Punta Gorda on Friday August 6 when we will welcome live and in-person author Jason Vuic. It’s totally free, open to the public,?and eligible for 3 AICP/CM credits. Lunch will be included.?RSVP now by emailing [email protected]