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The Dream of Florida Is Dead: Miami condo collapse is a crisis for the state

36 points by ASinclair 5y ago

avidiax 5y ago
Generally, deteriorating civil engineering structures is a huge looming crisis for the U.S. Sprawling suburbs dependent on perpetual growth to fund repairs to their streets & utilities, small economically-contracting towns dependent on highways and bridges that are falling apart, 15,000 "high hazard" dams to maintain: we are going to have to either give up on some of it, or pay for decades of missing upkeep.
- cyanydeez 5y ago
  specifically for florida, their entire foundation is swiss cheese. climate change will hasten their detriorating condition. their farmers will do the same. some structural declines will take dcades, but id expect this like we now expect more frequent and stronger hurricanes. even then, the political climate is just toxic by itself
rayiner 5y ago
Of course Slate would try to frame one unfortunate incident as the death knell of a state that’s knocking it out if the park right now. Meanwhile, thousands of extra nursing home deaths in NY don’t get a similar article. It’s like they’re not even trying to hide it anymore.
- tptacek 5y ago
  It seems especially clear in this case that the title is clickbait written long after the interview, which is kind of interesting, was written up. We should fix the title on HN.
  - Arnt 5y ago
    I quote from the article: «I can’t overstate how big this wrench that this is throwing into our local and regional and state economy, actually. Condos and the development of condos and the mortgage brokers that help get the financing, the insurers that insure, the realtors who sell, the investors who buy and flip—if Florida has one main driver of industry, this is it. That is what we do.» «And I mentioned earlier that condo building is our state’s industry. I literally mean that. The state of Florida was basically considered a wasteland until developers figured out that they could sell the dream of Florida. I’m not exaggerating on this. Our economy over history has basically been a pyramid scheme of developers and people marketing the dream of Florida, to come down to Florida, it’s so beautiful, it’s so carefree. Well, now we have something to care about.» Those are strong words. The headline doesn't seem overstated or a misrepresentation of those opinions.
    - cyanydeez 5y ago
      "this affects our shell game"
- lenkite 5y ago
  Several buildings collapsed in NY in 2019-20 but there was no super-surge of reporting. Partisan media is quite extraordinary to watch.
  - andscoop 5y ago
    I doubt there would be a super surge of reporting for this collapse either if we weren’t looking at a 100 person death count. I hadn’t heard of any New York buildings collapsing so I googled and found one building under construction that collapsed. There was at least one causality, but a much less compelling story overall. I don’t find myself agreeing with your take that this is partisan media at play. This will likely turn out to be deadliest building collapse America has seen.
    - sparky_z 5y ago
      Surely that would be the World Trade Center?
      - nobodyandproud 5y ago
        You mean, where passenger jets were used as missiles? It doesn’t seem remotely relevant to what happened in Florida.
        sparky_z 5y ago
        Structural collapses have a wide variety of causes. Wind, fire, earthquakes, snow, flood, design errors, poor workmanship, poor maintainance, corrosion, water damage, pest damage, overloading, fatigue, accidental collision, and yes, terrorism. Most of them aren't directly relevant to each other in terms of lessons learned. But if for some reason you want to rank all "building collapses" by lives lost, I don't know why you would exclude the World Trade Center. It was a building (actually a complex of buildings) and it collapsed. I'm not sure what else you would call it.
        5y ago

36 points by ASinclair 5y ago

Generally, deteriorating civil engineering structures is a huge looming crisis for the U.S. Sprawling suburbs dependent on perpetual growth to fund repairs to their streets & utilities, small economically-contracting towns dependent on highways and bridges that are falling apart, 15,000 "high hazard" dams to maintain: we are going to have to either give up on some of it, or pay for decades of missing upkeep.

cyanydeez 5y ago
specifically for florida, their entire foundation is swiss cheese. climate change will hasten their detriorating condition. their farmers will do the same. some structural declines will take dcades, but id expect this like we now expect more frequent and stronger hurricanes. even then, the political climate is just toxic by itself

rayiner 5y ago

Of course Slate would try to frame one unfortunate incident as the death knell of a state that’s knocking it out if the park right now. Meanwhile, thousands of extra nursing home deaths in NY don’t get a similar article. It’s like they’re not even trying to hide it anymore.

tptacek 5y ago
It seems especially clear in this case that the title is clickbait written long after the interview, which is kind of interesting, was written up. We should fix the title on HN.
- Arnt 5y ago
  I quote from the article: «I can’t overstate how big this wrench that this is throwing into our local and regional and state economy, actually. Condos and the development of condos and the mortgage brokers that help get the financing, the insurers that insure, the realtors who sell, the investors who buy and flip—if Florida has one main driver of industry, this is it. That is what we do.» «And I mentioned earlier that condo building is our state’s industry. I literally mean that. The state of Florida was basically considered a wasteland until developers figured out that they could sell the dream of Florida. I’m not exaggerating on this. Our economy over history has basically been a pyramid scheme of developers and people marketing the dream of Florida, to come down to Florida, it’s so beautiful, it’s so carefree. Well, now we have something to care about.» Those are strong words. The headline doesn't seem overstated or a misrepresentation of those opinions.
  - cyanydeez 5y ago
    "this affects our shell game"
lenkite 5y ago
Several buildings collapsed in NY in 2019-20 but there was no super-surge of reporting. Partisan media is quite extraordinary to watch.
- andscoop 5y ago
  I doubt there would be a super surge of reporting for this collapse either if we weren’t looking at a 100 person death count. I hadn’t heard of any New York buildings collapsing so I googled and found one building under construction that collapsed. There was at least one causality, but a much less compelling story overall. I don’t find myself agreeing with your take that this is partisan media at play. This will likely turn out to be deadliest building collapse America has seen.
  - sparky_z 5y ago
    Surely that would be the World Trade Center?
    - nobodyandproud 5y ago
      You mean, where passenger jets were used as missiles? It doesn’t seem remotely relevant to what happened in Florida.
      - sparky_z 5y ago
        Structural collapses have a wide variety of causes. Wind, fire, earthquakes, snow, flood, design errors, poor workmanship, poor maintainance, corrosion, water damage, pest damage, overloading, fatigue, accidental collision, and yes, terrorism. Most of them aren't directly relevant to each other in terms of lessons learned. But if for some reason you want to rank all "building collapses" by lives lost, I don't know why you would exclude the World Trade Center. It was a building (actually a complex of buildings) and it collapsed. I'm not sure what else you would call it.
        5y ago