NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Business

Cape Coral: The Florida boom town that shouldn't exist

By Kirrily Schwarz
news.com.au·
23 Oct, 2017 07:05 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Cape Coral may look like a dream - but it's very much a case of buyer beware. Photo / Supplied

Cape Coral may look like a dream - but it's very much a case of buyer beware. Photo / Supplied

Back in the 1960s, Cape Coral was a boggy swampland with just 200 people and a couple of houses dotted along dirt roads.

These days the town in southwest Florida is one of America's fastest-growing developments.

It's not really a city - not yet, anyway - because it's chock-full of residential allotments with next to no schools, supermarkets, shops or restaurants.

The roads aren't great either and the infrastructure is questionable, with no real planning for sewerage or a permanent supply of drinking water.

The land can only be described as muck, which is barely above sea level, and last month was almost directly in the path of Hurricane Irma.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

And yet, people are snapping up blocks like there's no tomorrow.

Trouble with a dirt-cheap price tag

According to Politico journalist Michael Grunwald, it's "one of the most notorious land scams in Florida's scammy history".

It was the brainchild of Leonard Rosen, who bought a chunk of mangrove swamp on Florida's Gulf Coast, snazzed it up with the name "Cape Coral", and started hawking it as a paradise that anyone could afford.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

He and his brother advertised it as a "Waterfront Wonderland" and a "City-in-the-Making", giving people the chance to buy their own slice of sunshine complete with affordable homes, a friendly community, and stunning environment.

The trouble is the dirt-cheap price tag didn't really buy dirt.

"It passed off inaccessible mush as prime real estate, sold the same swampy lots to multiple buyers, and used listening devices to spy on its customers," Grunwald wrote.

The region is a boggy swamp, and the canals are essentially emergency plumbing. Photo / Supplied
The region is a boggy swamp, and the canals are essentially emergency plumbing. Photo / Supplied

One of Rosen's tactics was offering prospective buyers a free stay at a local motel, which was bugged so salesmen could learn what made them tick and tailor their pitches accordingly.

Discover more

Business

First Qantas Dreamliner touches down in Sydney

19 Oct 11:41 PM
Retail

NZ wool yoga mat ready for launch

22 Oct 07:52 PM
Business

China's trillion-dollar plan for world domination

23 Oct 05:44 PM
Employment

Is greying China ready to drop birth limit?

23 Oct 08:10 PM

"Its hucksters spun a soggy floodplain ... as America's middle-class boom town of the future, and suckers bought it," Grunwald wrote.

The dream is still very much alive - the region recorded America's most explosive population growth for the past two years in a row.

Cape Coral is now home to 180,000 people and that number is expected to double again over the next 20 years as more Baby Boomers retire.

Trouble is, just one big storm could wipe it out.

Disaster waiting to happen

The swamps have been drained and developers dug 643km of canals - more than Venice, Amsterdam, or anywhere else in the world - which act as both the stormwater plumbing system and Cape Coral's main selling point.

"Those ditches were an ecological disaster, ravaging wetlands, estuaries and aquifers.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Cape Coral was a planning disaster too, designed without water or sewer pipes, shops or offices, or almost anything but pre-platter residential lots," Grunwald wrote.

"It's literally a peninsula jutting off the peninsula, the least natural, worst-planned, craziest-growing piece of an unnatural, badly planned, crazy-growing state."

Mangroves, which prevented erosion and provided natural storm protection, were torn down; wetlands, that absorbed floodwaters and filled the aquifers, were paved.

The area fluctuates between droughts and floods so wildly earlier this year, the fire brigade worried there wouldn't have enough supply to power hydrants.

Water comes from a salty, finite pool 250m underground and is run through a $117 million treatment plant before it's fit for consumption - but no one is sure what they're going to do when the source inevitably dries up.

During Hurricane Irma, the residents were ordered to evacuate, but the city is so low to sea level the Red Cross declared it too vulnerable to bother opening shelters.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"This unsustainable paradise still feels like paradise, even if its bays are polluted and its wells are running dry, even if it's at perpetual risk of an existential mega disaster," Grunwald wrote, noting the environmental legacy was "brutal".

One day, the swamp will reclaim the ground around this glamorous swimming pool. Photo / Supplied
One day, the swamp will reclaim the ground around this glamorous swimming pool. Photo / Supplied

Residents know what they bought

Grunwald's article is currently making headlines around the United States.

"It really doesn't highlight all the great stuff the city has," disgruntled local councillor Richard Leon told Fox 4 news.

However, others recognise the truth in what he wrote.

Dana Brunett, the council's economic development manager, told Fox 4 the city has worked hard to diversify existing development and attract business.

Planning co-ordinator Wyatt Daltry told Politico the city was trying to fix its problem of having too many houses and not enough infrastructure, and he noted it's hard to undo half a century of chaotic development and chronic under-investment.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"People who move here are, frankly, putting themselves in a vulnerable situation ... If Irma had turned an hour later, we'd be having a very different conversation."

Ray Judah, a councillor for 20 years, said nothing was being done to deal with rising sea levels or protecting environmentally vulnerable areas.

"Around here, we're going whatever's the opposite of sustainability ... We're just waiting around for the next disaster," he told Grunwald.

However, resident Brian Tattersall, a former insurance broker from Canada, said it wouldn't deter the next generation of newcomers.

"Look, if we get 15 feet of storm surge, holy sh*t, that would take out Cape Coral," he told Grunwald over a beer on one of the canals.

"Even then, no way."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Save

    Share this article

Latest from Business

Premium
Business

Venture capital market hot again, Icehouse Ventures boss says, as new fund feeds on golden visas

Premium
Media Insider

'Game-changer': MediaWorks wins massive AT advertising contracts for buses, shelters, stations

Premium
Airlines

Flight on time: Airlines' performance ranked in new global report


Sponsored

Tired of missing out on getting to global summits to help grow your business?

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Business

Premium
Premium
Venture capital market hot again, Icehouse Ventures boss says, as new fund feeds on golden visas
Business

Venture capital market hot again, Icehouse Ventures boss says, as new fund feeds on golden visas

A new seed fund raises half of its $30m target in a month.

15 Jul 05:00 PM
Premium
Premium
'Game-changer': MediaWorks wins massive AT advertising contracts for buses, shelters, stations
Media Insider

'Game-changer': MediaWorks wins massive AT advertising contracts for buses, shelters, stations

15 Jul 08:10 AM
Premium
Premium
Flight on time: Airlines' performance ranked in new global report
Airlines

Flight on time: Airlines' performance ranked in new global report

15 Jul 07:01 AM


Tired of missing out on getting to global summits to help grow your business?
Sponsored

Tired of missing out on getting to global summits to help grow your business?

14 Jul 04:48 AM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP