Green Empire: The St. Joe Company and the Remaking of Florida's Panhandle

is the primary reason. Competition among builders in the United States and a chance to earn a buck from one’s endeavors characterize the American landscape. This view doesn’t fit Bloom’s agenda, so you won’t find it here. In Bloom’s world, America’s chambers of commerce are reactionary, historic preservation is favored by urban elites, and Rouse’s vision of inner-city housing appeals to the right wing. Rouse is the gold standard among the social engineers who place profits above ideals every time. In Bloom’s world, academics are not fooled by Rouse and his ilk. In Bloom’s world, the American public (read consumers) continually fall prey to private sector versions of affordable housing, shopping malls, festival marketplaces, and new communities. These are the fourmajor areas where Rouse blazed new trails throughout the United States. The book gives short shrift to Rouse’s Enterprise Foundation and its goal to provide low-cost housing.This is disappointing because the organization is working with hundreds of nonprofits in over 500 locations, facilitating the construction of over 100,000 affordable dwelling units. Media scrutiny fails Bloom’s test. He even writes about ‘‘highbrow’’ newspapers,whichmust be any newspaper other thanUSAToday. Journalists turned an uncritical eye on the development world. Bloom must be reading feature stories in the home and garden section. Would someone please askMichael Eisner about the positive press the Disney Corporation received about its Celebration community in Florida? In Bloom’s world, mall developers wield control akin to company towns. The author bemoans the lack of democracy in festival marketplaces and master-planned communities. However, he conveniently ignores that rapid decision making is a key ingredient in making successful developments work in the real world. The long list of bogeymen include excessive expenditures on highway programs, arenas, stadiums, prisons, congressional Republicans, southern Democrats, the right wing (is this redundant?), and fancy downtowns. Unfortunately, in the real world, cities are out there constantly fighting for highway funds, new arenas, modern stadiums, and entertainmentoriented downtowns. The public sector has at least three tools that hold out hope for reversing America’s urban policies. As stated in the book, the first is smart growth (or SmartGrowth in the text) legislation in states such as Maryland and New Jersey. Annexation and regional government are the other two. Cities that receive top marks for using annexation powers surprisingly include sprawling Houston. Portland, the poster child for controlled growth, is likewise lauded for its regional government efforts. The glossed-over question is whether these public powers can be combined with public sector leadership possessing the talent and vision admittedly found in the private arena. Would it be unfair to accuse Bloom of tilting at windmills? Where do we go from here? Let’s stay tuned for Bloom’s next predictable effort on how the War on Terror has thwarted the hopes and dreams of America’s underclass (and academics) once again. Remember the peace dividend? All the dollars flowing to the Office of Homeland Security are dollars diverted from urban social welfare programs. In Bloom Part III, the smart growth movement will be co-opted by the wily private sector, creating more illusions designed to foil governmental reviewing agencies and gullible buyers. Alas, social democracy will remain elusive in this country. In the end, if you’re looking for utopia, look in the dictionary after unreachable.Rouse, in his heart of hearts, surely knew he wasn’t building utopia. But he was building a sustainable product long before the word became fashionable.Rouse andhis colleagues knewbottom-line considerations were paramount for survival. They weren’t operating under any illusions and neither should we.