Sarasota: The Devolution of Paradise

Before I moved to Sarasota, I had gone over forty years without ever realizing that I was a peon. I knew I was a second-class citizen because I was Cuban, Hispanic, Latino. (I answer to all three, as well as American.) But by the time I reached adulthood that was a thing of the past. The world had changed; the culture had become more accepting. I married and lost the surname. I still use it in place of a middle name, perhaps because it is so charged. My looks are generic brunette, making me of indeterminate ethnic origin. And having lived in NYC for decades, I had the New Yorker's native aplomb and egalitarian perspective.

When I moved to Sarasota, it was a town that didn't quite realize it had morphed into a city. Once a week, I'd go downtown to Main Street, visit the library, frequent the sleepy stores, and have a coffee at the depot. Despite the city's many pretensions to culture, I soon found that any cultural pursuit involved being the only one in the audience who didn't have blue hair. Further, I soon realized that unlike in New York City where people of all socioeconomic and sartorial levels mingle at cultural venues, in Sarasota attending any of the arts was an exercise in social climbing. I should have gotten the hint then.

Soon in the guise of development, the city commission sold the soul of Sarasota, not to the highest bidder, but to the most well-heeled one. One after another luxury buildings went up downtown. It was not unusual for the politicians to throw 6 million tax dollars at a private project. The result of which is that the poor and middle class were edged out. Now they run around carrying on about "affordable housing." The housing projects in town are in a dismal state, but there is no money to fix them. The federal government has had to step in and take them over. Yet on two luxury condominium projects alone, they subsidized the rich to the tune of 12 million tax dollars.

At the time, when they were all giddy with glee that Whole Foods and its patrons were coming, I was a voice in the wilderness. I pointed out that they were trying to turn downtown into Park Place, but that New York also had Broadway and Chelsea and the Village. By the time the locals figured out what was going on and booted a couple commissioners out. It was too late. All the funky little places and just about all the local color is gone.

Away from downtown, development after development sprang up behind walls, despite the lack of crime, an exercise in elitism. Each cookie cutter, faux Mediterranean was surrounded by perfectly manicured, over-watered, over-fertilized lawn.

Well, what's done is done. Still, what is most insidious to me is the culture that has developed. There was always a snobbish element in this town, but it was a small circle. In fact, I was oblivious to it, until I volunteered for a benefit and realized that who I was and what talents I brought to the table were irrelevant because I did not have or pretend to have copious amounts of money. Unfortunately, that mind set is now the norm. These are not high society types, nor are they culture mavens. They are well to do people who have sold their homes up North for ungodly sums and invested these in condominiums. Now they have arrived. They are somebody. Add in the poseurs and shameless self-promoters who come to town and take it by storm, only to be exposed at some point down the line, sprinkle in some of the truly wealthy, and you have a town that worships money and nothing else. In short, you have a town without a soul, a town of Philistines.

It really saddens me, because for a long time, this really was paradise. There is almost no place that rivals Sarasota for natural beauty. It is, however, a natural beauty that is rapidly becoming the province of those than can afford it. Why, they've been angling for the past few years to install parking meters at the beach. Imagine.