THE OLD GRAY MARE SHE AIN’T WHAT SHE USED TO BE

Say “Ocala” to anyone in Florida and they will reply, “Horse Country.” The 1960s saw horse ranches replacing farms and cattle ranches in central Florida. It was actually a rather short-lived change since by the 1980s the ranches were being sold off to developers who stuck up houses, apartments, and shopping malls. I live in an apartment complex called Paddock Park after the ranch it was built on. (I just discovered that the new management is changing the name. Shame on them.)

When I arrived here in 1998 there were ranches on three sides of the main intersection. At night I could hear the horses whinny. Saturday mornings I would walk over to see the horses at one of the ranches. Things changed. One ranch gave way to a Catholic High School. It’s a nice school, and they have to build them somewhere with enough land. Last year another ranch became a shopping mall. Don’t know why we needed that since it just meant the grocery store moved from a location about a mile away. Now there are seven empty stores in the old mall and about the same in the new one. That’s progress of some sort, I guess.

It’s now final that the last two ranches, Red Oak Farm and Ocala Stud, will go the way of the developers. The locals fought against the re-zoning. The planning board recommended against it. The city council, which is in thrall to the developers, overruled the decision. So a couple of thousand more houses and apartments will be sprouting up soon.

Housing developments seem to be the only going concern here. The leaders of the local guv-uh-mint manage to jinx every attempt to bring in businesses with good paying jobs. There may be some logic behind this. More jobs would increase the need for workers and raise the pay scale. That would increase the demands of the grossly underpaid  EMTs, firefighters, sheriff’s deputies, and teachers for raises. The guv-uh-mint can’t allow that because it would mean higher taxes and higher taxes means not getting elected again. 

Allowing more houses and stores, however, means more tax revenue without raising taxes. Everybody’s happy–until they get stuck in th traffic jam near the new development  That’s going to require a bigger street to replace scenic Shady Road. And if we add thousands more people, where are we going to find room in the already overcrowded emergency rooms? The result is that everything gets uglier, services worse, but the good ole boys keep getting re-elected. 

I understand the problem. It isn’t profitable to run a horse ranch, at least not so many of them. Nobody will make money putting the land back into agricultural production. The only choice seems to be sell to the developers, but do thy have to pack in so many houses and apartments and strip malls? That was the planning board’s objection. The usage was too intense. 

I don’t know if you have ever seen Riverside, a suburb of Chicago planned by Frederick Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in 1869. It’s a gorgeous community. I suppose it couldn’t be reproduced today, because most people would be able to afford living there, but it is at least an inspiration for what might be possible. I’m fortunate to live in a place where there was some imagination. They kept the old trees. The buildings are staggered so that you don’t look out your living room into someone else’s. The probably could have crammed 50% more apartments in here if they had laid out the property like a military barracks, but they didn’t. 

I believe that designing ugly developments with people living cheek by jowl makes life more unpleasant. Surely we can have the sense that some people had 150 years ago in how to plan communities. If only the little minds could dream of something better without looking first at the bottom line. As Robert Kennedy said paraphrasing George Bernard Shaw: “Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not?”  Sadly, the satire of Carl Hiaasen comes closer to reality: “Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others see things that might be and ask: How much?”  

May he Lord bless you on your journey and great you on your arrival. 

Wayne

Pictures from top: Red Oak Farm, Ocala Stud, Paddock Park as an apartment complex.