Arrested Development: Latin Builders Association by gimleteye

Now that the Miami housing bubble is popping, one would think that Miami might engage in a real conversation about the limits of development.

From the builders' point of view, even if profit comes at debilitating costs to the public there can never be too much development in South Florida: that's the "free market", right?

Subprime loans? Bring em on. Unwitting consumers? Give em mortgages they can’t possibly maintain.

We have noted the ambivalence of Miami Herald executive suite to publish regular investigative reports and analysis of the costs imposed on taxpayers by the influence of big developers on local legislatures.

But we ask the question anyway of the Latin Builders Association.

When it comes time protect one of their own, like the nasty de facto chair of the county commission, Natacha Seijas, they unroll their piles of bank notes freely and without complaint although it is leadership like Seijas’ that spread the costs of growth across Florida’s largest county like radioactive dust from a dirty bomb.

So why does this industry association only ever advocate for suburban sprawl? Where are the dissenters within the LBA? Many of its members are widely traveled and highly educated. Surely, the consequences of failed leadership in Miami must be of concern, surely there must be a sense of ownership--not only of construction company shares--but of the shared city we call home.

Or is omerta, the code of silence, a precondition for membership?

So our question is: what is up, with the arrested development of the LBA?