Keep the Grove a small village
The Grove does not need more development, low rise or high rise.
The Grove is a small village and needs to remain a small village. Why destroy the area and make it high density? To serve what purpose? To have more people on the streets? How the hell does that help? Less is more.
Do we need to cry for business people who are not locals? People who decided to leave their own neighborhoods to set up shop here, hoping to milk tourists, which are gone now? The tourism business is a risky business.
All of my posts below had to do with people complaining to me about businesses hurting in downtown Grove. My suggestion is -- screw 'em. If businesses want to relocate to the Grove and only be there to cater to tourists, then that is their problem. Try catering to the very people that live in the Grove: people with a lot of spending power.
The Grove can thrive without tourists and actually does. The Grove has some of the highest housing prices in the city, in the world, in fact.
Businesses that will serve the local Groveites will survive. I have no sympathy for businesses that come into an area to milk tourists and then when the toursits are gone, they cry foul. A pharmacy, supermarket, shoe store, bank, hardware store (Shell Lumber, not the Home Despot), will always survive because they cater to locals.
For anyone to suggest we need more development to cater to Cocowalk and Mayfair is out of their minds.
A reader commented below: "The problem is, this involves lifestyle changes for a lot of Groveites, and I certainly don’t get the feeling they are prepared for this. In fact, it seems like a lot of residents wish the Grove would retrofit itself more into a suburban country village than an inner city neighborhood 2 or 3 miles from a major downtown. In my opinion, if this progressive approach or similar is not embraced soon, developers will go elsewhere and this neighborhood’s incredible potential will not be realized."
AMEN. From your mouth to God's ears. When are people going to learn that the Grove does not want developers? We are a village and want to remain that. Who cares that we are a few miles from downtown? Does that mean we need to be enveloped by downtown?
Look at Coral Gables now. It is a total overdeveloped mess. We don't want that here.
The Grove is a small village and needs to remain a small village. Why destroy the area and make it high density? To serve what purpose? To have more people on the streets? How the hell does that help? Less is more.
Do we need to cry for business people who are not locals? People who decided to leave their own neighborhoods to set up shop here, hoping to milk tourists, which are gone now? The tourism business is a risky business.
All of my posts below had to do with people complaining to me about businesses hurting in downtown Grove. My suggestion is -- screw 'em. If businesses want to relocate to the Grove and only be there to cater to tourists, then that is their problem. Try catering to the very people that live in the Grove: people with a lot of spending power.
The Grove can thrive without tourists and actually does. The Grove has some of the highest housing prices in the city, in the world, in fact.
Businesses that will serve the local Groveites will survive. I have no sympathy for businesses that come into an area to milk tourists and then when the toursits are gone, they cry foul. A pharmacy, supermarket, shoe store, bank, hardware store (Shell Lumber, not the Home Despot), will always survive because they cater to locals.
For anyone to suggest we need more development to cater to Cocowalk and Mayfair is out of their minds.
A reader commented below: "The problem is, this involves lifestyle changes for a lot of Groveites, and I certainly don’t get the feeling they are prepared for this. In fact, it seems like a lot of residents wish the Grove would retrofit itself more into a suburban country village than an inner city neighborhood 2 or 3 miles from a major downtown. In my opinion, if this progressive approach or similar is not embraced soon, developers will go elsewhere and this neighborhood’s incredible potential will not be realized."
AMEN. From your mouth to God's ears. When are people going to learn that the Grove does not want developers? We are a village and want to remain that. Who cares that we are a few miles from downtown? Does that mean we need to be enveloped by downtown?
Look at Coral Gables now. It is a total overdeveloped mess. We don't want that here.
posted by Tom Falco at 8:26 AM
YOU MAY NOT LIFT THE PHOTOS & TEXT. IT'S COPYRIGHTED INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. YOU CAN HOWEVER SHARE A STORY ON SOCIAL MEDIA BY USING THE LINKS HERE.
For linking to this one story, just click on the time it was posted & just this story will open for sharing - only through social media. Not copying and pasting.
6 Comments:
Look, you're naïveté is striking and ultimately symbolic of what is wrong with the Grove. You people sound like little children that never want to grow up (or perhaps wannabe suburbanites cowering behind your “safety” gates and walls).
You are NOT a real village (LOL)! Villages are usually pastoral and associated with rurality. Maybe you aren't aware - The Grove was annexed by the CITY of Miami back in the '20s. Maybe you aren't aware that it is located 3 miles from downtown, which definitely makes it an URBAN neighborhood in a major city.
You stated in your post, "Who cares that we are a few miles from downtown? Does that mean we need to be enveloped by downtown?" That's absolutely ludicrous; you're not being "enveloped" by downtown. That is wild hyperbole (or maybe just a severe case of urban fear).
How is Coral Gables an overdeveloped mess? What OBJECTIVE fact are you basing that on? Is it the high cost of living? Is it the demand for more development? Is it because it’s regularly touted by experts as a shining example of urban planning? I'm thinking it's probably because you're jealous of all that, or at least that the Gables is thriving as a city while the Grove plays nostalgia games and lusts for Mayberry. I'm not even going to bother explaining why the Grove is statistically UNDERDEVELOPED for Miami.
I implore you to stop with your movement to repress the Grove.
ryan, BRAVO!
I've posted this in comments on this blog, before, but it's worth posting, again: The typical Grove activist constantly whines that "we don't want to end up like Coral Gables." But when you find out what the typical Grove activist really wants -- strong zoning laws, smart growth, top notch urban planning, unique shopping and dining experiences -- you find that they really would like for the Grove to be more like Coral Gables.
The notion of "downsizing" the center Grove to a village feel is all nice and good, but what do you say to all of the commercial property owners in the area who have a right to get the most beneficial use from their investment? Are we talking about exercising the city's eminent domain power and tearing down buildings to make the village "smaller"?
The notion that we are somehow going to fill Mayfair and the former K-Mart building with local businesses does not comport with reality, either. The Grove is more and more a community of lawyers and other professionals. I somehow doubt that many of these people are going to give up their day jobs to invest in opening little Mom n Pop boutiques in an area as unreliable and fickle as the Grove.
Btw, have you heard the Fulvio sold the Tuscany?
I agree with all comments here. And if anyone read my comment on the post last week, I'm sorry, I did miss the point of the post, and do agree that the Grove should economically establish itself/grow with more than just tourism based shopping.
In response to this week's post, "Groveites" need to stop being selfish F**ks. Do you not realize you live in one of the nation's fastest growing metropolis. You are not 100 miles away from it, in the possibly rural areas being threatened with development. You are in the heart of it. I think it would be safe to assume that most "Groveites" would also be stubbornly opposed to any UDB expansion. So, hmmm, you don't want to grow outwards and you don't want to grow upwards. So that leaves us with??? We must smartly increase the density of many of our neighborhoods, and unfortunately that will bring change, but smart planning and caring/involved citizens can make sure that this smart growth does not bring a change in character.
To anyone who has lived in Miami their entire lives, the whole city has blown up, buildings, condos, communities, strip malls, it's a different place, and the place it was before had alot of charm, and personality, and some, yes, history, I think anyone who has spent their life here does not appreciate the wanton disregard for anything Miami in the name of development and money, there are cities in this country that have established barriers on that sort of thing, instead relying on their city's personality as the source of asset appreciation and money flow into the local economy, we here in Miami however do not have a local government with any vision, and we are plagued by come heres with dollar signs in their eyes, and the Grove is just a microcosim of this problem, it's happening in every small community in Miami.
Post a Comment
<< Home