The strong radial plan makes for horrific circulation and a lack of understanding the interconnectedness of the whole place. It always felt like the canals were actually walls (or at least municipal boundaries) dividing each pie wedge…as there was no need to enter the other wedges: they were all the same and incredible non-descript so they didn’t beg for exploration.

I wouldn’t describe this place as abandoned, as there were hundreds of occupied homes. The density was very low and while the plan infers a central, new urbanist core, there was nothing but a water tower and a children’s play area. There’s no ‘there’ there. It was a quiet, uneventful week, even a bit David Lynch-ian…but Florida is a weird place in general and it ranks low on places I want to visit or spend time. I wouldn’t have considered it except for the low cost and the desire we both had for a bit of solitude.

Makes for good storytelling when you can break out a GoogleMap and say, “I went there!” however. Everyone’s first reaction is that it was a repurposed military testing facility!