Let’s Talk About Florida – Swamp Peddlers
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
4:00 pm
LET’S TALK ABOUT FLORIDA – Zoom Book Discussion
Join in a lively conversation about Florida history as depicted in literature about Florida. Free and open to all, register below for Zoom link.
Swamp Peddlers: How Lot Sellers, Land Scammers, and Retirees Built Modern Florida and Transformed the American Dream by Jason Vuic
Moderator: Author Jason Vuic
From the Back Cover:
Jason Vuic tells the raucous tale of the sale of residential lots in postwar Florida. Initially selling cheap homes to retirees with disposable income, by the mid-1950s developers realized that they could make more money selling parcels of land on installment to their customers. These “swamp peddlers” completely transformed the landscape and demographics of Florida, devastating the state environmentally by felling forests, draining wetlands, digging canals, and chopping up at least one million acres into grid-like subdivisions crisscrossed by thousands of miles of roads. Generations of northerners moved to Florida cheaply, but at a huge price: high-pressure sales tactics begat fraud; poor urban planning begat sprawl; poorly regulated development begat environmental destruction. All this culminated in the perfect storm of the twenty-first century subprime mortgage crisis.

More Information: About the Author
Originally from Punta Gorda, FL, Jason Vuic is an award-winning author and historian based in Fort Worth, Texas, who specializes in creative nonfiction. He is a graduate of Wake Forest University and holds an M.A. in history from the University of Richmond and a Ph.D. in history from Indiana University Bloomington.
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