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South Florida, nppmQ through th Osit up in the precedmg years.

holels, pierś, marfcnas and mansions that had

tia storm killed *tOO peopie and madę another 50,000 homeless. 11 also marked ai d«ctstve downward Shift In south F loridas economic fortunę*. "Casties in tlie Sand", a ^'ography of Fisher t>y Mark Foster, records that bank deposits In the region fełl by 75% boiwec*ri 1925 and 1929, bankruptcies jumped t>v 600% and the value of buiłding Perm 11 s slumped from $101 m to less than $i3m. And all thł* was before the Depression Pited on further misery.

Fisher ntmself did not escape the damage. Mis worrie* about Florida had not stoppad him ^e|Fib«*)rking on another grand project, to deveiop o dazzling resort much fort Mer up Ar*>enca^#s east coast ot Montauk Point on tho tip of Long Island. But hi* ability to finance the Montauk schemc largely depended on the money flowłng in from Florida, money that dried up as the but>ble deflated. With no cash in the bank and big bill* to pay, Fisher was forced gradualiy to dismantle his Florida empire, selling and bartering land in o desperate bid to balance the books.

The Montauk project went bust in X932- By X933 most of his. remakning employees In Florida were bemg paid in property deeds rather than cash. Fisher declared bankruptcy in 1335 and dled four years later, still m Miami, bloated from clrrhosi* of the llver but a shrunk figurę m every other way. Mis former wife, Jane. descnbed his finał years in Miami Beach: '‘Through its streets Carl moved slowiy, hardly known by the new crowd whosa cars flashed through the streets ho had bu 111."

WHat is ieft behind

The story of Florida's land boom is o classic example of a bubble and its dangers. The _{costs are c}iear* growing speculation as the bubble inflates, driving prices and value further and further apart; the sharks and the fraudsters, peddllng fantasies to misgulded mvestors* the gathering doubts about sustainability; and then the calomitous burstmg of confidence, causing debts, defaults ^and despair.

But the Florida boom to the consequences it has popped it leav< patentiy not the case

,_ _aj_{so a r}eminder that the bubble metaphor does not do fuli Justice ₀# _a fmancial boom and bust. After all, o bubble Is evanescent. Once _nothing behind. Ir* Miami and the rest of south Florida thls was

Bank rupt

first vlsłt«

dr«<l9^e f

changed

Resorts i boom ha pbyskca!

.    _H||t cr_isher had streets to walk through. When ho and

_{n    C}|_ty of Miami was already growing fast but Miami

d Florida lr» l ^{y 1}    , The painstaking efforts of Fisher and other* to

t principally    rrsosdulto^ _{roots and} landscape the new terrain had irrev

e bay, elear tne mangro _2<>* _even began. The boom years of that decadi lamł Beach before trio    _and wlden. Oozens of flagshlp hotel* wara bullt.

of constructloo    _ra* Gables were created In other part* of Florida -

uch as Boca ftotor*    _nevar got anywhere but It also left behind a la*

•+ Its share of schemes tna_«r%d heaches and man-mada iaiand*.

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