Places in Florida that Shouldn't Exist

By Joe Marzo

Florida is not a naturally stable place. It is low. It is flat. It is porous limestone covered in wetlands. Its barrier islands migrate. Its hurricanes reset coastlines. Its freshwater floats delicately above saltwater in underground aquifers. Large portions of the peninsula were never meant to support dense, permanent settlement. And yet Florida has spent more than a century defying those limitations.

Entire cities were carved out of mangroves. Swamps were drained and sold as opportunity. Bay bottoms were dredged into subdivisions. Coral islands were tied together with concrete and steel.

What follows are not accidents. They are deliberate acts of engineering and speculation. Some are triumphs. Some are warnings. All of them raise a simple question:

Should this have been built here at all?

Cape Coral: The Canal Experiment

In the mid 1950s, brothers Leonard Rosen and Jack Rosen looked at thousands of acres of scrub and mangrove across the Caloosahatchee River from Fort Myers and saw something most people did not.

They saw geometry.They purchased roughly one hundred thousand acres of land that was largely undeveloped and difficult to access. Rather than adapt to the land’s natural water systems, they reshaped them. Massive dredging operations carved more than four hundred miles of canals into the flat terrain. The marketing pitch was simple and devastatingly effective: affordable waterfront living.

Buyers in Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland were shown renderings of palm trees and boats docked behind modest homes. For a few thousand dollars down, they could own Florida waterfront property.

What few understood at the time was that these canals permanently altered natural drainage patterns. Septic systems were widely used before centralized sewer systems were expanded. Nutrient runoff flowed into enclosed waterways. Water quality issues became a recurring theme. Infrastructure, from roads to utilities, often lagged behind rapid population growth.

Cape Coral now houses well over two hundred thousand residents and continues to grow.

Geographically, it was never a natural canal city. Economically, it was brilliant. Environmentally, the long term costs are still unfolding. Cape Coral exists because speculation, engineering, and relentless marketing overcame ecological restraint.

The Everglades Jetport: The Airport That Almost Consumed the Swamp

In the late 1960s, Florida nearly made its boldest and most dangerous move.

Miami’s rapid growth led planners to propose a new international airport west of the city in the Big Cypress Swamp. It was not meant to be modest. It was envisioned as the largest airport in the world, capable of handling supersonic aircraft and eventually serving as a global aviation hub.

The project was known as the Everglades Jetport. Construction began. A massive runway was completed deep in the wetlands. The location was only a few miles north of Everglades National Park, in a region that functioned as a critical part of South Florida’s water system. The Everglades is not just scenery. It is a slow moving river of grass. Its hydrology is delicate and interconnected.

Scientists and environmentalists warned that an airport of that scale would require highways, housing, industrial zones, and drainage modifications. It would fundamentally disrupt water flow into the Everglades.

The backlash was intense. Environmental awareness in the United States was rising in the late 1960s and early 1970s. After mounting pressure, the project was halted. Today, the completed runway operates in limited capacity as Dade Collier Training and Transition Airport. From above, it is surreal. A strip of asphalt in the middle of sawgrass and cypress.

Had the full airport been built, South Florida’s environmental trajectory could have been radically different. The jetport should never have been started. It remains one of the closest Florida came to permanently industrializing the heart of its wetlands.

Davis Islands: Manufacturing Elite Land

During the Florida land boom of the 1920s, speculation gripped the state. Railroads expanded. Tourism exploded. Property values soared. In Tampa, developer D. P. Davis decided to create land rather than simply sell it. He dredged material from Hillsborough Bay and used it to form two artificial islands just south of downtown Tampa. The new land was marketed as an upscale Mediterranean paradise, complete with yacht basins and palm lined streets.

The concept worked. Davis Islands attracted wealth and prestige. But it was never natural ground. It was bay bottom elevated and reshaped. Like many filled coastal areas, it has faced periodic flooding and long term subsidence concerns. Seawalls require maintenance. Storm surge risk is constant. Rising seas introduce new uncertainty. And yet, the islands remain some of Tampa’s most valuable real estate. Davis Islands exist because engineering turned shallow water into status. It is a reminder that in Florida, geography can be rewritten if the market is strong enough.

Marco Island: Canalizing the Mangroves

Before its transformation, Marco Island was largely mangrove forest and coastal marsh. It was ecologically rich and hydrologically complex. In the 1960s and 1970s, developers initiated large scale dredging projects. Canals were cut through mangroves. Fill was redistributed. Waterfront lots were created where none had existed.

The transformation was dramatic. Artificial waterways replaced natural estuaries. Wetlands were reshaped into residential grids. The appeal was obvious: direct Gulf access, private docks, controlled neighborhoods. But altering mangrove systems changes more than scenery. Mangroves stabilize shorelines, filter water, and provide critical habitat. Their removal shifts sediment patterns and impacts fisheries and water quality.

Marco Island today is a symbol of Gulf Coast luxury. Geographically, it was not meant to support dense canal based development. It exists because engineered waterfront property commands a premium.

The Overseas Highway: Defying the Ocean

The Florida Keys are coral islands. They are narrow, low, and exposed. They shift under storm pressure. They are among the most hurricane vulnerable inhabited areas in the United States. And yet, they are permanently tied to the mainland by the Overseas Highway.

The highway traces the route first established by Henry Flagler’s Overseas Railroad, completed in 1912. At the time, it was considered one of the great engineering feats in American history. Then came the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. The storm destroyed large portions of the railroad and killed hundreds of workers and residents. The lesson could have been retreat.

Instead, Florida rebuilt. Portions of the old rail infrastructure were repurposed into highway bridges. Concrete replaced rail. Steel spanned open water. The Keys became permanently accessible by car.But the islands themselves remain fragile. They are threatened by storm surge, erosion, and rising seas. Infrastructure maintenance is constant. Insurance markets fluctuate. Evacuation logistics are complex. The highway exists because Florida chose persistence over surrender. It is a road built across vulnerability.

What These Places Have in Common

None of these places are empty mistakes. They are not abandoned ruins. They are populated. Profitable. Iconic. That is what makes them powerful. Florida repeatedly chooses development in spaces that nature never designed for permanence. Wetlands are drained. Barrier islands are armored. Bays are filled. Canals are carved. Infrastructure is layered onto unstable ground.

And often, it works. For decades. Sometimes for generations. But Florida’s foundation is still limestone and water. Its elevation is still measured in feet. Its storms still reshape coastlines.

The deeper question is not whether these places should have been built. It is whether Florida can continue expanding into geography that resists permanence.Because for more than a century, Florida has treated environment as obstacle rather than boundary.

And the negotiation between ambition and ecology is not finished.