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On any given Sunday, Old Cutler Road near the Deering Mansion is bustling with activity.
Walkers, bicyclists, golf carts, hordes of spandexed bikers irritating drivers, and drivers irritated by spandexed bikers all share the public spaces between Ketanji Brown Jackson Street, formerly Eureka Drive, and Coral Reef Park. The blessing of our public space is substantiated by the number of people enjoying it. Nearby businesses like Alaine’s Osteria, Sir Pizza, the coming soon Old Cutler Inn, and Starbucks share benefits.
Palmetto Bay deserves big credit for anointing a magnificent oak fully dressed with ferns and blooms on the car-free Chinese Bridge Trail section parallel to Old Cutler Road as the 2025 Tree of the Year. Seeing this gorgeous specimen, only full-blown conspiracy theorists would accuse Palmetto Bay of rigging the botanical results. With this in mind, I can nominate a few of my own contenders for future consideration.
Life without a healthy public sector is half as good as it could be. Every place has beautiful spaces that it should champion in its public sphere. Needless to say, I am not in favor of privatizing Miami Beach, Central Park, the Everglades, the Grand Canyon, politicians who give their friends the keys to charter private schools, or turning the Alamo and Independence Hall into Taco Bells and Waffle Houses. People need and deserve good public spaces. I don’t know who we can blame for the lame playground spaces that we have in our public parks and the annoying country music blasting from the cigar smokers in the no parking area hijacked by a few selfish old dudes in golf carts by the fishing hole by Deering, but no matter – these are public spaces. When compared to the Deering Estate, which charges two arms and three fingers to enter, these free public spots are a gift.
How can we regain respect and support for public spaces? Shakespeare had an idea several centuries ago when he suggested that we first kill all the lawyers. Since so many of my friends and family are in the legal profession and are (mostly) good solid people, let’s let the Bard’s suggestion go. Other snarky folks have amended this by suggesting that we first kill all the developers, and while that’s not the worst idea I’ve heard, I’m a peace-loving individual opposed to most violence outside my dinner plate, and what is a society without development?
Of course, a fundamental problem cursing the public sector is human nature. We people are often greedy, selfish, jealous and envious. I spent five years living in Japan, and one day out of the blue, one of my young Japanese colleagues said with a snarl, “I hate selfishness”. He was on to something; this gets in our way.
Strengthening the public sector is not really a bad idea, no matter how badly operated it may be, no matter how many compromised politicians effectively parrot talking points about privatization, and no matter what fiction DOGE spun. We are not better without a Palmetto Bay 2025 Tree of the Year, Coral Reef Park, the bike path, the baseball fields, the basketball courts, the soccer fields, the tennis courts, the volleyball courts, and parks.
Now whether public funding should be spent on pickleball is a discussion for another time.
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