No U.S. community has worked harder than Fort Lauderdale to shun spring breakers. The South Florida city - where the annual beach exodus was born in 1935, boosted by the 1960 film "Where the Boys Are" and bumped to new heights by MTV - suddenly choked off the chugathon 22 years ago. Now, Fort Lauderdale even teaches other resort towns how to get out of that boozy money pool.
Laudy Laudy Laudy, long gone are the days when we 305'ers (me in particular) had any shred of respect for your beaches and nightlife. The article on MSNBC details the pains the city of Ft. Lauderdale went through to curb raucous and fun seeking teens flooding the city during Spring Break. While the locals are happy us youngins are heading to other Florida cities to spend wads of cash retailers are, who wish not to be named for fear of Lauderdale style drive by shooting at the hands of seniors, say how the city is viewed as a dying area. Much like Miami before the Cocaine Cowboys graced us with their contraband.
As a result of the more family friendly facade Laudy propped up, many large retailers began pulling out or shutting down. Granted the tourist industry is now a year round destination for Laudy so the plan to exterminate promiscuous youths seems to have come to fruition. Though it took 20 some odd years. I could've told those kids Ft. Lauderdale sucked ages ago.
1) Area sucks
2) Ballsy, crazy young people take over area as a playground
3) Area becomes 'hip' because of kids
4) Real estate developers sense blood in the water, improve area, make it posh etc.
5) People who heard about the area on TV move in (crazy kids are too busy partying to afford the down payment)
6) People get tired of crazy kids shooting up on their stoop, use their political clout to have them removed, etc.
7) Cycle moves on to somewhere else.
This is what is happening to South Beach, The Grove, downtown, Ft. Laudy, etc..