How about all the jobs that have been created? Seems like that has benefited the rest of Sumter County.

[QUOTE=Two Bills;1684646]Well said!

I’m pretty sure I speak for many as far as crowding goes, shall we have a referendum? And there is no such thing as an opinion holding water. I think you meant my arguments don’t hold water. However, out of curtesy, I will bow to your greater wisdom. Things are great so far, otherwise I would not have chosen TV from anywhere else. May it continue.

The increased population definitely has an impact, for those of us who have visited sporadically over several years, before finally buying a home here. Just like the frog in the pot who doesn't realize he's being slowly boiled alive, people who are accustomed to gradual increases don't realize how crowded it is.

The town squares in the evenings are a prime example. Traffic is horrible. It was crowded, 10 years ago. But now it's SO crowded that I find it safer to not even drive INTO the square to look for a parking space anymore. Instead I go to the nearest parking lot behind the square, park near the back of the lot, and walk the couple of blocks. Drink huts at the squares didn't usually have a line to the street. Now they do.

There are still only 2 -completed- town squares to accommodate the entirety of the Villages. Brownwood still has a lot of vacancies. Call it half a square. That's 2.5 squares to accommodate over 100,000 Villagers, plus visitors of Villagers, plus people who are from the towns and neighborhoods outside the Villages and just want to shop here or eat here, plus employees.

Granted you won't see everyone all trying to go to the squares at the same time every night. But when there's a "big event" the crowds are much larger now than they were then, because there are simply more people, and the accommodations have not increased enough to handle it.

Golf cart bridges, trails, tunnels, paths, sometime back up now. Forget about trying to get to Sumter Landing from Spanish Springs by golf cart if you happen to be behind the bicycle club. That club has grown so large you'd be lucky to get there in the time you could have just walked. Happened to me a few months ago - there were over 20 cyclists riding in a cluster, two abreast, not leaving any room for a golf cart to safely pass without ****ing off a faster-moving car trying to get past the mess too.

This is all just increased congestion caused by higher density of the population.

Florida, Texas, and California might well be the most populous states. But of the three, only Florida is even ON the top-10 list of DENSITY. How many people per square mile. Texas is enormous so if it had even twice the population of New York City, it still wouldn't have the congestion problems NYC has.

New Jersey has the highest density - 1210 people per square mile.
Compare to Florida, which is in 8th place: 378 people per square mile.

Now compare the state of Florida at 378 people per square mile - to The Villages: 1670. That's right. The Villages, Florida, has more people in it per square mile than Florida itself, and in fact, more people per square mile than the front-runner for density, New Jersey.

Now let's scale that back a bit and compare it more generously, to a northern county. New Haven is 1427 people per square mile. The Villages, which is smaller in geographical size, has more people in it than the entire county of New Haven, CT.

Now we want to add the inhabitants of a new RV park to the congestion. Morse and Buena Vista, 466, 44, all those other main roads - are public roads. Non-Villagers use them daily to get back and forth from point A to point B. The more people you squeeze onto those roads, the more difficult it will be for the people whose community was built in a circle around them. Should be interesting when the people come, and the new supermarkets to handle the crowds aren't built or completed yet, and all of a sudden people who buy frozen foods start discovering their ice cream is thawing out in the shopping cart while they wait til their turn at the overcrowded register.

Do they mean travelers or permanent parking? Sorry, just curious if it'll be more like a mobile home park or RV's passing thru.

Maybe it is not the frog in the pot theory at all. That is one view.

How about one that lives here continuously year round/year in and year out develops a pattern of how they live their life style here. And the increasing populations has little or no impact how they conduct their daily lives. Because most of the "needs" are decentralized i.e. swimming pools, mail stations, rec centers, regional rec centers, shopping centers, country clubs, golf courses, etc, etc, etc.
Folks sort of develop their bubble within the bubble.

We find if we are flexible we can participate in almost anything by not going at peak times....for example it seems many, many eat dinner between 4:30 and 6:30 pm....we go to dinner at 6 pm....rarely have much of a wait.
Tee times.....in 16 years anytime of the year we have never not gotten a tee time on the day we want to play.

And so on.

So I do believe that living here year around yields a different perspective and expectation VS a sampling of visiting every so often.

When South of 466A evolves like it did to 466 and and then on to 466A there will be more services/entertainment/shopping/etc/etc.

IMHO!

I like Jazuela's essay about density per square mile. Makes me nostalgic: where I grew up in the West, there were only five people to the square mile...my mother, father, two brothers, and me. Life was simpler there, if harsher.

BTK is right, you've got to be flexible here.

I can relate. In NM where I grew up, there are at present only 17 people per square mile. There were probably less than half that when I grew up there.

Population density can be a real hassle. My home town is a pretty typical suburb in New England. Or was. We had our little strip-malls, a couple of nice supermarkets, a couple of bodegas, and most kids lived in walking distance to the nearest elementary school, and therefore - walked, most days. The area around the high school had the most congestion, but even then it was still just a 4-lane road, 2 in each direction, a state road, with the "magic mile" of small stores plus a Caldor's and a Bradlee's on one side, a Sears and a couple of car dealerships on the other side. We usually climbed the wall behind the high school to the plaza for pizza slices at lunch time instead of buying at the cafeteria in the school.

Fast forward 20 years - the wall has been made unclimbable. Since you only get 40 minutes for lunch at the school, it's no longer possible to leave the property for lunch. The lunch-time lines at the restaurants in the plaza are too long and you'd end up missing your next class. Trying to walk across the street if you live in the nearby neighborhood is dangerous, even with the double-walk light. Forget about riding your bicycle on the main road now, it's been changed to a 4-lane with center left-turn lanes and merges into two more shopping plazas on the right.

If you are driving near the school when it lets out in the afternoon, be prepared to be stuck for almost 10 minutes while the buses leave the lot. It used to be less than 5 minutes. No one walks to school anymore because they've condensed the schools, so the before and after school hour, you just have to accept that you might be stopping every 4 houses for the next half hour while the bus in front of you lets one kid off in front of his home.

Why all of this? Because of development. They turned the top of the hill over the plaza into a 2-mile stretch of apartments and condos. They surrounded the outskirts of this area with more condos and apartments. They've developed closer to the downtown area with more condos, more apartments, and more university dormitories (it used to be a small college).

It's dangerous now, because of the congestion. Many more accidents. Most people came to the town 30, 40 years ago because it was just a suburb, a sprawling bedroom town of New Haven, with a few nice-sized farms, a dairy, and working class, lower-middle and middle class homes, with just a small section of mansions on a side road.

Now, it's just a congested mess with ridiculously high taxes to pay for all the road repairs needed because of the added traffic.

The influx of population in this area has been happening steadily since we moved here in 2006. There were complaints at first that there were empty places in Lake Sumter Landing Square and the Publix at Colony was swamped. We lived here before there was a Sams, a Michaels, a Joannes, and a myriad of other welcomed businesses. I have listened and read complaints that the businesses were not meeting the needs and most were blaming the developer for not "putting" them here when they were needed. The Free Market slowly but surely filled the need. The Villages is such a successful enterprise that it's growth is unprecedented but finally demographers are aware of us and businesses interested in getting in on the success of this place are coming.

Trying to stop people from moving here is laughable. You and I both moved here for similar reasons that new people will come.

I am wondering how anybody would stop the RV park from being, I don't know.

Florida and The Villages are always crowded during the high season. We will have to wait at the restaurants, have trouble parking at the groceries, not be able to find seats at the squares and have congestion on the roads.

What exactly Jazuela would you do to stop the congestion here during the high season??? Or anywhere in the snowbird season?

Problems from snowbird season - Bing

Snowbirds are people too.....except we call the ones in Fruitland Park, fruit flies.

Sorry. ;)

Trailer Park being built next to The Villages
So, what so you think about this? This was the OP'S question.

We have learned that this is not a Villages sponsored Development even though ties to Villages employees have been made. Given all the discussion I think it's FANTASTIC. The High Season and The Migratory Humanoids are what make our Community Great. Bring them on. I can't wait to see our missing neighbors or should I say the neighbors I miss. They are the greatest. I swear that we have never been held up in any line or hit heavier traffic when everyone comes back. We learned quickly to manage our time properly and so far have not called out the WAAAAMMBULANCE and don't expect to over the newest development OUTSIDE The Villages. I like all the development, can you imagine if we were like Lehigh Acres was some years back? That would be a reason to shed a tear!

Guest Passes
 

Unlimited guest passes... we all know the large amount of amenities they are entitled to even though so many are actually not guest of TV residents. That is if your definition of “guest” is actually a guest at your house.... so I can get multiple 30 day guest passes for a couple I barely know RVing in Florida January thru March or renting a house outside of TV... after many years here I hv never seen or knew of any village friends or neighbors actually having guest stay with them in their house for very long especially not 30 days...

What will the blend be made of...?

Live and let live. The villages don’t own everything .

Hope we haven't forgotten that the original "Villages" was mobile homes....We owe our "Lifestyle" to them.