Story I heard was that the period 1960-1990 was a natural ebb in the cycle of hurricanes, which encouraged all sorts of real estate development in the parts of the US that are vulnerable to them. We're now seeing a return to more historically normal levels of hurricane activity. Hurricane activity runs in decades-long cycles, influenced by a whole lot of other stuff from sunspots to possibly global warming.
There was a lot of building in Florida in the 1920s. There was a land boom there that's very reminiscent of the current housing boom in the US. The Great Miami Hurricane came along in 1926 and that's when land values collapsed there. The Great Miami Hurricane caused worse damage than Andrew did in 1992, adjusted for inflation. Land values in Florida didn't recover until after WWII, and it's thought that this localized drop in asset values was one of the straws that broke the camel's back to kick off the stock market crash of '29.
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Date: 2005-10-09 05:30 am (UTC)There was a lot of building in Florida in the 1920s. There was a land boom there that's very reminiscent of the current housing boom in the US. The Great Miami Hurricane came along in 1926 and that's when land values collapsed there. The Great Miami Hurricane caused worse damage than Andrew did in 1992, adjusted for inflation. Land values in Florida didn't recover until after WWII, and it's thought that this localized drop in asset values was one of the straws that broke the camel's back to kick off the stock market crash of '29.