beachmouse said:
Beach,
That would be swell if developers would build college-style dormitory buildings with plenty of parking and Wi-Fi connections, recreation centers and downtown nearby with good, cheap food places and some great coffee bars and bar-bars so the fresh-faced, well-educated college students can kick back and relax when they're done their 8-hour shift. We all know THAT ain't gonna happen--with globalization and profit to be made, things have certainly changed in the last couple of years. Back in the olden days of Destin (pre-boom) college kids would flock to town, pool their money, and get a room to work out the summer (those arrangements have now turned into CONDO$)--those days are over. Today's Gen-X college students ain't gonna make beds and swab out toilets for little more than $6.50 an hour, a bus ride, 3-hots and a cot.
As long as there is profit to be made by importing cheap migrant labor (the bigger the profit margins the better), such arrangements are ripe for corruption and greed. And do you seriously believe that people in the surrounding communities will jump at the chance for having one of these facilities nestled among their subdivisions? (The answer to that is to mow down some lumber in the boondocks <JOE has plenty> and bus these folks back and forth, leaving them out in the sticks to twist in the wind between shifts.) Importing migrant labor has become big business and keeps costs down. For the sake of the workers, I hope these new "dormitory" arrangements are heavily regulated and controlled...but it's not likely.