I drove to the Palm Beaches from Stuart, Florida yesterday afternoon to see what was happening down there during the summer, and I was happy to find that there were lots of people out and about both in Palm Beach and West Palm Beach. In Palm Beach, most of the action was at the beach itself, which is no surprise, considering the heat and humidity, although there were a number of people walking down Worth Avenue, too, doing a bit of window shopping. Meanwhile, it looked like a typical weekday afternoon on West Palm Beach's Clematis Street, which seems much more vibrant than Worth Avenue, not to mention much more down-to-earth. I drove through CityPlace, too, located just to the south of Clematis, which is one of my favorite neighborhoods, the main square of which can be seen in the photograph above. When this mixed-use development first opened, there was a Macy's, a Barnes & Noble Bookstore, and an AMC theater, which are now long gone. However, with all the apartments, restaurants, office buildings, and upscale shops, not to mention a Publix Grocery Store, it is still a fun place to hang out. And I am still amazed that Port St. Lucie, located just to the north of Stuart and which has no downtown, endless suburbs stretching into scrub and swampland, and nobody out on the streets, is the 6th largest city in Florida, while West Palm Beach, which has so many high-rise condominiums, apartments, offices, hotels, colleges, you name it, is number 18. How can that possibly be? It boggles the mind.
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