I can still remember my parents' reaction the first time they saw Weston from the window of our Ford Escort travelling down Alligator Alley. "Damn that's a lot of red roofs!"

Weston is an upscale suburb of Fort Lauderdale, located on the very edge of the Everglades, population 56,500. It is entirely the creation of Arvida Corporation. Arvida was once a subsidiary of Disney: since then, they've become independent, but not without their own little scandals. For example, they were sued following Hurricane Andrew for failing to meet building codes for structural integrity in the Redlands. Anyway, in the mid-1970's, they began building the first of what would be thousands of identical white two-story houses with red roofs, with the spaces between them filled by canal-like lakes. These subdivisions were originally unincorporated, but in 1996 a number of them merged together to create an official City of Weston, and shortly afterward, merged with the neighboring city of Bonaventure, Florida.

Weston bills itself as the "nation's premier municipal corporation." I think that says a lot in itself. The houses there are nice, although the mosquitoes will eat you alive.