When Stuart was already an established city, the City of Port St. Lucie was nothing but a developer’s dream.

Fast forward 60 years and Stuart is much the same geographically as it was in 1961, a charming relic of Old Florida. Port St. Lucie is a city of over 200,000 people and still growing by leaps and bounds. As a Stuart resident, is my quality of life better or worse than someone who lives in Port St. Lucie? I will say that it is different.

Stuart was (and for the most part still is) the home of entertainment for much of the area but that is changing as Port St. Lucie continues to expand. As Port St. Lucie grows, the availability of restaurants and night life becomes better and more diverse to service its growing population. It is just natural that the more people that live in a city, the more opportunities there are for businesses of all sort.

That may be happening with the expansion of Cleveland Clinic. Even when it was Martin Health, the hospital in Tradition became the future and had a much bigger footprint than the original in downtown Stuart. Cleveland Clinic has bought an additional 44 acres in Tradition. Does anyone not think that will be where much of the future lies for the hospital system on the Treasure Coast?

Long ago, Stuart decided not to annex surrounding land as Port St. Lucie has continued to do. Now even if Stuart wanted to do so, there isn’t much available vacant land left. Geographically, Stuart is about as big as it ever will be. People have a conniption anytime Stuart annexes a few acres while in Port St. Lucie thousands of acres come in as a matter of course.

For all intents and purposes, Stuart has stopped growing. Sure, there are approved projects that could bring as many as 7,500 more people into the city if all is built. The population will still be significantly under 30,000 people. Not exactly a metropolis.

Economically, you cannot grow anywhere near what is needed to have enough jobs and create enough wealth for long term viability. At some point, the fire department will go away as will the police department as the ability to fund them is diminished. As municipal services shrink, so will the opportunities for everything from events to new business ventures.

Who do you think the politicians in Tallahassee will look to please…Port St. Lucie or Stuart in the years ahead? Stuart is like Blanche DuBois, the character in “A Streetcar Named Desire.” She a southern belle from a forgotten age living off her charms which are fading ever so slightly with each year that passes.

At some point, she is unable to cope with the brutality of life represented by her brother-in-law, Stanley. The vivaciousness and sheer sexual alure of her little sister, Stella, steals the spotlight from Blanche. Delusion and illusion of some mythical past no longer can be contained as the wider world intrudes on Blanche’s self-vision of a long ago past that could be only in her mind.

When does little sister, Port St. Lucie, consume it’s sibling Stuart to the south figuratively if not literally?