This doesn’t answer the OP’s question but for future reference, almost all reality shows are scripted. Hardly anything on them is as presented.
Yes, some are.
I have relatives who live along the MS/LA state line and the land that they own contains wetlands, marshes and swamps.
It can seem counterintuitive if one thinks of hunters as short-sighted 2-dimensional people who are in it just for the kill. And that’s a totally fair assumption if you look at how commercial meat/fishing industries operate. What escapes a lot of folks is that hunters are frequently people who really love wilderness and incorporate an occasional kill into the deal. A common description of an elk hunt: “We were having a really great time, and then someone pulled a trigger…” Even the more bloodthirsty realize no habitat = no targets.
You’re thinking of (probably) the infamous General Development Company.
They most likely did not need to try to sell the actual Everglades - there are 100,000’s, if not millions of acres of unbuildable marsh in SW Florida - and they sold most of it at least once.
My father was one of the suckers - bought a chunk of land with a strip of asphalt just above high tide near Punta Gorda.
After his death I was on a long-delayed drive across the country, so I looked up the place - 1000’s and 1000’s of miles of cheap asphalt on just enough fill to be dry (most of the time). Across the road was a depressing sight - an older couple with a map, some document (presumable a title) on the hood of their car. They just stood there, looking at the map, the document and the street signs. It was sad to see the reality of the situation sink in.
There is a problem with living 6" above water level - when you flush, where does it go?
Remember “water seeks its own level”? Same thing - you can’t use a septic system, and sewers run in 50’ increments between lift stations. Nobody ever told them about that, and few would think of it themselves.
As to Ducks Unlimited: the irony is, after years of arguing for conservation, all of a sudden, it becomes a politically correct thing to “preserve” the marsh - and preserve everything in it. How DARE you want to kill those cute little ducks, you cads!
I just had a look at that region on Google Maps.
What am I looking at here? Are those regulalrly spaced dots along the vague canals overgrown half-built foundations? An abandoned housing tract, or just cleared land? It certainly looks a lot like swamp to me. Although just to the north they seem to have built plenty of actual viable neighbourhoods.
Those are close enough to town to be homes or foundations for homes.
The lot I looked at was on the north side of the river (Port Charlotte side) and well inland.
That was 23 years ago, and it has built up. If you find a large wagon-wheel shaped development inland, go another 10 miles inland and see father’s brilliant investment.
If the waters are navigable, the federal government has an easement to use it irrespective of ownership.
My dad retired to Florida in 1986. He went into selling real estate. As the fng in the office, he got assigned all the bad jobs. Frequently this meant dealing with folks who had bought a lot from GD. GD had advertised in papers and weekend news supplement in a lot of east coast cities. $100 down, and $20 per month got you a piece of paradise. These folks, having paid into this scam for years, needed help locating their lots. Sometimes it was their kids, looking at their inheritance. My dad would take them out into the wilderness, show them where the lot was, and step back a few feet, giving them a moment to talk. Usually they asked him to sell it. Which he hated, because they had to pay to list it - nobody really wanted to buy them. 
The state forced GD ( or it’s successor ) to put the roads in, in the late 70’s?
In the 80’s the DEA paid to have telephone poles put in, at 100 yard increments, on alternate sides of the road. This was to discourage drug smugglers from landing there.
The whole area has been in scams since the 20’s. Developers would buy up thousands of lots from tax sales, advertise and scam a new generation of victims. They would abandon the lots, and let it go for taxes. Then a new scammer would start the whole cycle all over again.
Another thing that isn’t obvious, is that a lot of South Florida has problems with ptable water. In much of the area, you cannot simply put in a well. Groundwater is scarce, and much of it comes from the Peace river. It is a finite resource, development is channeled into areas that have water service. Similarly electric and sewer service is regulated. In the GD area, there isn’t water and electric and sewer availble.
My dad never did much as a agent, quit it after awhile to find other work.
Yeah, after father died, we kids got letters from agents promising to get $8000 for our piece of swamp.
I hit FL last on that trip, so had a letter my brother had kept. I looked up the agency. They guys there just shook their heads and said “she never did sell much” - apparently some bright-eyed young agent had the bright idea to mine the local Recorder’s office and sent out hundreds of these letters. The agents explained the local real estate picture:
50% of all listings were due to death of owner.
Every developer who actually tried to make a go of it (as opposed to the 100% scam GDC) went bust.
The local economy was 100% snowbird - medical care, food service and swimming pool maintenance.
I’m surprised there has been any development inland.
For the record: GDC did create one successful development: Coral Gables was, according to the RE folks, was GD.
I was in a diner in Englewood with my dad recently. I am 59. The place was crowded. I looked around, and I believe that I was the youngest person in the place, including the help! I ran into another guy there from Michigan - he was working as a pool cleaner.
Sometimes it’s nice to hear not much has changed…
Other times…
That wagon-wheel shaped development I used as a reference point had been through 3 developers, and actually had potable water and a functioning sewage system. I talked to folks in the sales office (they were again building). Since purchasing the place and starting to again maintain it (there are sewage lift stations on every other lot - not something to hope doesn’t break), all they had gotten from the current owners was static about how the new folks were responsible for all past sins.
I kinda doubt that the new folks stayed.
But the roads did serve some purpose (other than drug-runner’s landing strip) - I found old couches surrounded by beer cans and condoms. Ladies: if that is your date’s idea of a fun, mayhaps it’s time to move on…
Yes, my family owns land that is mostly swamp land. There have been alligator hunting :pleases.
Disney started buying swamp land in Florida in the early 60’s. Guess what’s there now?
Googling the General Development Company, I cannot believe L. Ron Hubbard never considered buying The Compound, and getting all the members to turn it into a tropical paradise through hard work and engram power— if only for the name.
Hell, a good bit of the land under Interstate 10 is under water.
Most people don’t realize that going to the beach is not something you do in Louisiana. Unless you go to Biloxi that is.
People say Texas is another country, but in Louisiana, south of I-10, it’s mostly another world.
ETA: Although the food there is divine!
GD may have forced the states to put in roads… because the states want taxes, and they might not get taxes if the roads are not there. Without the roads, GD could go on selling decades old subdivisons… (that the state can’t reverse.)
So the state may have seen it as a profitable excercise to install roads,
they either get paid taxes, or get the land … gentrify (build proper houses, upright respectable residents do that, as the assumption… ) or revert…
DEA put telephones in ??? See taxes, last paragraph.
taxes without facilities… residents without 911 ?
etc etc
No coincidence – if you like crayfish. 95% of US commercial crayfish is raised on Louisiana (and a bit of Texas) swampland. Most of this is in private ownership, and much has been engineered enough to be stocked with crayfish to get things started (after which they’ll reproduce on their own).
My source? An excellent New Orleans cookbook published in 2005 by Williams-Sonoma.