Loss of Jazz Fest says more about us than we realize

We find it sad that South Walton is saying goodbye to the Seabreeze Jazz Fest.
On Tuesday, the Bay County Tourist Development Council voted to pay $10,000 to help Jazz Fest organizers move from Walton County to the new Pier Park shopping village in western Bay County.
The Jazz Fest started as just that, a gathering of jazz artists on the beach. In its 10 years, it grew from a regional gathering to an international collection of jazz aficionados who came to hear some of the best modern-day jazz musicians.
During that time, it bounced from location to location. Hosting neighborhoods found it too noisy, with too many people who came in too many cars and swarmed over the area like ants on a sugar cube.
This year's final South Walton Jazz Fest is at Gulf Place, a place the Jazz Fest left once before because of the lack of parking and space for other festival accommodations such as bathrooms and vendor booths. Now there is even less space as Gulf Place added even more rental property last year.
Bay County's open arms welcome for the yearly event is the polar opposite of Walton County's snubbing of something as common as a "music festival."
It demonstrates South Walton's inability to commit to being one community, rather than a collection of independent neighborhoods. It reeks of over eagerness to maximize every square inch of land into personal profit rather than development of a continuity of services that would serve the entire area.
While our TDC works with smoke and mirrors to smack a travel sticker across the area's collection of hotels, rent houses, walkable communities and ever shrinking beaches, Bay County is aggressively seeking to maximize its area for both visitors and residents and recast itself as a grownup travel destination.
South Walton has no amphitheater, no community center, no venue that will accommodate a large event and no plans to build any.
Why is that?