East Naples is unincorporated, which makes Collier one of the few counties in Florida whose seat is not a city at all. The courthouse moved here from Everglades City in 1962 after Hurricane Donna. Around nineteen thousand people live here, with a median age in the mid fifties and four in ten residents over sixty-five.
It is a mixed-income area and genuinely different from coastal Naples: more modest housing, more year-round residents, and a wider spread of building ages. Permits go through Collier County rather than the City of Naples, which catches people out.