What is Your Vision for the Future of Central Florida?

That is the fundamental question that has been asked, and answered, by thousands of Central Florida residents during the “How Shall We Grow?” campaign to Create a Shared Vision for Central Florida.

As the unveiling of the final shared vision at the Regional Summit on August 10, 2007 nears, city and county leaders are now helping to “fine tune” the regional vision by envisioning what they think their community will look like in 2050. As the elected voices of the people, city and county leaders have the power to use the vision of their residents to determine how growth will happen within their jurisdiction. Gaining an understanding of how each municipality envisions their future will help ensure that a shared regional vision not only visually depicts what the future could look like for the region, but also helps craft policies and an implementation strategy that can help make the vision a reality.

Through community meetings, presentations and surveys, residents have identified three key themes for how they want Central Florida to look in the future. Choice A – Green Areas - depicts how the region might look if preserving environmental land was the primary focus of all future land use decisions; Choice B – Centers – shows clustering future population growth around city centers; and Choice C – Corridors – shows the region creating a wide variety of transportation alternatives.

We know that residents desire a region that includes as much green space, natural habitat and recreational area as possible. To help ensure that open space is maintained, they recommend that rather than continuing the current pattern of “urban sprawl”, future growth should be focused on expanding current city and town centers and developing new population centers where people can live, work and play. Finally, residents want these centers to be connected by a variety of transportation options that minimize the amount of time people spend in route to places and maximize the time spent enjoying the positive elements of our region.  

Of the 86 municipalities currently incorporated in Central Florida, which ones will be “centers” as we move toward 2050? And, are there emerging centers, either in incorporated or unincorporated areas, where today there may be only a few residents or jobs, but in 2050 could be major population or employment centers for the region? 

Specifically, city and county leaders are being asked to take population “bubbles” and indicate how they envision their community will look in 2050. As is the case today, it is expected that in 2050 Central Florida will continue to offer incoming residents many choices for where and how they will live. The East Central Florida Regional Planning Council and MPO Alliance will use the results to create a final visual illustration of what Central Florida could look like and how communities could be connected in 2050.

For this regional exercise, city and county leaders were given the current population for their specific community and then asked how (or if) they saw their community growing in the future. Options ranged from small hamlets (less than 5,000 residents) and villages (5,000-9,999 residents), to towns (10,000-29,999 residents), and then small (30,000-49,999), medium (50,000-99,999) and regional cities (100,000 and more).

While it is projected that our region will double in population by 2050, not all cities and counties will approach growth in the same manner. Windermere, in Orange County, and Malabar, in Brevard County, are both small hamlets with less than 3,000 residents today. Neither community desires to significantly increase their population over the next 45 years. Conversely, Minneola, a village in Lake County with less than 10,000 residents, envisions itself as a small city with more than 40,000 residents by 2050.  Both choices illustrate that communities still possess local choice and can make their own future decisions about how they want to grow.

For more information about “How Shall We Grow?” please visit www.myregion.org.

myregion.org - A Regional Development Program - is an organization of citizens and leaders from public, private and institutional sectors who have launched a program to prepare the Central Florida Region to compete more effectively in the 21st century while enhancing the quality of life of its citizenry.