In 2005, PennDesign Central Florida set the stage for the “How Shall We Grow?” Project by providing Central Florida with a “wake-up call” for how significant future land consumption would be if we maintained current land use patterns. Two years later, students from the University of Pennsylvania were back in Florida, this time using the entire state as a model of why it is essential to think and act differently when it comes to land use. They unveiled their alternative future on May 24, 2007 at a gathering of more than 200 people at Harry P. Leu Gardens.
Sponsored by the UCF Metropolitan Center for Regional Studies, PennDesign Florida was a semester long “design studio” during which graduate students from the University of Pennsylvania, under the guidance of renowned urban planner Jonathan Barnett, reviewed a recent trend model for how Florida would look in 2060 if current practices continue and then designed an alternative future that would accommodate the same number of people, but use significantly less land and natural resources while also potentially saving billions of dollars.
What Is The Current Trend?
The State of Florida is projected to double in population between now and 2060 from a population today of nearly 18 million to more than 36 million residents. Currently the fourth largest state in the country, Florida will easily bypass New York and by 2060 trail only California and Texas in total population.
According to the land use model done by the University of Florida GeoPlan Center, if current policies and land use patterns are maintained, the addition of 18 million residents will result in the development of an additional seven million acres of land, including 2.5 million acres of environmentally sensitive areas. That means that in 2060, more than a third of all land in the region, 13 million out of 38.3 million acres, will be developed.
What Can Be Done To Ensure A Different Future?
The University of Pennsylvania students incorporated seven key principles into creating their alternative future:
- Protect Florida’s Essential Land
- Invest in Balanced Transportation
- Plan for Climate Change
- Don’t Waste Land
- Design with Nature
- Encourage Compact Development
- Rebuild to Create Great Places
Using these principles as the guide, they created an alternative that significantly reduces the amount of land used for urban development while nearly doubling the amount of permanently protected conservation and agriculture land in the state.
“Going contrary to the trend is not only better,” said Professor Barnett, “ it is also cheaper.”
The study estimated that the cost to provide urban services for the seven million acres projected in the trend would be more than $700 billion dollars. In the alternative, the new urban footprint reduces from seven million to 1.6 million acres dropping the infrastructure cost to $174 billion. Even when additional costs for land acquisition, roads and transit are added, the projected cost of the alternative model is $326 billion less than the cost of the trend.
What Would This Alternative Future Look Like?
“The future is about building great communities,” said Tim Jackson, Chair of 1000 Friends of Florida. “It is not about stopping growth, but instead accommodating it on our own terms.”
As a recommendation for land use in the future, it is difficult to get more direct than the principle, “Don’t Waste Land.” Quite simply, the PennDesign Florida study calls for development to be placed in locations that optimize already existing services and are in relatively close proximity to jobs and transportation.
In the “How Shall We Grow?” project, input from more than 17,000 citizens recommended a three-prong approach to the future: protecting as much green space as possible, focusing population growth in city and town centers and using a variety of transportation choices to connect the population centers.
The PennDesign Florida alternative also emphasizes those three key themes. The Alternative Florida of 2060 calls for the permanent protection of nearly nine million additional acres of environmentally sensitive land to give the state a permanent green footprint that would ensure that more than half of all the land in the state would be available for recreation, agriculture, preservation and conservation.
Rather than continue sprawling population to any available open space, the alternative scenario encourages redevelopment of currently under-utilized areas into thriving communities where people can live, work and play. While the single-family home on an acre of land has long been the “American Dream,” the upcoming “creative class” is interested in proximity to shopping, transportation, restaurants and other amenities, rather than living in gated large-lot communities.
Creating a variety of transportation options is also an important theme in the alternative scenario. Rather than depending solely on highways, the scenario calls for an inter-connected high-speed rail system connecting Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa, and Miami. Each city would also have its own local rail system that would reduce dependence on cars and roads.
Can We Really Avoid The Trend?
While the design studio achieved its mission of getting community leaders to “think outside the box” by providing alternatives for the future, the question of whether it is truly possible to change the current trend still remains. There is little doubt that breaking past habits will be difficult.
“The trend is the trend for a reason,” said Perry Reader of Crosland-Florida. “It may not be a good model from a land use standpoint, but it has been very financially successful for a lot of people.”
“The legislature is not set-up in a way that encourages long-term design and planning,” added Jim Murley, a former Secretary of the Florida Department of Community Affairs and the Director of the Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions at Florida Atlantic University. “You will have to be willing to make changes at the state level in the areas of leadership, investment and empowerment.”
While changes at the state level may not be a short-term option, in Central Florida, elected officials are already taking steps to work toward changing the future trend.
As part of the “How Shall We Grow?” project, Central Florida has engaged elected officials in the conversation about how to move the region forward in the areas of protecting the environment, reducing sprawl and encouraging transportation options. At the “How Shall We Grow?” Regional Summit on August 10, elected officials and community leaders from across Central Florida will pledge to continue working together toward creating and implementing policies that emphasize the three key themes.
Whether this commitment will be enough to change the future is yet to be seen, but it does provide a good start toward making Florida a place where people will continue to live, learn, work and play for generations to come.
