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myregion.org is. . . |
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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. | |
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December 6, 2007
UCF Metropolitan Center Looks at “Florida’s Threatened Resources”
As Florida continues to face the challenges associated with being among the fastest growing states in the nation, the UCF Metropolitan Center for Regional Studies recently hosted three forums to examine “Florida’s Threatened Resources.”
The series, which featured national, state and local experts, provided an opportunity to look in-depth at some of the major environmental issues facing Florida.
Below are brief recaps of the three forums:
Shifting Demands: Trends in Land and Living
Featuring Anthony Flint, author of the book This Land: The Battle over Sprawl and the Future of America, the first forum focused on land use and America’s insatiable appetite for eating up land.
Flint suggested that the fundamental question is how we desire to arrange ourselves on the land and in general, over the last 25 years the desire has been to create un-tethered communities that have no connection to urban centers. Flint calls this phenomenon “Ex-urban Sprawl.” He added that one reason for this trend is that people move further away from the urban core because the housing tends to be more affordable, leading people to “drive to qualify.”
He also pointed to the pattern of separated use as a major reason for increased land consumption. Over the last three decades, most development has separated living, working and shopping in different locations. Since 1982, 25 million acres of rural land has been converted to development in the United States with the nation adding 43,000 new shopping centers.
Flint did provide some hope for the future as he said there is a “perfect storm for change” revolving around three factors: Environment, Economics and Equitability. He said that factors including global warming, shifts in consumer demographics and the high cost for infrastructure will help reduce the appetite for developing land.
In the future, he expects significant recycling of land through redevelopment. He pointed to Baldwin Park as an example of land reuse and said that redeveloping old airfields, military facilities, industrial sites and shopping centers will continue to be a popular trend.
Florida’s Vanishing Water
Featuring Cynthia Barnett, a writer for Florida Trend magazine and author of Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern United States, this forum focused on the future availability of water in Florida.
To help set the context for the conversation about water in Florida, Barnett provided some interesting historical perspective for how Florida has gone from “water rich” to “water challenged.” In 1845, 75% of the state was submerged. Since that time, nine million acres of wetlands have been drained. She also explained that Florida has a “Hydraulic Divide” north of Orlando as 80% of the residents of the state live below that line, but just 44% of Florida’s precipitation occurs there.
While the rainfall for Central Florida is only slightly below average in 2007, for much of the Southeast United States 2007 has been the driest year since statistics were first kept in 1895. This drought has specifically impacted Atlanta, portions of Alabama and the Northwest Panhandle of Florida.
Much of Barnett’s message, along with the panelists that followed her presentation, concentrated on the need to reduce water demand in Florida. Though water demand nationwide has been in decline since the 1980s, it has continued to increase in Florida. It is projected that Florida will need two billion more gallons of water per day by 2025.
While the general assumption is that the continued increase is because of population growth, Barnett pointed to other places where growth is occurring, yet demand is not. California expects water consumption to stay consistent between now and 2030 though the state is projected to add an additional 12 million residents during that time.
Barnett said that agriculture is the biggest water user in Florida with irrigation and residential toilets among the other significant water uses.
While the 20th Century was known for enormous infrastructure projects, the 21st Century has the capability of being known as the century of reduced water consumption. It is a commitment that must be made by elected officials and citizens across Florida.
The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century
Featuring James Howard Kunstler, author of several books, including The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century, the final program in the UCF series focused on the emerging global energy crisis that could significantly alter the way Americans travel and build in the 21st Century.
By his own admission, Kunstler provided a “severe, but coherent view” of what he termed a “global crisis.” He said it is the result of “comprehensive failure of leadership” including leaders in politics, business, medicine, finance and education.
His primary focus was on the continued decrease of the availability of oil, combined with the increased world oil reliance. While oil production in the United States peaked at 10 million barrels a day in 1970, the world production hit a peak of 86 million barrels a day in July 2006 and Kunstler said that many oil exporting nations are now in depletion. In addition, many oil-producing nations are also now consuming more of their own oil, which is adding to the depletion problem.
Kunstler said that as oil production declines, the United States will be dramatically impacted not just because the nation imports significantly more oil than it produces, but also because the country has built an economy and lifestyle based on the abundance of “cheap oil.”
He pointed specifically to Florida as a place where current living arrangements are not sustainable in an energy-scarce society. He pointed to the “Psychology of Previous Investment” as a major obstacle in the United States. The economy is now devoted to the production of suburban sprawl, rather than focused on creating value.
Looking at the recent “housing bubble,” Kunstler predicted that it is not just a cycle, but the beginning of the end of the suburban sprawl period. He said that the future in the United States will have to be built differently. He said there were three options for suburban sprawl: salvage, slums and ruins.
In the future, rural lands must be used differently. He also predicted that the end of oil dependence will require farming to utilize more human (and animal) attention and be less dependent on machinery.
Kunstler didn’t provide any “Rescue Remedies,” but did say there was a wide menu of things that can be done to meet the challenges facing the United States. He offered several “intelligent responses”:
- Farm Differently: Smaller farms that have less dependence on machine labor and fertilizer.
- Inhabit North American Differently: In the future, the only urbanism should be “new urbanism.” He said that traditional suburban development is dead and that we could see a reversal of the 200-year trend of people leaving rural areas and moving to the cities. He predicted that city centers will probably remain vibrant, but that outer edges of cities will deteriorate.
- Do Commerce and Trade Differently: Unless changes are made, the current commerce system will implode as it will become increasingly difficult to move goods.
- Create Schools Differently: The current education system is not built for energy efficiency. He predicted that home schooling will become a more significant part of the education system.
- Make Things Again: Instead of importing such a large portion of our goods, in the future Kunstler predicted that the United States will have to go back to producing goods, but will have to do it in a cost efficient manner.
[PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION]
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