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From the The new 'South Florida'
Palm Beach Post Editorial
A Florida Atlantic University-based think tank has looked at recent growth trends in South Florida and offered credible ideas. Among the more intriguing is to ask ourselves, "What is South Florida?" The Catanese Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions would answer that it has become a seven-county area of 7,750 square miles and 6 million residents. The center calls for more regional planning, but a key premise of its "Regional Shift: South Florida in Transition" report is that the rapidly changing region has expanded to seven counties: not just Monroe, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach but also Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River. Researchers said residents and public officials had better face the fact that, with the population expected to double in the next 25 to 30 years, urban-type problems will be found much farther north if cities don't recognize their interdependence. Gridlock could be inescapable as far north as Indian River County. Along with north-south expansion is the move to western areas served by the Florida's Turnpike, such as where Indian River is not bounded by a dike and where, with Broward and Miami-Dade built out, people discovered Homestead. As people move farther out, they are commuting more and more, but increasing highway capacity is becoming less and less an option. Some conclusions are familiar. Job growth has not kept up with population growth in what the researchers referred to as "the valley of disparities." Nor has wage distribution; high-wage employment still is outstripped by low-wage jobs related to tourism. The disconnect between wages and speculative housing prices is a troubling new issue. The 23 percent of residents with bachelor's degrees is up from 18 percent in the 1990s, but many brought those degrees with them. To show how fluid are their predictions, the FAU researchers, who promise to regularly update their www.soflo.org web site, speculated that there could be two subregions: one southern, including even parts of the Caribbean, and old South Florida, where the population still is 47 percent white. But in many ways, South Florida is like metropolitan areas elsewhere that spill over state lines but form their own separate economies and want to reflect that. The FAU researchers have provided a framework for others to address these issues. What they correctly call "an accidental region" must become a more intentional one or remain fragmented behind others that might have sunshine, too, but fewer traffic problems. Change is happening much faster than local institutions are cooperating, which means they need to learn how to work together, and quickly. |
