Under the leadership of Paul D. Zwick and Margaret H. Carr, the University of Florida's GeoPlan Center used geographic information systems (GIS) to estimate what land use in Florida might look like in 2060, assuming current development patterns continue. The two images above represent existing and 2060 projections for developed and conserved lands.
Images / Florida 2060: A Research Project of 1000 Friends of Florida
|
Florida's Future Depends on Today's Land Use Decisions
By Jim Cato, PhD
Florida is experiencing a progressively unfolding dilemma as a consequence of booming population growth and development in the context of limited natural resources. Urban development, suburban sprawl, reduced acreages of agricultural lands, transportation pressures, coastal densities, habitat fragmentation, water allocation and quality issues will become even more contentious issues than they are today. However, we have the opportunity to come together as citizens and create innovative ways to build more efficient buildings, towns and communities, conserve natural areas, protect the environment and keep agricultural lands in productivity. It will be a challenge and it will not be easy. A recent popular news article speculated that by 2050, or even earlier, the rest of the nation would be just like Florida is today, with its population pressures, mix of cultures and natural resource pressures. In effect, Florida is a bellwether state, and any solutions we find for our problems "at home" can be applied nationally.
Land Use Predictions
Florida has 38.2 million acres of land area. This does not include Florida's near shore coastal ocean. With a coastline extending 1,350 statute miles, Florida's coasts are also under pressure, with about 77% of the population living in the 35 (of 67) coastal counties. Florida's 2005 population of 17.9 million people is expected to double to 35.8 million by 2060. This will cause a dramatic shift in land use patterns statewide as predicted by Paul Zwick and Peggy Carr of the GeoPlan Center at the University of Florida. The impact will be as follows with full details available at http://www.1000friendsofflorida.org/planning/2060.asp:
- 7 million acres of additional land will be devoted to urban use. This means 2.7 million acres of agricultural land will be lost along with 2.7 million acres of native habitat. An additional 630,000 acres of land currently under consideration for conservation purchase will be lost. More than 2 million acres within one mile of existing conservation lands will be urbanized.
- Marion to Osceola counties will be urban.
- South Florida will be mostly urban except for some agricultural lands just north and south of Lake Okeechobee.
- Duval County will spill over to Nassau, Clay, St. Johns and Baker Counties. The Big Bend and Panhandle areas will be the only significant open areas remaining.
|
Land Use and Sustainability
The general concept of sustainability is to provide the best outcomes for human and natural environments both now and into the indefinite future. It means we must consider all aspects of our economic, social, institutional and environmental resources in our decision-making. Sustainability can be practiced at all levels; from how we use a small piece of land or manage our individual household to how decisions across large geographic scales affect a region, state or the world. Land use is the cornerstone for achieving sustainability. Decisions about land in Florida made today will affect us for the rest of time. Science-based teaching, research and extension information is needed in a number of areas to help us achieve a sustainable Florida. These areas include:
-
Creating Community--from building partnerships to visioning and implementation.
- Planned Growth--from creating economic opportunities to building great places to live.
- Growing a Sustainable Economy--from agriculture and food production to manufacturing and industry.
- Protecting Natural Resources--from ecosystems to forests and agricultural lands to the coastal shoreline.
- Governing Sustainably--from public services to waste management.
- Living Sustainably--from lifelong learning to health and nutrition.
|
The UF Role
The University of Florida (UF) has the opportunity to be a "world-class" leader in helping find solutions to the problems we are facing as we plan our future. As a major research, AAU, Land Grant and Sea Grant university, no other university in America can match UF's depth and breath of academic disciplines with an interest in land use. And to build on that strength, no other university is located in such a rapidly growing bellwether state. In effect, UF is sitting in the middle of a "living laboratory," it has statewide reach through the Extension Service and it has the talents to help our state plan our future. This can be achieved through a coordinated response to the problem, a structure that will allow the faculty and students to work in an interdisciplinary way, support from the administration and the financial resources to do the job.
The University of Florida is in a great post ion to lead the way in Land Use. PLUS, GeoPlan, and Florida Yards are established programs that connect faculty and community experts across disciplines.
Photo / University of Florida & College of Engineering
|
A land use teaching, research, and extension program that will become "world-class" in reputation, scope and productivity is unfolding at UF. Under the leadership of Stephen Mulkey, The School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE) at UF has organized about 70 faculty members into a People and Land Use Strategies (PLUS) workgroup http://www.snre.ufl.edu/programs/plus.htm. This emphasis is consistent with SNRE's strategic plan which identifies land use dynamics as a top priority. Currently, the PLUS faculty stretch across nine colleges and 40 departments and other units. The interest in land use at UF is truly interdisciplinary and reflects the breadth and depth of UF's academic programs.
The current membership of PLUS needs to be expanded to include both on and off-campus faculty with Extension appointments and responsibility to complement the teaching and research faculty who have initially responded. This will add faculty with primary responsibility for youth (for example, 4-H) and the social sciences perspective who deal with people seeking solutions on an everyday front-line basis. Using a combination of teaching, research and Extension faculty to plan integrated programs will bring a truly interdisciplinary approach to the problem and engage the faculty members who want to be engaged.
This will also allow a Florida Land Use Program to build on already ongoing activities ranging from work carried out by the GeoPlan Center in the College of Design, Construction, and Planning to the effective Florida Yards and Neighborhoods Program in UF/IFAS Extension. The University of Florida Warrington College of Business already has an excellent degree program in Real Estate and the Bergstrom Center for Real Estate Studies. The Program for Resource Efficient Communities associated with IFAS Extension and SNRE promotes the adoption of best design, construction and management practices in new residential community developments and provides continuing education courses. IFAS has created two new faculty positions in land use and water policy, a new research and demonstration site in Hastings, Florida to work on sustainable agriculture and to develop best management practices for handling residential storm water run off. Several new county-based Extension faculty in growth management have been hired and a new partnership with the Levin College of Law Center Conservation Clinic to provide legal Extension work has been developed. This complements a longer-term relationship between the Clinic and Florida Sea Grant to work on waterway management and boating issues along Florida's coasts.
Goals
It is necessary to present some overarching goals that the creation of a land program could achieve. The initial focus is Florida, due to funding potential, needs and policy. UF already has some excellent programs and faculty that focus on national and international land use. The current need does not ignore them; rather, it focuses on Florida first. Some laudable goals for a Florida land use program include:
- Accommodate growth patterns while maintaining critical agricultural and natural areas. This includes finding innovative ways that land-based agriculture and shore-based marine industries can continue to produce food, fiber and services that support daily demands of consumers, from forestry to vegetable production to marinas and boatyards. Many of these products and services are place-based and depend on critical location in rapidly developing areas.
- Land use changes are driven by the market and by the property rights of the land owners. Enhancing agricultural and natural land use values through adequately valuing and paying for the ecosystem services they provide will allow land owners to make market-based decisions to keep agricultural and natural lands in their current use. Market-based incentives and management techniques that contribute to conservation goals are the highest priority.
- Ways for existing and future urban land use to accommodate more people, in less space, but with an improved quality of life need to be designed. This includes housing alternatives for home ownership at affordable levels near places of work, incentives and/or enhancements for developers to build "green" communities and provide infill, permitting concepts that achieve desired goals at less cost, and innovative design of neighborhoods to achieve desired amenities, efficient housing and green space and parks.
- A more efficient transportation structure that will increase the ability of citizens to move about with minimum congestion needs to be created. This requires long-range thinking and planning and becomes a part of community design and development decisions including the co-location of highways, water and sewer, power lines, etc.
- Land values in Florida are rapidly increasing in a state where property taxes are a principal source of public sector revenue. Creative fiscal policy solutions need to be generated that keep property taxes affordable, and shared services and intergovernmental cooperation increased to provide more efficient public sector services. This is particularly critical in the rural counties.
- Climate change impacts need to be considered in long-range thinking and planning decisions. Included in this is the need to plan for disaster mitigation as a part of developing communities.
- Economic development is still a high priority, even in a rapidly developing state. Development strategies need to range from supporting "clean" industries and high tech industries to creating jobs in "small to mid-sized companies" for middle-income workers and the service sector to continuing support for agriculture and natural resource based industries. This is also tied to creating affordable housing in some of Florida's high-income and high land value areas.
- Community design and development decisions that improve public health need to be considered. This ranges from providing recreation alternatives to minimizing activities that affect public health through environmental contamination and pollutants.
- The tourism industry is a major economic engine for Florida. Much of this industry is based on the natural land-based and marine resources of the state. Creative ways need to be determined to maintain and grow this sector, while at the same time keeping the resources on which it is based sustainable and productive.
|
Our goal as a state must be to create the optimum and sustainable use of our land for urban, conservation and agricultural needs as far into the future as we can plan. Our plan is for UF and SNRE to be a major partner in achieving this goal.
Jim Cato, PhD
Senior Associate Dean
SNRE
Contact:
Dr. Jim Cato
(352) 392-5870
jccato@ufl.edu
|
Dr. Jim Cato serves as senior associate dean and director of UF's School of Natural Resources and Environment and director of the Florida Sea Grant College Program.
For more information on how SNRE is addressing issue in land use, visit the following web sites:
The People and Land Use Strategies (PLUS) Work Group
University of Florida IFAS Extension: Solutions For Your Life
The Sustainable Communities Network
|
