Megaregion Florida: Home to the Next 18 Million Residents

The world is no longer about towns, cities, counties, metropolitan areas or even states. Those traditional boundaries are becoming insignificant as a nation of 300 million braces for another 125 million people by 2050.  Florida expects to double its population from nearly 18 million today to nearly 36 million residents by 2060.  As Florida and the nation continue to grow, big cities are bumping into small towns, stretching into rural areas, gobbling up farmland and merging into big urban blobs defined as megaregions, and further refined in smaller scales as megapolitans.

If current development patterns continue, millions more will settle around the major metropolitan areas: along interstate highways and near major airports. There are now scores of metropolitan areas merging to form nearly a dozen giant megaregion areas linked by common culture, economy, geography and ecology.

Famed urban studies theorist Richard Florida defines megaregions as integrated sets of cities and their surrounding suburban hinterlands across which labor and capital can be reallocated at very low cost.  Areas such as Seattle/Portland/Vancouver BC and Boston/New York/Washington D.C./Baltimore are excellent examples of megaregions.  Richard Florida defines the Florida megaregion as Miami/Tampa/Orlando/Jacksonville, nearly the entire state.

Robert Lang and Arthur C. Nelson of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech furthur refine the 10 American megaregions into nearly two dozen megapolitans, defined as areas that:

• Combine at least two existing metropolitan areas, but may include dozens of them;
• Total more than 10 million projected residents by 2040;
• Derived from contiguous metropolitan and micropolitan areas;
• Constitute an organic cultural region with a distinct history and identity;
• Occupy a roughly similar physical environment;
• Link large centers through major transportation infrastructure;
• Form a functional urban network via goods and service flows;
• Create a usable geography that is suitable for large-scale regional planning;
• Consist of counties as the most basic unit.

Florida itself is broken down into two megapolitians including the Florida Corridor (Tampa/Orlando) and the Trasure Coast (Miami/Ft. Lauderdale).

As Florida grows, we can see that metropolitan convergence is underway in our state.  Once open spaces along Interstate-4 between St. Petersburg, Tampa, Orlando, and Daytona Beach are filling in.  Areas stretching from just south of Miami north along Interstate-95 to Ft. Pierce and up to Orlando are quickly becoming one contiguous urban area.  Both of these megapolitans are now converging to create the Florida Megaregion. 

While more than six out of every 10 Americans, or 181 million people, lived in one of the nations megapolitans, these area account for only a tenth of the nation’s land area according to Lang and Nelson. This produces a density over 500 people per square mile, or what the Census Bureau defines as “urbanized areas.” Megapolitan population density in the U.S. is about half that of Japan but surpasses the European Union. The rise of megaregions counters the perception that Americans live in mostly wide open spaces when compared to Europe and Japan. While decentralization may have occurred at the metropolitan scale, a settlement concentration is under way for the U.S. as a whole. 

Despite the recnt economic downturn, Florida is on track to see significant density gains over the next 50 years as more people move into the megaregion.  The majority of those people will move into already developed areas.  Developed areas will become more dense, particularly in Pinellas County and South Florida counties of Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach where large water bodies and the protected Everglades act as a barrier to development and remaining developable open space will be consumed by the end of the decade.  These counties are now focusing on upzoning, infill, and redevelopment of grayfield space (old malls, warehouse districts, vacant shopping plazas, etc).  In Hillsborough County, where an Urban Services Boundary has been established to preserve agriculture and environmentally sensitive lands, the same infill and redevelopment development patterns are beginning to take place.

Some argue that officially defining megaregions would give business and government a tool to address a variety of issues, from transit to land use, on a larger scale.  In fact, megaregions could serve as the building blocks of a national plan.  If officially designated by the U.S. Census Bureau, megaregion areas would be the country’s largest geographic unit surpassing the current Combined Statistical Areas.  Officially recognizing megaregions could spark a discussion on what types of planning needs to be done on such a large scale. In Europe, megaregion-like spatial planning now guides new infrastructure investment such as high-speed rail between networked cities. Florida and the United States could do the same.  The interstate highways that run through our megaregion, such as I-4 from Tampa to Daytona Beach, would benefit greatly from unified planning in the areas of transit/transportation. Working as a unified region, large-scale transportation and land use planning and similar efforts in such areas as economic development and environmental impact, could be facilitated creating a statewide/megaregion framework for the future.

Infrastructure investment must move beyond basic links across counties and cities to focus on significantly improving capacity and services within megaregions.  Federal transportation aid could be tied to megaregion planning much the way it has recently been linked to metropolitan areas. The Intermodal Surface Transit Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) required regions to form metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) in order to receive federal money for transportation projects.   According to experts, new super MPOs could result from future legislation directing megaregions to plan on a vast scale.

Florida and many parts of U.S. have moved beyond the simple absorption of undeveloped land and are now witnessing intensive megaregion growth while areas outside of megaregions have seen little or no growth.  Intense growth will continue over the next 50 years causing megaregions to see large population increases and a greater strain on already stressed infrastructure and resources. 

What will the Florida megaregion look like in 2060 with an additional 18 million residents?  Metropolitan areas will significantly densify and expand, using more undeveloped land to meet the needs of new residents.  Significant amounts of now open space will be used for new development.  The complete paving over of paradise, however, will not occur.  Planning is now at the forefront of thinking with citizens, businesses, and officials.  The majority of Floridians are waking up to the importance of proper planning to accomodate a growing population.  With innovative growth management our state can hold the line on growth and ensure sustainable development and a better quality of life. 

For more information on megaregions and megapolitans visit the following websites:

http://www.america2050.org/

http://www.angeloueconomics.com/megaregions.html

http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/userfiles/prosperity/File/Rise.of.%20the.Mega-Regions.w.cover.pdf

http://www.lincolninst.edu/pubs/PubDetail.aspx?pubid=1039