Impacts
Social
Economic
Environmental
Climate, low income taxes and property values, and a thriving economy are some attractions that Florida offers to its 15 million residents. In little over thirty years, central Florida has tripled its population. This growth has been a response to the economic potential tourism has fostered in a blooming service industry. In the '90s alone, the Orlando region (Orange, Seminole, Lake Counties) grew 34 percent to 1,644,561 residents. The majority of this growth took place in "cookie cutter" neighborhoods sprawling dangerously into once rural areas. Historically, the expansion of development has followed the rivers of transportation. Orlando, being no different, has over the years grown along the I-4 corrdor into the old citrus and cattle farms of yesterday. The agricultural heart of Orlando has been transformed into social and economic centers of cement and glass. The automobile dependent society has risen in ranks to rule this kingdom of mini-malls and conspicous consumption. Growth has spread viciously over the landscape in the ugly form or urban spawl, leaving an ever expanding web of infrastructure and development. We have defaced the local ecosystems and detached ourselves from the last naturally wild tracks of land. With uniform fashion, maritime hammocks and old-growth pines have been put aside to make room for our neatly cut lawns and paved roads. Once thriving clusters of biological diversity have retreated out of our concrete jungle north to the still thriving natural areas of Ocala and Wekiva; but how many can survive in these unique public lands? The growth of the Orlando metropolitan area and its related conglomerate of sprawl has already drastically changed the landscape of Central Florida and its people, while also continuing to threaten the last remaining pristine regions.
