ABSTRACT
Nearly every major aspect of Florida's problem of controlling growth and protecting environmental quality can be found in Dade County. Dade is itself a sizeable region, part developed and part undeveloped, covering 2,054 square miles, an area almost exactly the size of the state of Delaware (see figure 6-1). Its still burgeoning population of almost 1.4 million residents is nearly twice as large as that of any other Florida county and represents a seventh of the state's total population. Dade's problems are, broadly speaking, of three kinds:
First, there is that of checking the decline in the quality of life in Greater Miami through the control of population densities and other measures, while at the same time maintaining and enhancing a healthy economy.
Second, there is the problem of controlling Greater Miami's expansion from beyond the few hundred square miles of north Dade that is already heavily urbanized. South Dade is the county's frontier area where land speculation is rampant and extensive development is beginning.
Finally, there is the problem of preserving Dade's valuable remaining Dade County https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315064581/8480ba6d-e22b-499e-9aeb-660120c9280d/content/fig00044_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> natural areas, no small matter inasmuch as these include part or all of the Everglades National Park, FCD Conservation Area No. 3, and Biscayne National Monument, plus some extensive areas that are not under public ownership and protection.
Policies for controlling land use and guiding growth are not likely to succeed in the rest of Florida if they do not succeed in Dade County. Indeed, state officials will have much to learn about appropriate strategy from Dade's experience and its current groping for effective policies. In 1972, the elected officials of Metropolitan Dade County (or "Dade Metro") began seriously to look for a growth policy and strategy. The undertaking of a major revision of the county master plan, together with the declaring of moratoriums on new construction in selected areas pending zoning studies and possible "rollbacks" to lower densities, was evidence of that search. So also was the proposal by Dade Metro's new mayor, john Orr, that Metro should establish limits on population density for all parts of the county, even overriding the municipalities in this critical matter whenever necessary.
