ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on urban containment in Florida which can be associated with neighborhood quality improvement since the advent of statewide growth management implemented in earnest in the late 1980s. Urban containment programs can be distinguished from traditional approaches to land use regulation by policies that are explicitly designed to limit the development of land outside a defined urban area, while encouraging infill development and redevelopment inside it. Nelson and Dawkins created a typology of urban containment programs based on a content analysis of more than 100 containment plans, many from Florida. Their typology classifies most containment efforts in Florida as "strong-accommodating." The urban containment movement seeks to reform state growth management legislation and is a reaction against the perceived ills of urban sprawl. In studies of urban and suburban Portland neighborhoods, Lund and Yan Song and Gerrit-Jan Knaap found that perceptions of neighborhood quality were influenced by having many of New Urbanist design characteristics in the neighborhoods.