Good news: Fewer people moving to Florida
Posted on Sun, Jan. 13, 2008
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By CARL HIAASEN
The mad stampede of new residents into Florida is finally slowing down, the inevitable result of high taxes, miserable traffic, overcrowded classrooms and other unappealing urban problems.
According to the Census Bureau, the state's population grew by only 1.1 percent during the 12-month span ending last July 1. That's a significant dip from the 1.8 percent increase recorded the previous year, and it drops Florida's growth rate to 19th in the nation.
This is a cause for relief, not panic. Any lull in the avalanche of incoming humanity should be eagerly welcomed by the 18.3 million souls already living here. The last thing we need is more warm bodies clogging the roads, schools, courts, jails and hospitals.
A break is long overdue. It's not a crisis but rather an opportunity. At long last, state and community leaders might be forced to intelligently confront the economic blowback from decades of inept planning and greed-fueled runaway growth.
With each passing day, Florida is becoming a less desirable place to live. For the first time in modern memory, moving companies report that they're transporting more families out of the Sunshine State than into it.
The disenchantment is widespread and deep-seated, judging by a new Mason-Dixon survey that was released by Leadership Florida, a group founded by the state Chamber of Commerce.
Of more than 1,100 residents interviewed by telephone in November, 43 percent said their quality of life has declined over the last five years. That's an eye-popping number, up 7 percent from 2006.
More evidence that lots of people see their Florida dream dissolving: Of those surveyed, only 24 percent said they think things will get better during the next five years. Thirty-seven percent believe the state will become a worse place to live during that time.
The increasingly glum outlook of many Floridians isn't just a reaction to off-the-chart property taxes and insurance rates, as politicians want us to believe.
More and more folks are figuring out what serious urban planners have known for a long time: Run-amok growth doesn't pay for itself. Taxpayers always get stuck with the bill for sprawl and also with the hometown ills it brings. By an overwhelming margin of nearly three-to-one, Floridians polled in the Leadership Florida survey oppose higher population densities in their neighborhoods -- a view that resonates fairly evenly among registered Democrats, Republicans and independents.
A majority of residents, 52 percent, believe local governments are ''not effectively managing growth'' in their communities. The figure is unchanged from 2006, and the Mason-Dixon pollsters describe the sentiment as ``strong and and consistent among all groups and across the state.''
Respondents were divided evenly when asked whether new people moving into Florida was good or bad. The question is rarely even whispered among politicians, many of whom live in fear of antagonizing the developers, bankers and road builders who bankroll election campaigns.
The beleaguered sense among many Floridians -- that they're not only being overtaxed but overrun -- will not soon go away. Politicians who resist calls for strict land-use reforms and continue to shill for special interests risk being dumped from office by those whom they've ignored.
It's happened already in scores of municipalities where voters got fed up watching their green spaces malled and paved while the waterfronts went condo.
The social equation isn't complicated. The more people you cram into a place, even a place as vast and geographically diverse as Florida, the more stressful life becomes for everybody. It also becomes more expensive. Ask anyone in New York or California what happened to their taxes as the populations of those states swelled.
A bipartisan group that advocates semi-sane growth policies, 1000 Friends of Florida, last year predicted that the state's population would double to 36 million by 2060, and that seven million acres of agricultural land and wilderness would be converted to concrete and asphalt.
That was before the real-estate market tanked and the subprime mortgage racket imploded, but there's no denying that even an overcrowded Florida continues to hold some mythical allure, whether you live in Dubuque or Port-au-Prince.
Despite their rising disillusionment, about 62 percent of those interviewed for the Leadership Florida poll said they'd still recommend the state as a place for friends or relatives to live.
For strangers? Maybe not. Because growth is an exalted industry unto itself, rather than the natural result of a broadening economic base, lawmakers have always focused on attracting hordes of new residents at all costs. The first casualty of such a fast-buck mentality is the quality of life.
One out of five Floridians surveyed in November say they are ''seriously considering'' moving elsewhere.
This is what's known as a message. And, for those who've sold out Florida's future to enrich their campaign coffers, it breaks down like this:
Enough.
