South Florida's Boundaries

"Forget Waldo... Where's South Florida?" by v. johns

Over the course of constructing this blog, I've been trying to drive home the point that in order for South Florida to attain a true, complete and workable regional mass transit system, that serves all of its citizens, including the ones outside of its largest urban centers, it would help to know exactly what geographical parameters define the so-named region. According to SoFlo.org, both Enterprise Florida and the Florida Department of Transportation define South Florida as a seven-county area - not three - that runs about 300 miles in length from Vero Beach in the north to Key West in the south.

Now that we've established this, let me delve a little deeper into this issue, using my own terminology and classification modifications, to give you a fuller, more fleshed-out picture of what we are dealing with here. South Florida is composed of three sub-regions, each with their own unique problems and characteristics: The first being the Treasure Coast "district" to the north consisting of Indian River, St. Lucie and Martin counties. And according to Treasure Coast Magazine, it also stretches even further south into the northern portion of Palm Beach County (Jupiter, Juno, Tequesta). I agree 100%. The second sub-region being the Gold Coast "district" to the south (also known as the Tri-County area) consisting of Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. And I will add to this scheme, the final piece of the puzzle, Monroe County and the Keys which I consider to be a third sub-region and refer to it as the Florida Keys "district." I also would recommend creating a fourth sub-region, the Interior Florida Everglades "district", stretching from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Keys. But I digress.

Zooming out just a little, we see that just as the three sub-regions of the Treasure Coast, the Gold Coast and the Florida Keys compose the area we call South Florida, South Florida, itself, using eflorida.com's map, is on pace to overlap and merge with four other state regions: Southwest, South Central, Tampa Bay and East Central. A PDF map on SoFlo.org's site credited to the Metropolitan Institute of Virginia Tech names this area "Peninsula" and shows other national mega-regions such as: Cascadia, NorCal, Southland, the Valley of the Sun, the I-35 Corridor, the Midwest, Piedmont, and of course, the Northeast.

SoFlo.org credits author, professor and lecturer Richard Florida for naming this area So-Flo (Southern Florida I presume): armed to the teeth with the three state powerhouse metros formed around Miami (Southeast), Tampa (Tampa Bay) and Orlando (East Central). And I will add to that, a lesser known player, Naples (Southwest). All of this forming a rough circle around Florida's rural "Heartland" region, South Central. It also describes the I-4 Corridor as being So-Flo's "northern boundary." And to complete our total regional picture, out of respect, I want to remind you that three other regions exist in this state, in addition to the five state regions comprising the So-Flo mega-region and they are: Northwest (Tallahassee), North Central (Gainesville) and Northeast (Jacksonville).

This type of clarification is rarely seen. When you've got entities such as Broward County and the South Florida Regional Planning Council that are still using and displaying information from several years ago that needs updating, it presents a confusing picture that leaves natives and outsiders, as well, in a bit of a fog. This is unfortunate because when people visit Broward.org to learn about Ft. Lauderdale and its surrounding areas, they will have no idea, unless they find out dilligently on their own, that Port St. Lucie and Stuart can provide them with lodging options if all the hotel rooms in Broward are sold out for some large event going on in Ft. Lauderdale. They may opt out altogether if they don't know what all their options are. I've seen this happen in Tallahasse when hotel rooms get sold out for big games at FSU or FAMU. I've seen people book hotel rooms for these events as far away as Valdosta, Georgia!

On a business level, in our state's quest to attract high-paying industries and jobs to our area, it would help if investors and stakeholders know what they are investing in. If an ill-informed biotech company rejects relocating to South Florida on the basis that it is perceived as too crowded, with no industrial space left, that company, not understanding that there are less densely populated areas of the region other than Miami or West Palm Beach, might pass on the entire region in favor of other areas outside the state that may be percieved as more suitable. Had they known and understood that Vero Beach can connect them to Miami without sacrificing spatial advantages that much, they might have considered and by then we will have lost an opportunity that could have been corrected with the proper information. This is assuming that a time-conscious company with little time to research an area is seeking to relocate and branch out as quickly as they can.

All of this is very important because while we have state entities like Enterprise Florida and the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) defining our area correctly, we also have other statistical entities such as Wikipedia, Florida Smart and perhaps even the U.S. Census, incorrectly, if not unwittingly, presenting our area as something else altogether. Florida Smart (smart? really?) even goes so far as to say that the Treasure Coast stretches from Ft. Pierce to Boca Raton? Not Correct. These types of discrepancies, though somewhat understandable, given the outdated statistical sources from which their information is derived, are nonetheless unacceptable and are exactly the types of mismatched presentations of information that this journal is against and seeks to help correct. In the meantime, I am at least encouraged that our state entities have gotten it right. Still, its not enough that we get it right while others get it wrong. I would encourage all regional leaders, following SoFlo.org's lead, to make some effort to promote update, correlate, corroborate and disceminate all their data across as many channels as they can (government, commercial, statistical, etc.) as immediately as possible.

In conclusion, the very foundation of this blog is that state and regional promotion must be conducted with real excellence and quality working steadily in the background to support our claims. We can't properly promote South Florida or any of our state's regions, for that matter, if the facts aren't straight and outsiders don't have a clear picture of what they are investing their precious time and money into. Our leaders, who broker these deals on our behalf, and our citizens who seek to share their slice of paradise with family and friends, must be armed with as much of the proper information on our region and our state as possible to provide a convincing argument to prospective industries, institutions, residents and investors that Florida and South Florida, in particular, is indeed the best place in the world to live, work, study, play and do business...