Future Group’s Vision

"Future Group’s Vision Ignores a Regional Dilemma" by v. johns

People have a tendency to go where the action is on any given topic. Though you will find local yokels anywhere you go, in areas where multiple municipalities are clustered or aligned in close proximity, people will generally take advantage of that proximity by patronizing neighboring cities, counties and towns for various necessities and amenities not found in their own immediate jurisdiction. In other words, when people can’t find what they need in their own immediate settings, if possible, they’ll venture out to the nearest locale of opportunity to access their various interests and needs.

The need to travel anywhere outside one’s immediate occupied domain for entertainment, recreation, work, education, etc. is a part of a concept I am developing that I call “the Regional Dilemma.” The concept of the Regional Dilemma assumes that people are simply prone to mobility and will travel, near or far, whenever it is convenient, no matter how quaint the want or need to do so, and regardless of how desirable or convenient the amenities are in their own city or town may be. Thus, the regional dilemma of not only having to travel for economic purposes, but also for personal preferences, asks the question: How is this need to travel best facilitated?

Having said all this, I’m not convinced that the Future Group’s alleged mission to improve Martin County’s land use plan is sufficient to address this question. I haven’t read any of the official amendments or proposals, but I do have in front of me an article by the EAR Working Group that I printed off the Future Group website entitled “Planning for Future Martin County” and I’m already in question of their intent which they claim is to: “foster walkable, mixed use, ‘down home’ towns, communities and hinterlands that are economically, socially and environmentally sustainable.” Oh, really?

According to some articles and editorials in local newspapers such as the Stuart News and the Palm Beach Post, this group seeks to change the current land use plan in a way that will destroy Martin’s famed urban services boundary by allowing for the building of new towns out west, here in Martin County. I’m trying to figure out how building new towns and attracting more traffic and service demands out this way will contribute to economic, social and environmental sustainability as they put it.

I have heard that these new towns would be built in such a manner that the need to leave their vicinities for day-to-day needs and amenities would be reduced. This is assuming that anything Stuart or Indiantown or Jensen Beach has could be crammed into these towns in a way that people would not want to leave these towns to access these amenities in Stuart, Indiantown or Jensen Beach. Things such as: gyms, movie theaters, bookstores, pharmacies, schools, malls… the beach! The beach? Uh, oh… Problem!

See, the problem with the Future Group’s rip-off of the Town, Villages and Cities concept (TVC), once embraced by St. Lucie County, is that ignores the fact that no matter what, whether it be for small reasons like movie theater preference or big reasons like finding employment, people are going to travel. Period. So unless, the Future Group is proposing that we build a replica of New York City out here near Indiantown, this plan of theirs is just not gonna fly. With the housing market approaching rock bottom, anything even remotely near a boom like the one that just bubbled and burst, is years away at best and probably will never happen again unless it’s precipitated by another baby boom generation coming of age. Thus, even though South Florida will continue to grow, the problems of where to put people have diminished slightly and has presented us with an opportunity to examine how people can best move to and from various destinations, throughout South Florida, in the most efficient manner, given a wide array of choices. So, instead of focusing on yet more new housing development, which nowadays amounts to nothing more than unnecessary inventory, wouldn’t it be more “economically, socially and environmentally” prudent to continue redeveloping languishing communities and provide more efficient ways to connect these –and other- communities within the context of a regional framework? 

At this time, I’m not entirely sure that anything other than our current policy of allowing only 20-acre ranchettes outside the urban service boundary will suffice to achieve such sustainability. While I agree that our land use policies need to be evaluated (It’s required by law anyway) and that the potential for overcrowding in existing neighborhoods might eventually propose a critical problem, I disagree with anything that goes against transit oriented development or against Lawton Childs’ Eastward Ho! Initiative.

I will address this article, or the amendments to which it refers, more in depth, at a future date, line by line if I can, but for now I just want to show how the flawed concept of self-contained, traffic-alleviating towns within a region as dynamic and highly mobile as ours (South Florida) ignores the impact of the regional dilemma (How to accommodate, move people around and provide them with choices in lifestyle and mobility while reducing overlap in goods and services). And as I mentioned in a previous post, our dilemma is a good one to have... The one beauty of living in South Florida is this feeling that no matter where you live within the region, you always feel connected to the rest of the world. You can live in a small town like Indiantown and still feel that Miami is just down the street. I never felt this way in Tallahassee. But, that’s another story. In the meantime, only through answering the questions posed by the regional dilemma of mobility provision will South Florida truly become the premier region in the world to live, work, study, play, relax and do business…