I'm not much for using this blog to redirect people to other blogs, but STREETSBLOG , which "is a daily news source connecting people to information about sustainable transportation and livable communities" recently posted an intriguing article titled Quantified: The Price of Sprawl in Florida. The brief article has a graphic showing how much excess housing capacity already exists in various counties (Sarasota is shown as up to 25% more housing allowed at buildout, which I suspect is low). You may want to read that posting in juxtaposition with a November 26 2011 New York Times opinion piece by Christopher B. Leinberger: The Death of the Fringe Suburb. Leinberger argues that "suburban fringe" is doomed because the boomers that populated the fringe are downsizing and moving in towards city centers with more walkable amenities while the millennials also favor urban centers. Taken together these pieces suggest that efforts to revive Florida's economy by making it easier for new sprawl are likely to fail and fail miserably.
