We must continue to be proactive in our efforts to acquire and protect significant green spaces, including wildlife corridors and other natural connectors. We also must tap other tools and techniques to safeguard our precious environmental resources. In addition, we need to develop realistic strategies to save productive farmland and bolster rural economies. Recognize that transportation, land use and water management decisions are interrelated and regional in nature. Our traditional jurisdictional boundaries are obsolete.
Poverty knows no boundaries, nor does wildlife, waterways or pollution.
We must manage growth and development from a regional perspective, taking into account the many complex interrelationships between transportation, land use and water resource management. Maintain a state presence in managing growth in Florida. It is naive to think we should return to the days when each of Florida's 476 local governments were individually responsible for the future of our state. Growth management was initiated because this approach was a dismal failure. As Florida catapults toward becoming the third largest state in the nation, the state must continue its leadership role in helping to manage and direct growth and development.