I really like Urban Areas. [EDIT And that it WORKED to cut-paste a table from Wikipedia into Archboston...no more "code" tags!]
Amazing: Miami as the 5th largest urban area, and actually has a denser pop/sqmi than Boston by virtue of Miami having both more people and less square area.
I'm guessing it is a mix of Miami's "high rise living" and that other than the beaches, they don't have a whole lot of preserved parkland?
Meanwhile, only Atlanta is sprawlier (less dense) than Boston. How did that happen?
My old stomping ground: I grew up in South Florida. While there are more things I admire about Greater Boston's built environment than Greater Miami's, there are a handful of policies they implement better that have not only contributed to their population growth, but also serve more favorably for it to continue growing for now.
1. Urban Development Boundary - South Florida's metro area extends 120 miles from north to south, but is hemmed in by the ocean (including Biscayne National Park) on one side and the Everglades on the other (wetlands protected by either Everglades National Park, the South Florida Water Management District, Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, agriculture reserve(s), and other environmental protections). South Florida metro area never goes wider than ~20 miles east-to-west. While the urban area was 1238 square miles as you noted before, the counties that urban area is part of total 5,189 square miles; more than 3/4 of South Florida is preserved/un-urbanized.
2. Regional Governance - the prominence of regional governance and operation across South Florida is apparent when examining municipal services: utilities, police, education, transportation, etc. I'm not saying one region does governance better than the other; however, South Florida has been far more elastic to respond to needs at a regional-level because it is not constrained in the same way as Greater Boston municipalities are by different jurisdictions and exclusivity of services. For example, compare the very long
List of School Districts in Massachusetts to the
List of School Districts in Florida: there are only 3 school districts that make up all of South Florida (Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach County--which summed up actually made the
second-largest student population in the country in 2016). Without debating the merits of these municipal/regional decisions, the fact is that simplifying the governance structure in South Florida (as other Sun Belt regions evolved to do, too) has made them more effective at responding to growth... dare I say even benefited
some communities from facing some equity concerns we face in Greater Boston.
3. NIMBY vs. YIMBY - anecdotally, I think the attitudes in South Florida to new development differ greatly from the attitudes in New England. Construction is a bonafide industry down there. Boston developers may need to present their proposed projects to impact advisory groups, architectural critics, and a long list of stakeholders for years before they can win approval. In South Florida, though? I wouldn't go so far as to say folks are apathetic to all new development, but the process is far more favorable to new construction. While communities up here are zoned in such a way to use variances as a reactionary bargaining chip for developers to front the cost of more community amenities, Miami's
Miami 21 form-based zoning code adopted 11 years ago has simplified the path for new development.
4. Affordability - put plainly, South Florida overall is a cheap place to live. Thanks in part to its warm climate and pro-development attitude, the pace at which South Florida has added new housing region-wide over the last generation has reduced the barriers to entry in buying real estate (or renting) that--unfortunately--Greater Boston struggles with. And when a region like South Florida lacks the net industrial diversity and specialization that a region like Greater Boston possesses, it means affordability is a critical factor to the people moving there. I'm not debating the merits of quality of life or
actual affordability picture facing residents there vs. here; on its face, South Florida looks to be more affordable than Greater Boston.
5. Outlook - anecdotally once again, it is my professional observation that many South Florida residents have an outlook of "now" whereas Greater Boston has an outlook of "the future." The single-greatest threat to our existence is climate change, an inescapable reality for both regions. Despite a topographic advantage to South Florida, Greater Boston leaders and Commonwealth policymakers place a greater priority on resilience, sustainability, and proactively adapting to the threats of sea-level rise than the demonstrated apathy South Florida's leaders present. Despite rising king tides every fall creeping higher in Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach, flood insurance premiums down there continue to unfaze new homebuyers. As salt water slowly creeps into the Everglades (remember South Florida Water Management District--that's their drinking water supply), there is going to be a potable water supply crisis that impacts 6.5 million South Florida residents long before they react to sea level rise eroding their beaches. There is an irresponsibility among mortgage lenders, insurers, and real estate agents down there that more emphasis is not placed on the crisis South Florida faces 10-15 years from now because their outlook isn't that far ahead... it's legit only for "now."
Greater Boston is municipally-driven instead of regionally-cohesive like South Florida; its NIMBY community might have an attitude toward preservation (historic, natural, "don't change") that isn't as robust down south; it's more expensive to buy a home up here not only because of objectively antiquated zoning regs, but also because of self-imposed policies that drive up the cost of new housing/transportation (climate change resiliency, housing equity, environmental preservation, union-labor, et al); and it's too darned cold up here. Be all that as it may, I genuinely believe point #5 will be the difference-maker over the long-term population trends over the 21st century, and it's only a matter of time before growth trends once again change. South Florida may have milder winters, but it also has meaner hurricanes. It might have more affordable McMansions to purchase, but it also has less specialization in higher-wage industries. It might have better complete streets implementation, but it also has higher vehicular fatality rates than most parts of the country. South Florida might have a higher population density than Greater Boston; however, amid a disconnected transit network, sea of parking structures, and mis-match of equitable land uses, South Florida continues to double-down on sprawl for growth. Up here,
Boston is done sprawling.
www.census.gov
. Thanks for the data.
