Protecting Environmentally Sensitive Land from Mistakes of the Past: A South Florida Example

Abstract

Land speculation, frequently accompanied by premature subdivision, is an age-old practice. It became a particularly significant problem throughout the United States during the 1950s and 1960s when thousands of installment (interstate) land sales operations subdivided millions of acres of prime real estate. Developers of these subdivisions, in their attempts to rapidly convert raw land into potential homesites, made poor site election decisions and ignored many environmental constraints as they superimposed extensive road networks across large tracts of land.  As a result, numerous problems have been created including wasteful and environmentally unsound land use practices, scattered development, inefficient and unequal distribution of basic services, and an overtaxing of the resource capabilities in some locations.