Dear                           :

At a time:

• when many of Florida's school districts are overwhelmed by exponential increases in school enrollments and must contend with the teaching difficulties of having foreign students speaking several dozen different languages....
• when communities across Florida are experiencing serious water supply problems and the safe disposal of treated sewage....
• when landfills are rapidly filling and new ones are more and more difficult to acquire and with incineration presenting air pollution problems....
• when interstate and arterial roads are well beyond capacity soon after completion or expansion....

Florida's Department of Community Affairs has put their stamp of approval on growth management plans for Florida's 470 cities and counties that will exceed a 100 million population. Why?

Do Floridians want to follow the pattern of California with its abysmal performance in educating its children and its high tax rates? Is this preposterous nightmare the will of the Florida legislature or is it the work of Florida's powerful development and finance industry?

If Florida's fast disappearing natural beauty---its forests, wetlands, prairies and coastlines---are to be available to our children and grandchildren, we must act soon to cancel the blank check we have given to the promoters of the 'all growth is good' philosophy.

Florida's economic resource base is tourism and agriculture---sustainable industries. Boom construction is a temporary employment opportunity. The sound economics of a stable population, living within the limits of its resource/consumption/waste generation capacity, can be demonstrated by responsible economists and biologists.

Florida's sprawling developments are not unique across the country. Many communities are confronting the negative impacts of sprawl. Florida, however, has approved, upon analysis by experts in land use, a state plan that is totally denying the laws of nature, i.e. carrying capacity. Choosing a different course will require an attitude change, a facing of reality and the courage to look at the future we are sliding into.

Surely we can design a livable state if we have the political will. If we hold a bi-partisan Florida summit (not underwritten by the growth industry) to incorporate the biologists' and the social scientists' points of view, we might begin to fashion a Florida future that will avert a catastrophic degradation of our life support systems. We urgently need enlightened leadership from our elected representatives.

Sincerely,