Smart Growth and "Green Building" Alternatives
To learn more about alternatives to "sprawl as usual" like compact, pedestrian scale town centers and other smart growth options, click here.

Location is critical to environmentally sustainable design. Where you build is as important as how you build.  Commissioner Sorenson is working to address both. To learn more about her efforts to spark a "green building" revolution in Miami-Dade, click here.

Urban Development Boundary
Our community has been based on the "sprawl model" and changing course is difficult.  Every two years the Miami-Dade County Commission hears requests by developers to change our Comprehensive Development Master Plan, including requests to move our Urban Development Boundary - the line that separates the urban area from the rural - and nearly every cycle since 2001 the line has been moved, sprawling further west.  Instead of perpetuating a bad pattern of development, we need to invest in fixing our stressed and aging roads, bridges, water and sewer plants and pipes.  We have to give our transit system a fighting chance to catch up with our community’s transportation needs.  Instead we should be focusing on parts of our county most in need of investment.  We cannot do that unless we break the bad habit of urban sprawl.

Read Commissioner Sorenson's Editorial published in the Miami Herald - May 2nd, 2008.