The power of regionalism: regional economic development efforts can bring South Florida more power and more resources—and may be the only thing that can maintain our high quality of life

South Florida CEO,  June, 2004  by J.P. Faber

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Exactly when South Florida first woke up to its power as a region is not clear. Some regional policies can be traced back more than 30 years, to the birth of the South Florida Regional Planning Council, an agency created to help control and coordinate growth in Dade, Broward and Monroe counties. You can push the edge of the envelope even farther back, to the 1800s, when the seven counties of Southeast Florida were all one big county called Dade.

It has really only been in the last few years, however, that leaders in business, polities and education have come to realize not only South Florida's power as a region, but its dire need to plan as a region, lest the separate counties be buried under their own helter-skelter growth.

"This is not about creating a supraregional form of government," says James F. Murley, author of a comprehensive report on South Florida recently released by Florida Atlantic University. "This is about our ability to be successful in the global economic arena, and getting our fair share of federal and state resource dollars.... it's about strategically picking the issues and cooperating." Murley, who directs FAU's downtown Fort Lauderdale Catanese Center for Urban & Environmental Solutions, warns that without regional approaches to such problems as transportation, land use, population growth and education, it will be just a matter of time--a couple of decades at best--before "we will be unable to sustain our economic way of life."

Murley's report, entitled Regional Shift: South Florida in Transition, chronicles changes that have taken place in land and water use, housing, traffic, population and the workforce, with not exactly rosy revelations. While Murley characterizes his report as a "wake-up call," many of South Florida's leaders have already heard the alarm. The signs of trouble ahead are numerous and growing in urgency. Traffic congestion has become intolerable. Land supplies have been depleted. Job and wage growth has trailed population growth. Housing prices have soared above state and national averages. Educational resources have become strained. As Murley's report concludes: "Unless the region shifts into gear to more effectively address its challenges, it will be overtaken by them and slip in every major aspect of quality of life."

While problems loom, however, there is hope. A mere half-dozen years ago, South Florida's counties were busy wrestling each other for corporate relocations, burning precious incentive dollars to lure firms across county lines. Today, the principle economic development organizations--Miami-Dade's The Beacon Council, The Broward Alliance and the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County--are cooperating in an unprecedented fashion, assisting each other in the acquisition of new companies from outside the region. The current leadership of these three groups are actively creating an atmosphere of collaboration and trust which has simply never previously existed.

"There is now a personal relationship and trust between the three entities, and that has gone a long way to sort out the difficulties of the past," says Frank Nero, president and CEO of The Beacon Council. Both Larry Pelton, head of the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County, and J.T. Tarlton, head of The Broward Alliance, echo those sentiments. "Larry and Frank and I have decided that we believe cooperation is the right approach to take," says Tarlton. "It's not that others aren't doing the same thing--all three county commissions have been getting together to establish common programs--but we are going to take a leadership role to start the train down the track."

The results have been immediate. Whereas millions of dollars were spent in the past to poach companies from each other, the three economic development groups are now helping each other win new business. Case in point: The Beacon Council was tipped off to a company-expansion opportunity in its own backyard by Pelton's Palm Beach board. After it couldn't find an appropriate site in Palm Beach County, and considered other locales, the company--Safire Aircraft--elected to build a plant at Opa-locka Airport. Although the deal is still pending final regulatory approval, Safire found a site near a runway with enough room for its planned small-jet manufacturing facility.

Another company that moved into South Florida with the support of all three organizations is DHL, which has a facility in Plantation, and is looking to expand its space and locate a new headquarters somewhere in the region. "With regard to South Florida, regionalism means that there are no real geographic boundaries between the three counties that comprise the South Florida metropolitan statistical area," says DHL Americas CEO John Fellows.

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"As an economy there are no barriers between us," says Pelton. "So the most relevant regional issue is to boost our respective counties' economic impact." When it comes to recruiting new companies to the area, he says, "we point to the access to the population in all three counties, to the three port facilities, to the three airports for flights anywhere in the world, to the unique universities in all three counties. It's a selling point for us." Pelton lists the Scripps research facility scheduled to be built in Palm Beach County as a top example of regional cooperation and benefits, with a $1.6 billion economic impact that will be felt throughout the region in the next 15 years. "They'll be partnering with the University of Miami medical school, and Florida Atlantic University, and anyone else [in the region] that wants to participate," he says.