>> Florida’s housing crisis will be long-lasting as condos and homes hastily built during the real estate bubble begin to deteriorate. Poorly designed and cheaply constructed, the buildings are susceptible to mold and water intrusion that are expensive to repair. Legal disputes about liability will further delay repairs while the properties continue to suffer neglect, making repairs even more expensive. Many will eventually become derelicts, shrinking the property tax base. Revenue strapped municipalities will encourage quick development of new projects by relaxing codes and reducing fees, restarting the familiar boom and bust cycle of Florida’s economy. -- See Construction and Real Estate >> Political strategies in parts of Florida, as in North Carolina and Virginia, will have to reflect a new dynamics -- a booming minority population, an influx of more moderate voters, and a changing set of priorities. The Republican Party will no longer be able to rely on its tried-and-true“Southern strategy,” an approach to winning elections based largely on appeals to rural whites on cultural touchstones such as abortion and race. -- See Political Trends and Issues. >> Florida’s ports will not be able to compete with their giant east coast competitors as trade patterns shift with the Panama Canal expansion. Panamax ships will head for the Port of New York/New Jersey, to Norfolk and to one port in the Southeast -- probably Savannah, perhaps Charleston. Governor Scott and the Florida Chamber of Commerce are misguided in thinking that Miami will catch up to the East Coast giants, let alone become “the Singapore of the Western Hemisphere” in the view of the head of a national port association. However, Florida’s ports will continue to flourish as trade with Latin America continues to grow. -- See Trade and Shipping >> Allowing insurance rates to be determined by market forces will effectively control growth and steer development away from vulnerable coastal areas. Actuarially sound insurance rates will encourage large carriers to return to the state and end the use of cheap insurance to promote growth -- a de facto policy that has impeded the development of a functioning market. Rates that are market-based will also attract companies to Florida by reducing uncertainty about the cost of insurance from year to year. -- See Economic Outlook >> Entrenched biotech clusters in Florida will impede efforts of other regions to gain a foothold. Because of the high failure rates of biotech start-ups, potential employees will prefer to work in areas with a high concentration of similar companies. Correspondingly, start-ups will prefer to locate in areas with a large concentration of potential employees. -- See Technology and Industry. >> USF’s patent dominance will bolster region’s economic growth. In 2010, USF researchers were granted 83 patents, making it one of the 14 most productive universities in the world. It was the only Florida university to make the list and ranked above such research powerhouses as the University of Michigan and University of Pennsylvania. A large number of U.S. patents awarded to an institution -- or even a region -- identifies it as a hot spot of technological innovation and possible economic growth. -- See Technology and Industry >> Seaweed off Florida’s coasts will attract growing attention as a viable future biofuel. Biofuels research has focused on terrestrial plants that must often compete for land with agricultural production. Marine ecosystems are an untapped resource that account for over 50% of the global biomass. Seaweeds themselves can produce more biomass per square meter than fast growing sugar cane. Kelp, rich in carbohydrates and soluble sugars, is a prime candidate. Various biochemical manufacturing processes can be used to produce ethanol and methane from kelp, as well as other high value substances like pigments and phenols. The chemical composition of Laminaria digitata does vary seasonally, however, and is best harvested when carbohydrate levels are at their highest to ensure optimal sugar release for biofuel production. -- See Energy policy and politics. >> Orlando will surpass Miami as Florida’s fastest growing metropolis, spurred by a booming health sciences complex, cheap housing prices and above average job growth. Orlando will be one of the most rapidly growing cities in the country over the next 25 years, predicts Well Fargo economist Mark Vitner. Starting in the early 2000s, Orlando’s economy has grown while Miami’s has declined. “There is a shift slowly under way as far as jobs go” , observed a Brookings Institute economist. With the rapid expansion of the Lake Nona medical cluster, Orlando’s economy is becoming more diverse than Miami’s. It has growing ties to the global economy compared to Miami, which is primarily a conduit to business in Latin America. -- See Economic Outlook >> Inter-city bus service will expand in Florida, providing alternatives to congested interstate driving and costly, undependable airline service. It will also partly substitute for the ill-fated HSR project. Fleets of comfortable, new GPS-equipped busses offering wide, declining seats, onboard restrooms, wi-fi and tv will attract higher-income travelers by offering convenient curbside service that bypasses seedy old terminals. The rapid growth of this mode of inter-city travel is market-driven, not dependent on government subsidies, but benefits the environment by conserving energy and reducing pollution. -- See Transportation >> The I-4 Corridor will take a left turn in the 2012 elections, some political analysts predict. The shift may include long-time Republican strongholds like Sarasota County (which has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since FDR). Influencing this outcome is discontent with the GOP/Ryan Medicare plan, the hostile immigration stance of the Republican nativist faction (undoing years of effort by Jeb Bush to attract Hispanic support), and the unpopularity of Governor Scott among independents. Scott made Obama an issue during his 2010 campaign. Obama will not miss the chance to retaliate in 2012. -- See Political Trends and Issues Imagining Florida's future It is imagined all the time as people debate issues and argue the pros and cons of various proposals and their possible outcomes. Policy disputes are almost always fueled by conflicting predictions about the consequences of action - or inaction. Florida Futures Survey compiles these predictions from a wide range of sources: news articles and editorials, research reports and policy papers, speeches and lectures, online archives and blogs, interviews and panel discussions. The compilation of predictions is regularly updated to provide a dynamic status report on how people are thinking about their future. It tracks the evolution of expectations as some predictions are confirmed by the course of events, while others are discredited or rendered irrelevant. And it undergoes constant revision as new issues emerge and old ones mutate or atrophy. New predictions do not appear at a constant rate. During periods of stability, when few question the governing consensus, the incidence of prediction is relatively low. But the rate can rise sharply in times of economic insecurity, social unrest, intellectual ferment or political strife.
In general, when uncertainty prevails, predictions proliferate. A surge of predictions about an issue or concern is a barometer of its rising relevance.And what dominates the public agenda in Florida tend to be issues that will preoccupy the country as a whole in the coming years. Predictions are frequently updated on the Florida Futures Survey blog.
Florida is one of the "bellwether states" -- it originates many of the trends that will define our times—both productive and destructive. As venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson predicts -- By 2025, "the entire country will look like Florida today".
Florida enjoys an “outsize cachet in the nation’s political mythology", observes New York Times journalist Michael Leibovich. "It is also a hothouse for many issues of national urgency: health care is a chief concern for the state's elderly population; tensions over immigration have boiled here for years; environmental fights have raged (over offshore drilling, global warming, the Everglades); and unemployment has jumped to its highest levels in more that three decades."The collapse of the housing market and its calamitous aftermath began, many believe, on the Gulf Coast of Florida and then spread around the world. "We were, in fact, the canary in the coal mine for the housing crisis," says economist Rick Harper of the University of West Florida.
A journalist who covered the economic and social devastation judged Florida to be “the epicenter of everything that’s bad in America”. Whether Florida will be able to rebuild itself as the epicenter of economic and political renewal is the question behind virtually every one of the predictions compiled here. "If Florida can reinvent itself, it can be the tip of the American spear, showing the nation how to save water and energy, manage growth, restore ecosystems and retool economies in an era of less. But that will require a new kind of reinvention." – Time Magazine: Is Florida the sunset state? (Michael Grunwald), 10July08.
|
Predictions Recently Posted (updated July 6, 2011) |