Critical Area Programs in Florida: Creative Balancing of Growth and the Environment

The historical roots of Florida\u27s current growth management system trace back to the efforts of a poor, sparsely populated pioneer state that strained to promote population and economic growth. In 1850, Florida\u27s population was 87,445. By 1900 it had expanded to 528,542 and the 1950 census counted 2.7 million Floridians. From 1950 to the present, Florida has been in the midst of explosive economic and population expansion. The population counts by decade showed 4.9 million in 1960; 6.7 million in 1970; 9.7 million in 1980; and over 12.0 million in 1988. Strong population increases, fueled by immigration from the Northeast, Midwest and other parts of the South, are likely to continue. Current estimates project an annual increase of over 300,000, or about 3,000,000 each decade. Florida is now the fourth largest state in the nation, exceeded in population only by Texas, New York, and California. Some project the state to be third in population at the turn of the century, with 15 to 16 million people. Between 2020 and 2030, one projection shows Florida with 22 million people, or double the state\u27s 1986 population

The Politics of Planning A Growth Management System: The Key Ingredients For Success

Florida and other states developed and implemented comprehensive growth management systems over the past twenty years. This article examines these programs and the necessary ingredients for successful implementation. These ingredients should be helpful in developing and implementing the state and regional growth management systems that are destined to develop in the 1990s

Design of a Heat Pump Assisted Solar Thermal System

This paper outlines the design of an active solar thermal loop system that will be integrated with an air source heat pump hot water heater to provide highly efficient heating of a water/propylene glycol mixture. This system design uses solar energy when available, but reverts to the heat pump at night or during cloudy weather. This new design will be used for hydronic heating in the Applied Energy Laboratory, a teaching laboratory at Purdue University, but it is more generally applicable for a residential scale system that could be used for both hydronic heating and hot water production. This combined system should provide efficient heating at a fraction of the operating costs of competing electric, gas, or even heat pump water heaters. The initial cost of installing a similar system is currently relatively high, but it should be noted that the design is still in the prototype stage. The price should reduce dramatically when the system is commercialized. There are multiple applications where the production of heated fluid by a combined solar/heat pump hydronic system can be much more attractive than conventional heating methods. Construction and implementation of this proposed design will take place summer of 2014 and data collection will be pursued afterwards