Qualitative Measures_UDB: Transitional space/Arbiter

With the Urban Development Boundary established, city expansion now had a limit. Where the UDB touches the Florida Turnpike, directly to the west lays the Miami Lake Belt. These limestone quarries, when excavated, create shallow man-made lakes that act not only as a physical boundary that the city cannot pass, but also as a transitional space between the vast acres of nature (the Everglades) and the subdivided sub-divisions of urbanism. The lakes act as a buffer between the two.

Further south along the Urban Development Boundary, we start to notice the edges of the city brushing against the fields of agriculture. This ‘rough edge’ is a direct result of the limit placed by the UDB; here the boundary acts as an arbiter, an entity whose judgment is authoritative, mediating between the two conditions.