Citrus Disease With No Cure Is Ravaging Florida Groves

Efforts to find a way to stop the spread of citrus greening have failed, and the damage is growing increasingly extensive, especially to oranges. From the New York Times article (click title for link):

Before this year, the losses and increased costs of fighting the disease had already taken a toll on Florida’s citrus industry, which has been in decline for 15 years. In a 2012 report, University of Florida agricultural analysts concluded that between 2006 and 2012, citrus greening cost Florida’s economy $4.5 billion and 8,000 jobs.
Some orange packers and small and midsize growers have sold their groves, razed them for development, or simply abandoned them. Others have postponed replanting lost trees, which take five years to mature, until they know whether a cure will be found. Many more, including the largest growers, are doing what they can to survive; they say they are optimistic they can hold on long enough for researchers to find a treatment.

This does not bode well for those who wish to curtail urban sprawl.  If Florida's future rests on the almost exclusive use of the automobile to get around, former orange groves will be "ripe" for low density development, away from transit routes and without the benefit of existing infrastructure.  The future of redevelopment in Florida and how the state will responsibly accommodate new population growth will be through redevelopment of already established cities - like Lake Worth.