Infrastructure & Environment  Not-So-Smart Growth  by | October
2000  Largo, Florida, is a suburb of 65,000 people, just north
of St. Petersburg. It is a comfortable place, with one major
regret in life: It isn't located on the water. It sits in the
middle of a peninsula, halfway between the Gulf of Mexico and
Tampa Bay.  But Largo has a strategy for breaking out of its
landlocked position. Between it and the Bay there's a strip of
unincorporated territory that uses the Largo sewer system. Not
long ago, town officials began contacting residents of this
strip and handing them an ultimatum: Become part of Largo, or we
turn off the sewer service.  Those tactics provoked a suit from
the neighboring town of Pinellas Park. Also landlocked, Pinellas
Park has an official goal of adding 150 acres a year to its
territory. The Largo ploy was a threat to its dreams of
expansion.  Welcome to annexation politics, Florida-style.
Communities play it for one reason: to win. "It's always
competition and always entrepreneurship