Let’s quit pretending. Tampa isn’t a city. St Petersburg isn’t a city. Clearwater and all the other municipalities in the Tampa bay region are not cities in the traditional sense. Lacking a coherent functioning core and distinct boundaries (other than saltwater), they are, or have become, no more than jurisdictional regions.
The small urban cores of the now arbitrary sections that make up our metro area were ripped out in the 60’s and 70’s,and the foresight and political will to restore whatever value they once had is not evident at this time. I once had the privilege to watch a city rise up from decay and sprawl and become a great creative and tech center. It wasn’t easy, and it took guts and visionary leadership and the united will of its citizens through neighborhood associations.
With lots of exceptions, people in the US live in a place because they like the place. People live in the Tampa Bay area because they like sunshine and warm temperatures, proximity to the Gulf. Low taxes. People choose exurban areas because they like racial and cultural homogeneity. Lawns. And shopping malls. Freeway closeness. And all the kinds of land use that are impossible without cheap oil.
This is not to say that exurbanites dislike art or innovation. They simply value it too little to pay for it, with dollars or with the psychic cost of urban life. (I would argue that the psychic cost of exurban isolation is higher, but I’ll do that another time). They aren’t offended by the squalor of a US 19 or [your favorite corridor of glaring hell here].
These preferences aren’t arguable. They are simply preferences. It may be useless for urbanists to attempt dialogue with those whose highest values are the lowest taxes. Cities with good transit, great art and technical and educational achievement, cities that attract and keep knowledge and cultural workers don’t come cheap. The leaders in tech innovation, art, and the urban amenities– and high-paying job growth– are not low-tax cities.
So what about those of us who stay behind in the diaspora? The cities that never were are not coming back. Should we just suck it up and establish a brave new exurban aesthetic? Or is it better to nurture little outposts of creative community dotting the metropolitan area, coming together occasionally for regional celebration? Can that essential creative critical mass be sparked without diversity and the constant inflow and outflow of new creative blood? Are online dialogues with the like-minded a satisfying substitute for coffee house and tavern exchanges?
Dave Dragon
1 year ago
Good article!
Unless theres some real financial onus to redraw the boundaries it just won’t happen.
GKR
1 year ago
This is probably the best post I have seen on the reality of Tampa Bay regarding the creation of Place, and the betterment of our built environment. The barriers we face are FUNDAMENTAL but I am idealistic (and perhaps foolish) enough to believe they can be overcome, with a hell of alot of work.
Currently, all our region has to offer is sun, good times (for some), and low taxes, and the folks those enticements attract is self evident.
ps I can attest that revitalization and transformation is REAL as well, I’ve seen it myself in Austin, Tx..
Many folks in our region simply don’t believe that a region in decline can turn itself around.
Clyde
1 year ago
Good article. Don’t expect things to change as long as politicians continue to get elcted on a “cut taxes” platform. We get exactly what we deserve.
David Jenkins
1 year ago
Great post, Caleb. And you’re right, Portland is a glowing example of how it can be done RIGHT.
Katrina Stevenson
1 year ago
Thank you! You put into clear, easy to grasp language why this area is failing. I had a shock moment recently when I drove through Denver for the first time in over a decade. Like Portland, Denver made a HUGE commitment to revitalize the core. Light rail runs to the major ‘burbs, pedestrian malls and bike lanes are everywhere. They’ve worked one neighborhood at a time either building or replacing a “keystone” like the baseball field, and then cleaning up and populating the streets around. What was once a bland, industrial city has lovely unification in its design all stemming from the original brick and stone on the area and adding sweeping glass and steel. I was shocked… all those people actually enjoying the city… some lived there, others commuted in, but it was vibrant and happening. I am very jealous. I’m not sure how they did it, but whatever the sacrifices, it was worth it.
Stacey
1 year ago
Must be nice to have such a large income. I’m jealous. I’m barely able to support my family with my full-time job and I chose my apartment complex because it was the nicest one of the short list of apartment complexes that were cheapest and closest to my job. I couldn’t afford to live in a downtown highrise condo even if I wanted to. I have no interest in hanging out with a bunch of strangers in a coffeehouse. At least dialoging online from home allows me to make progress on the large piles of dirty laundry and dirty dishes that I come home to every night.
Yep, it’s probably useless for the Haves to try to dialogue with us sorry, greedy, uncreative, irresponsible, racist, low-income, undesirable Have-Nots. The pedestal you’re on is very high.
Chris
1 year ago
I think that for Tampa to get to this point, the Gen Y aged-folks (such as myself) who grew up there need to leave for a while. I’ve moved to Washington, D.C. and live in NoVa. I made the move for a myriad of reasons – the primary being better income and career opportunity, though I have also come to appreciate the amenities that come with the lifestyle here. Yes, the taxes are considerably higher than Tampa, but so are the benefits – the largest being my net income growth itself (taxes don’t feel as bad when #1 you make more $, and #2 you actually see tangible proof of their purpose.)
Perhaps those of us that move away will learn what it takes to build a community like this, and return later in our careers when we have an opportunity to really effectuate change.
Or perhaps we will never return, because in the absence of high skilled, educated workers, Tampa collapses for good and none of the foundation will have ever been built.
Should I feel guilty for “abandoning” my home city? Was my view of slow progress ther eunjustified? Would I be welcomed home one day, or so far removed that I can never come back?
Tino
1 year ago
I have to side with Stacey on this one.
I left Chicago because 1) the weather sucked, 2) the cost of living is dramatically better here, 3) I could live in something larger than a 600 sq ft room, and 4) I could finally buy a car, drive it around and have a place to park it.
Those were my preferences, and I voted with my feet (and wallet). If you want to live like a bunch of crunchy hippies, go for it. If you want to live on a farm and shoot things, you can do that, too. Just don’t make the assumption that the rest of the populace shares your feelings.
If my preferences ever change, I’m not going to go to City Hall and complain up and down. I’ll just move. It’s that simple.
junebee
1 year ago
At my last stab at high culture (years ago, I admit) I went to see a performance of Beethoven’s 9th at TBPAC. Right in the middle of it, the fire alarm went off – except there was no fire. Conductor, orchestra and choir left the stage. Half the audience left – permanently. It really ruined the effect of the Glorious 9th.
My husband and I would LOVE to see a classical music concert. However, all of the shows we want to see are on – Monday night and my husband travels for business during the week. Going to St. Pete on a Satuday is out of the question. For one thing, after all his travelling, the last thing he wants to do is drive another hour each way. Additionally, our kids are autistic, which requires a certain type of babysitter, not just the neighborhood teen. We have to really want to attend an event to get the appropriate babysitter booked.
It’s no surprise this area’s in the toilet culturally. Even those of us who want to can’t enjoy a classical music concert. The Gasparilla Art Festival is so overcrowded because it’s only held one weekend, and there is some sort of law that states the first day of it has to be rainy. Forget the drunken debacle of the Gasparilla Parade. This is a state where kids get out of school not always for a government holiday, or weather – but to go to the state fair.
Patricia Higgins
1 year ago
I have to also agree with Stacy. Most of us have no interest in sitting around in coffee houses with a bunch of know it all intellectuals, who talk about the woes of Tampa, the world, etc etc, using dictionary language to prove how smart they are. I am not complaining about taxes, although I do feel for some people, it is a real issue, and lets face it, this City has gone mad these past few years on Taxes and Insurance. I come from the Main Line of Phladelphia, and let’s face it, you can’t compare a City like Tampa to A City of that cultural background. Not in 10 years, not in 50.
Anyway, love this blog, keep it up.
Ed
1 year ago
As I said before, talking, feeling superior, and complaining gets nowhere. We need action, we need a plan, and we need to ACT! And I mean us, not the leaders who fail us, and the instituions, we need to find a way to act locally, act individually and make progress for ourselves.
Jose
1 year ago
This is a great post. I love the concept of the urbanite diaspora. And I don’t think I have ever read a better description of the attitude of the people who live here. Well, I am an urbanite and I struggled with Tampa as a place to live (I only stay because family & job are here..but one day). In the meantime there is an urban enclave called Ybor City. You guys want action, then friggin move to Ybor. It is the closest Tampa has to a real urban neighborhood. Visit http://www.hynca.com for more details.
peak
1 year ago
“the Gen Y aged-folks (such as myself) who grew up there need to leave for a while.”
As an older Generation Xer I can say that this strategy is a trade off. As a student I moved away to live and study in a much more progressive city, ten years later when I came back Tampa was even more WORSE OFF then when I left. But I did have lots of new fangled ideas about how real cities worked, which I’ve been putting to work.
It’s a shame but bringing this hellhole back around is going to take sacrifice, lots of it, even though we weren’t the myopic boneheads that got the area into its current sad state.
Sure, we could all move to San Francisco, or Portland, or Austin, or New York City, or Paris, and join the flourishing hip communities already there.
Or we can dig in and create our own oasis in this desert.
Meredith
1 year ago
Maybe I shouldn’t come back. Maybe DC is all right after all.
clark_brooks
1 year ago
Anywhere you live, you’re going to deal with give and take. Do I wish things were different and we had a more vibrant “arts scene” (for the sake of this discussion, defined as more and better galleries, theatres, coffeehouses, museums, performers, artists, etc.)? Absolutely! I don’t think you’re likely to find anybody who’s going to say they wouldn’t because they prefer the tacky sprawl we have now instead. Maybe I’m being naive but I’d prefer to believe that the current lack (or at least shortage) of that creative element means that there’s untapped potential that needs some good ideas and hard work to develop rather than dismiss the area outright as an irredeemable wasteland.
Clyde
1 year ago
Did’ya ever think that things are the way they are here because that’s the way the majority of residents have allowed it to become?? Maybe because that’s the way they want it? Pam Iorio aside, look at who we elect. Another idea – in some states, the cities are completely independent of the counties and have control of their destinies. How do you think we’d do out from under the dead hand of the Hillsborough BOCC? Getting away from the low-wage mentality of our business “leaders” would help too, not to mention a school system that actually teaches children some skills.
Anonymous
1 year ago
Clyde, I think you’re implying that “someone” chose our current dysfunctional system? I think our current quagmire “just happened” over many years of folks voting for their friends and neighbors or the guy with the nicest tie without thinking about (for example) what “big picture” growth plan does the guy have–sprawl or smartgrowth?
It is all a self-perpuating system–bad schools producing uneducated voters, or criminals, retirees who don’t give a $$$t about educating other peoples kids, the perennial real estate investors over their heads and looking for a bail out, tax dodgers who don’t believe in paying taxes, and a region that favors their own local yokels as compared to an “outsider” who may actually know what he’s doing.
Of course this mindless ssyetm will one day fall under its own weight and lack of direction. We can either escape to another city that has it going on, or be here to pick up the pieces and build something new and better.
Anonymous
1 year ago
Hey Caleb and the like, stop complaining and tell us what you are doing fix our cities. If things are that bad then why do you stay?
Meredith
1 year ago
I am all for creating an oasis. In ‘92, Tampa had the beginnings of a hip community in Ybor. Remember Three Birds, and Ovo’s, and Traxx? Then Ybor went through the ‘alcohol mall’ stage that we now see at Channelside. You’d think Tampa would learn. Want a better job so you don’t have to live in a nasty apartment hovel? Create some reason for businesses to relocate here. Make the place appealing so that businesses can recruit smart people who will want to live here, and educate their children here. The creative diaspora can help bring that kind of change; the “crunchy” people can save Tampa from a dying city’s fate like Detroit or Dayton.
Join and support groups like TIBA (Tampa Independent Business Alliance) and foster the growth of local businesses. Have something to offer besides the same old chain store /chain restaurant / traffic jam BS that people can get anywhere. I can’t find a good cup of Cuban coffee in the greater Washington DC metro area, and God knows I have looked. What else makes Tampa unique? Find those things and nurture them. Create an identity beyond drinking and shopping and strip bars (no offense to Joe Redner, I like the guy).
There’s hope for Tampa, and there are enough people who recognize how to save it. The days of the developers are almost over. Who will seize the reins of power and bring Tampa to its full potential?
Ed
1 year ago
Anonymous – You gave us part of the the typical Tampa BS defence of anyone trying to talk about change and progres. These are:
1) you are just jeous of me
2) You hate Tampa!
3) I hope you leave.
Well guess what buddy, they are leaving and we are left with a town of idiots like you who go after the people who care enough to try and foster change.
Simple minded rednecks all longing for the small town days and so affraid of this city growing becuase it might risk your little pool of importance.
Anonymous
1 year ago
Again Ed what are you doing to make Tampa better?
1. I think you were trying to spell jealous.
2. I don’t hate Tampa. I dislike complainers.
3. I am not leaving. I want this area grows artistically. Just in case you don’t understand that word I will define it for you.
Artistically
1 : of, relating to, or characteristic of art or artists
2 : showing imaginative skill in arrangement or execution.
Ed
1 year ago
Anonymous – denying the reality of issues is not helping the issue.
People like you, and I mean small minded rednecks when I say that, need to accept that admitting the problem is the first step towards solving it.
As long as we got small minded scared whiners like say, you, we will not make progress.
So why don’t you leave if you are not willing to be part of making this town better, why don’t you love Tampa Bay enough to help out?
Oh wait, youm ust be one of those fools who think as long as we all kiss ass and play nice somehow this stuff will get worked out eventually. Who needs active citizens who make demands on the politicians and institutions, who needs people actually involved?
Anonymous p this attitide of your is what ENABLES the problems Tampa has. Take pride in your town, love it, speak up for it, fight for it. Don’t be an enabler.
Anonymous
1 year ago
Ed you are so far off the mark with your evaluation of me. I have never said we (our cities) do not have issues. There is always room for improvement. You really won’t say what you have done to help. Don’t try to flip this around due to your insecurities. Lead by example!
Ed
1 year ago
Anonymous – stoop your whining and complaining, what are you doing to help put Tampa? Oh, just an enabler.
Ed
1 year ago
I have said what needs to be done, we must speak and be involved, hold our politicians and bureaucrats to task and we must not let people silence themsleves thinking that is a form of support.
Gripe, let the lleaders know what you want and need, otherwise you are enabling the problem.
It is supposed to be a democracy so speak and get involved.