“Developer’s political stock is rising high”

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/local/article791171.ece

The king is dead, long live the king.

I think every neighborhood should have it’s own walkable, mixed-use neighborhood center and each center should be seperated by the adjoining center by a five minute walk. Of course this is exactly what Transect Planning recommends:

http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dtransect%2Bplanning%26fr%3Dyfp-t-305%26toggle%3D1%26cop%3Dmss%26ei%3DUTF-8&w=575&h=223&imgurl=www.pfweb.com%2Fpics%2Ftt%2Ftransect.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pfweb.com%2FCRTT%2F2-2-03.htm&size=15.9kB&name=transect.jpg&p=transect+planning&type=JPG&oid=bba595716bfe1874&no=1&tt=60&sigr=114h91t4d&sigi=112jc4o4e&sigb=137sjc2kv

This concept is contrary to the sprawl that we live in that has no centers and where all uses are seperated per our wonderful 1950s era code.

If we only concentrate on a few “precious places” regionally those with enough $ will get to walk to it, those without enough $ will drive to it or have their fill of sprawl.

The only way to actively combat our blanket of sprawl is for every neighborhood to develop their own centers with density based on where they are located in the planning trasect (mentioned earlier). And of course these centers should reflect the micro-local history, culture, climate, and public input.

And yes, the concept of many small, medium, and large centers supports mass tranist quite nicely.

Good planning and design is for everyone, even folks that live in placeless locales like Brandon and New Tampa.

There’s also a fast-growing bloggers’ meetup group (I missed this month’s meeting due to overwork/fatigue) that draws an amazing number of talented people, including one of the “core” WordPress developers. And I ain’t exactly cheese, myself, being the boss editor for Linux.com and other SourceForge, Inc. Web sites. Plus, I’m also now part of the team working to turn http://TampaBay.tv into a serious media contender.

Forget about building a single downtown where all the assorted creative people live or at least come together to work. That isn’t going to happen here. Hell, it doesn’t even happen in San Francisco, where creative/tech jobs are spread out all the way down to San Jose. An awful lot of Americans, including me, aren’t interested in living a high-rise or dense-housing life. We’re not necessarily suburbanites who want to live in bland, racially and culturally uniform housing developments, but we like to have a little space (like a yard) to call our own, and not to share walls with neighbors.

Seminole Heights is wonderful and all that, but here in Bradenton I have a launch ramp for my little trailer sailboat less than 1.5 miles away, and plenty of beaches (with free parking) and other boat launch facilities within 10 miles. I’m in a racially and culturally diverse neighborhood (hint: anywhere my wife and I life is, by definition, a mixed-race neighborhood), full of interesting people. (Think Gulfport, but with less nightlife, more poetry, fewer hassles, and lots lower housing prices.) I am not going to give up what I have to move into Seminole Heights. But then, I don’t expect people whose economic lives (work) are tied to downtown Tampa to move here.

In this area, which is basically sprawly and is likely to stay that way, we need to think of “neighbors” as people with whom we share common interests rather than think in terms of physical proximity. We now have this “Internet” thingie that helps us meet and that can facilitate F2F events and meetings. For some, it might be a way to stay away from other people, but it can also be a mechanism for meeting people we might otherwise never encounter.

The Tampa Bay region, and other spread-out urban and semi-urban areas around the country, are naturals for Internet-based social interaction. The Internet allows us to have many of the benefits of a tight urban core without high, urban-core housing costs, Atlanta-level traffic or NYC-level hurry. We can live (if we choose) in low-density housing where we have space to contemplate life and… create… but we can still make contact with others whose company we might enjoy — and with whom we can form business/work relationships, too.

We may have to make a little more effort to get off our asses and go to meetings or other gatherings than people who live in places where they can rely on casual encounters to build their social (and work) lives due to high population density. But that’s okay. Let’s not forget that, despite the idealized view of NYC coffee shop society seen in the Seinfeld TV show, there are plenty of lonely people in big cities.

We need to learn to work *with* our geography instead of complaining about it or wishing it was different. Once we accept the place we are, and spend more time thinking about its positive points than dwelling on its negative ones, we can start building interlocking communities based on shared interests, not physical closeness.

That’s when we’ll start realizing this area’s potential as a creative…. hub isn’t the work…. call it “region”… without ruining the low-key lifestyle that is why so many of us are here in the first place.

Just my two cents.

It;s the criminal element and the poor who don’ give a damn that cause those who can move out to do so.

Rob’s also right – poor does not mean criminal. That sort of attitude is what made the urban flight so severe in the first place (that and having people move in who don’t look/live like the original occupants in the area).

What ever happened to the old “poor but proud” idea?

I have a dream that my children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the contents of their wallets but by the content of their character.

(Yes, that’s a paraphrase from the MLK “I Have a Dream” speech.)

This will never work. You won’t get any
“haves” (who have played right by the rulebook of life) that want to live amongst the “have nots” and their crime-ridden lives and lifestyles.