Flashpoint : Downtown Suburbia

Welcome to Sign in | Join | Help

Downtown Suburbia

By Brendan McLaughlin

Many of the most progressive, artsy, compact and walkable cities in America aren't cities at all. In fact the suburbs are just as likely as a downtown urban core to contain a groovy live-work-play environment with a Starbucks inside a Whole Foods inside an Ikea store. This is just one of the eye opening findings of Christopher Leinberger of the Brookings Institute who recently authored a survey of the nation's most walkable communities. He praised Washington DC, Denver, Chicago and Portland Oregon for having the highest number of these hipster enclaves. Tampa? He couldn't find a single one. Ybor, he says generously, has promise.

Attachment: leinbergerc_portrait.jpg (24348 bytes)

Leinberger stopped by the Flashpoint studios when he was in town this week to speak at a Tampa Downtown Partnership event. I warned him to prepare for some Ruskin tomatoes flying out of the audience. The boosters promoting downtown living are a little sensitive to criticism. But to their credit they seem serious about transforming our moribund business district into something Petula Clark could dig.

Also this Sunday on Flashpoint, Ybor native and comic gadfly, Jack Espinosa spins yarns from his new memoir, Cuban Bread Crumbs.

That's on Flashpoint this Sunday morning on ABC Action News. Leave a comment here to let me know what you thought of the show.

Published Friday, February 29, 2008 8:52 PM by Brendan
Attachment(s): leinbergerc_portrait.jpg

Comments

	Jennifer Morley said: Brendan, You seem delusional as to the realities of living in Tampa Bay. When faced with empirical research, ignoring it and arguing it makes you appear mentally limited. It is kind of embarassing as this attitude is pretty representative of the national viewpoints of Flori-duh residents. I laughed out loud regarding your comment about the garage and the Lexus. The median family income in this area is about $42K, so the majority of Tampanians are not driving a Lexus. Here, you seem out of touch, much like the George Bush comment regarding $4 gas. Matter of fact, the majority of us are having a hard time just getting by with property tax and insurance crisis, rapidly escalating gas and food prices, along with some of the lowest professional salaries in the country. March 2, 2008 10:18 AM
	Cheryl McDonald said: All of these comments about urbanism is all well and good in areas in the rest of this County but walking and hualing groceries or standing and waiting for transit in 90 degree heat (six months a year) is not something that I desire . After waitng for transit I'll need a shower and a change of clothes when I get to work to keep my co-workers happy. Do we build "bath houses"? Do we demand that our employers provide shower facilities? We are use to being comfortable in our air conditioning. This state's growth was substantially based upon the advent of air conditioning. Also, the topography here is so different, small wetlands and water retention areas tend to make areas seperate and inorder to have new urbanism we need areas that are contiguous. Where do we put the water? So do we disregard out natural environment? March 2, 2008 11:09 AM
	Brendan said: Jennifer, if you didn't have an ad hominem argument, you'd have no argument at all. Try not to take things so personally. Cheryl, You raise an interesting point about the heat and humidity. But I like to think that our brand of new urbanism would give people the choice between driving, walking and riding. Right now, most people are stuck with the expensive and time consuming option of the single car commute. March 3, 2008 2:30 PM
	James Hartzell Sr said: Please answer me this. Would Hillory Clinton be ahead if the Florida delagates were counted? according to your latest polls she is only behind by 100 or so. Thank you March 4, 2008 4:12 PM
	Brendan said: Hillary is down by about 110 delegates. If florida was factored in, she'd pick up a net of about 35, so it would not put her ahead of Obama. March 4, 2008 5:41 PM