Tim is an architect and WordPress blogger who is concerned with, among other things, how real communities develop organically. He has a strong sense that creating places top-down should not be regarded as sustainable place making.
Being a bit of a contrarian, I’d love to think of a contrary example, but so far I can’t.
Here Tim takes off on a planned community in his neck of the Florida woods.
“The problem with the Love Street / Jupiter Inlet Village project is that nobody will live there. … The planners, architects and developer of the project say the project is all about real place making. Fortunately, we have a large amount of accepted research and knowledgeable writing on the subject of place making dating back over 40 years …
“First, 2 things need to be clear about place making – 1) It is a human phenomenon that is, therefore, very personal, varying, and not measurable; 2) ‘Real’ place making happens anywhere, and anytime there are humans present. …
“Wasteful land use in the form of a high percentage of non-places is the critical flaw with all drive-to places that claim to be urban or have high quality place making at their core. They simply do not, and they perpetuate the car-centric development pattern that exacerbates quality-of-life negatives in South Florida – traffic, loss of identity, and the replacement of real places with faux places.
“For Love Street / Jupiter Inlet Village to become the real place in claims it will be, it should do the following:
- Embrace the residential patterns that are still in the area, and were once far more prominent, and include residential units of a similar urban village quality.
- All parking should be metered, and of the on-street variety, and the parking lot should be replaced with a public green.
- Retail, commercial, and office space should be geared toward neighborhood uses, with the goal of replacing vehicle trips with bicycle or pedestrian trips to a very high degree.
- The lighthouse promenade must actually align with the lighthouse, and, thereby, solidify a framed street scape view of this landmark in perpetuity for all to share in. The promenade is presently a few degrees off, and focuses on a point well east of the lighthouse.
“Development and redevelopment projects are not inherently bad things, in fact, many developments create great pedestrian and transit oriented places that foster living, working and playing within a tight-knit community. However, developments that pretended to be great place makers, and really are not, represent a continuation of the very harmful growth patterns of the last half-century in disguise.
“Jupiter Inlet Village can be a great place, and an asset to the community, but it will not get there by pretending to be something that it is not.” More at Tim’s WordPress blog, here.
Map: https://www.jupiter.fl.us/index.aspx?NID=884
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
Poor Florida–it seems to me that they get everything wrong as they try to fit more and more people in.
Yes. Other than friends I have there, the only draws for me are the nature preserves. Thank goodness, the state sees the value in nature preserves.
http://www.strongtowns.org/
Thank you for the re-blog of my post. I offer the above link to StrongTowns. Founder, Chuck Marohn, has created a national movement for incremental community growth (among other things related to sustainability), and is an advisor to President Obama.
I am rooted in South Florida as a 3rd generation native of Palm Beach County, so I choose not to give into the “poor Florida” mindset. If you would like to read an earlier piece entitled “The Fight is not Over Against Minto,” it speaks to the mind set of locals who just want to keep the places they live the way they are. That article contains a link to several local non-profits that need financial support for their battles against big-money developers.
Thanks again for the re-blog!!
You are welcome. And thank *you* for the additional information. It’s good to know there are Floridians working on these issues.