I have nothing against Lake Nona and I hope it is very successful but I don't understand all of the praise that it receives. Lake Nona today is a half baked concept but it receives immense amounts of praise based on potential. True, it has tremendous potential but a lot of areas have great potential. Will it come into fruition? I don't know, maybe. Also, Orlando's Silicon Valley? Come on, let's come back down to reality a little bit here.
Paying tolls on the 417 is the same experience as I4? You will sit in traffic on both but at least on I4 you have the option of not paying for tolls. You make it sound like only the 417 has access to Disney while I4 doesn't? What? According to Google Maps just now, Lake Nona is only 7 minutes closer to Cocoa Beach than it is from Downtown Orlando.
Again, Lake Nona is a great neighborhood but some of these posts that try to sell it as the next urban utopia go a little too far into dreamland for me.
Edit: I totally missed the art DNA in Lake Nona. Sure, LN has a disco dog, a fancy parking garage, and a wall with painted wings on it for the Gram. Is that all it takes to have artistic DNA nowadays?