Could Sprawl Kill Orlando One Day?

[spenser1058]

Paul Krugman had an interesting blog post today, comparing two cities devastated by the demise of their primary industries, Detroit & Pittsburgh. He notes the latter recovered, while Detroit, as everyone knows, is in deep doo. What I thought was particularly interesting (and something I haven't seen much discussed anywhere) is his point that Pittsburgh's recovery is in part to the fact that the core city held. Detroit, meanwhile, has mile after mile within the city limits of nothing.

 

I have made the point before that, due to its agricultural roots, Orlando has always been spread out, and that even its major urbanizing period occurred after WWII a variety of decisions have still resulted in our major activity centers being widely distributed throughout the MSA. Because theme parks can't pick up and move easily once built, we've been very fortunate that our major industry isn't likely to disappear for many decades to come. I do wonder, however, if PK's point indicates why we seem to have stalled relative to some of the other high-flying regions.

 

This may mean nothing and may not even be germaine to our situation but it crossed my mind and I thought some of our thinkers might like to weigh in.

 

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/a-tale-of-two-rust-belt-cities/

[FLClarkKent]

Paul Krugman had an interesting blog post today, comparing two cities devastated by the demise of their primary industries, Detroit & Pittsburgh. He notes the latter recovered, while Detroit, as everyone knows, is in deep doo. What I thought was particularly interesting (and something I haven't seen much discussed anywhere) is his point that Pittsburgh's recovery is in part to the fact that the core city held. Detroit, meanwhile, has mile after mile within the city limits of nothing.

 

I have made the point before that, due to its agricultural roots, Orlando has always been spread out, and that even its major urbanizing period occurred after WWII a variety of decisions have still resulted in our major activity centers being widely distributed throughout the MSA. Because theme parks can't pick up and move easily once built, we've been very fortunate that our major industry isn't likely to disappear for many decades to come. I do wonder, however, if PK's point indicates why we seem to have stalled relative to some of the other high-flying regions.

 

This may mean nothing and may not even be germaine to our situation but it crossed my mind and I thought some of our thinkers might like to weigh in.

 

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/a-tale-of-two-rust-belt-cities/

 

Interesting topic, although I think it's hard to compare a Sunbelt city like Orlando to Rustbelt cities like Pittsburgh and Detroit. And Detroit is a unique case, as it has been rocked by social and economical issues for several decades.

 

It sometimes seem that the opposite effect seems to happen in Sunbelt cities (the sprawling burbs suffer during economic downturns while the inner core fares better). That seems to have been the case here in Orlando (look at Deltona, Oviedo or a host of other burbs). At the very least, it's certainly a reason to support a stronger urban core.

[popsiclebrandon]

Been in Pittsburgh the last 4-5 days and in the airport now on my way back to Orlando. Honestly it just isn't fair to compare the two cities and not sure newer cities can ever really be like these established ones. Architecture alone makes it near impossible as no one builds like they did then. One of my favorite parts of Pittsburgh is all of the old churches that are either still churches or have been turned into breweries or concert venues or many other things once the population here dwindled.

 

I spent a good bit of time wondering how different things would be if something like the convention center had always been downtown and all the hotels and things sprung up around that like they did in the tourist area. With everything major being in the downtown area (except the airport) in Pitt then your housing/eating options in each borough around the city it gives a real dense city feel everywhere. Orlando won't have that but it could use a similar economic model. Pittsburgh rebounded on the strength of its medical and engineering technology programs at Pitt and CMU respectively. Now UCF won't ever get on those levels of international acclaim but with the size plus reputable engineering program they aren't far off if the med school can take off.

 

Just would be nice if it wasn't way out on the east side.

[sunshine]

Sprawl kills city. In the case of detroit, middle class move out of the centre city when downtown detoriate. In a smaller scale, it is like Paramorre of Orlando. People that cant afford to move remained behind. It is tough for Orlando to control sprawl because there are no geography boundaries and people that govern the area did not set up regulations to stop that.

[sunshine]

Imagine medical city, convention centre, I-drive, UCF are all within downtown....instead of having so many sub-market competing with each others........