I made the questionable choice to move to Florida for
a couple years back around the turn of the century. I
lived in a fairly small agricultural town on the
eastern coast.
I noticed a couple things about the towns in Florida:
they tend to look really crappy and there's no logic
to their layout. And I say no logic after having
lived in St. Paul for over 10 years! ;)
Turns out there weren't any zoning rules down there.
I don't know if that is a state wide thing or specific
to the towns/counties in the area I lived. One of my
friends there was a life-long resident - a very rare
bird indeed! He said that nicer neighborhoods tended
to form howeowners associations (or they were
established by the developer). These associations
fill the gap left by the lack of governmental
oversight and control neighborhood standards to the
extent they can/desire. Sometimes you get off-leash
pit bulls, others you gotta match the color of your
shutters to those of the neighborhood fashion police.
I wouldn't trade that arrangement for what we have
here in St. Paul for all the mouse ears in Orlando.
Strip malls of varing degrees of disrepair strewn
helter-skelter across the landscape, streets that
follow the whim of the developer not the town's
desired traffic flow, no sidewalks anywhere -- No
Thanks!
We fled back north after a couple years. Sure we
missed family, friends, good beer, decent Asian food -
all the comforts of St. Paul. I found I also missed
the place: the buildings, the residential
neighborhoods, the commercial arteries. I'm sure
there will always be a tension between gov't control
and developer exuberance. That's fine; I think we've
managed fairly well so far.
Kevin
Frogtown - Ward 1, Precinct4
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more.
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
-------------------------------------------------
JOIN the St. Paul Issues Forum TODAY:
http://www.e-democracy.org/stpaul/
-------------------------------------------------
POST MESSAGES HERE: stpaul@mnforum.org
To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit:
http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul
Archive Address:
http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
