What do the communities of Celebration, South Beach and West Park Village have in common?
They all pass the "popsicle test," according to the Congress for New Urbanism - a child can bike to a store to buy a popsicle without traversing highway-sized streets or freeway-speed traffic.
New Urbanism embraces a return to traditional neighborhoods, with pedestrian-friendly streets, mixed-use development clustered around a town center and homes with front porches. Strip malls, gated communities and homes with giant garage doors are taboo; they fracture communities and detract from human interaction.
Florida is on the cutting edge of New Urbanism, said Ray Chiaramonte, the assistant executive director of the Hillsborough County Planning Commission.
"There are more New Urbanist communities here than anywhere else in the nation," said Chiaramonte, who has supported the design and construction of several such communities in Hillsborough, including West Park Village, Hyde Park and Winthrop, which is in the planning stages in Brandon. Pasco County has Longleaf.
Chiaramonte explained that the push for traditional communities started in 1993, with two Miami architects at the helm: Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. They created Seaside, one of the first New Urbanist communities and the location of The Truman Show.
Chiaramonte lived in Celebration for 2½ years, commuting to his job in downtown Tampa before moving his family back and settling on another New Urbanist project: West Park Village, in the Westchase subdivision.
"I'd rather live in an apartment here than in a house in a gated community," Chiaramonte said. "There's life here, a vitality."
© Copyright 2002-2006, St. Petersburg Times
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