Is Orlando More Than Just Suburban Sprawl?

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[@Gilthwixt1]

Waiting with bated breath for the Winter Park video. It's like an oasis in a hell of traffic filled stroads. You did an amazing job covering all the other decent neighborhoods in Orlando but WP is the crown jewel.

[@planetaxolotl4398]

The way I leaped when I saw a video talking about urbanism in my city

[@IAFB]

Same

[@LCRAVIAT1ON]

Real

[@flarrfan]

Before I-4, that area west of the highway was the black downtown, especially along Church St. Two separate downtowns, two separate populaces. Also, I went to Audubon Park Elementary, and the strip center depicted contained our locally owned drug store/soda fountain and neighborhood grocery. I got my hair cut at a little barbershop across from the center and played on the playground behind it.

[@SeaBassTian]

Another banger! I wasn't of some of these hidden gems during my last trip to Otown but did make it up to nearby Winter Garden on a bustling weekday and it did offer some of the urbanism I seek out when I visit a new city. We even had to wait for the local train to pass before I was able to sit at a picnic table and enjoy some foodtruck grub (I think there was a farmers market in progress?)

[@jenniferwebb968]

As an architect in Orlando would love to talk with you about what parts of Orlando could be infill. I'm in oviedo outside of downtown and have some ideas on how to make the Orlando area better designed.

[@byzelimium]

Lots of opportunity on SR50 and by the Amtrak station just south of 408. The roads should be redesigned too to promote multimodal transit such as biking and walking

[@biancalucia8388]

Orlando is so spread out like many southern cities. It feels like a cluster of small towns. Nothing like NYC or San Francisco

[@officialCarlosZ]

This video provided a great overview of my city. Regarding downtown late at night, it becomes extremely lively and crowded, as it's well known for its bar and nightclub scene. However, safety has become a growing concern due to a notable number of shooting incidents. In response, the city implemented a moratorium on new nightclubs and bars downtown as part of an effort to address public safety and curb late-night violence.

[@Gilthwixt1]

Yeah I've seen mixed responses to the plans for Downtown. The nightclub/bar scene is really all DT Orlando has going for it, and it's absolutely packed on Saturday nights. A lot of people I know who work and frequent those bars aren't happy about the attempted culling. But as the video shows, there really isn't much to do in DT during the day unless you work in one of the corporate offices. I think it's a noble intention to try and diversify the area a bit but eliminating the nightlife scene with no real plan or incentives for other businesses to move in might do more harm than good.

[@jamespwalter13]

First video I’ve seen from you, I learned a lot about Orlando, and great channel name!

[@jarrodlawrence2002]

Wall Street is packed on weekends at night, but Church Street is dead. It has not been lively there since the mid 2000's. Overall, downtown Orlando is not what it used to be. Even the nightlife has fallen off in recent years. They are trying to change it and go away from the clubs, and make it more family friendly with high end restaurants similar to Park Ave in Winter Park.

[@Weeki370]

Some interesting neighborhoods like Ivanhoe Village and College Park and Thornton Park, downtown is a bit chopped up and not so pedestrian friendly

[@Weeki370]

Great video, check out St Petersburg Fl, night and day from Orlando, downtown and adjacent neighborhoods very well planned, excellent for walking and biking with a newer BRT system

[@brianantoniohuman]

This is a great long form study of O town. Thank you.

[@CasualScrub]

For anyone who wants better transportation options around Orlando, Orange County just launched the Transportation Mobility Advisory Commission which should theoretically help. Their next meeting is February 14th at 6:00 PM and I'd recommend looking it up and visiting to add public input!

[@nlpnt]

This is well-timed for me as I'm visiting family in Central Florida next week! I'll have to check some of these places out.

[@jman1948]

I live in Orlando. Downtown is sad compared to what it was even 5-10 years ago. Most of the entertainment is centered around the theme park areas. I live in the theme park district and the traffic is horrible. Cant get around without either suffering on I-4 or taking the side streets.

[@tylerclayton6081]

You think Orlando traffic is bad? Try going to Europe, their congestion and traffic is on a whole different level due to their poor road and highway infrastructure

[@Gilthwixt1]

@@tylerclayton6081 What an odd comparison lol. There are plenty of cities in Europe featured on channels like this one where you don't even have to drive because everything is with a walk/bike/train ride away.

[@a.caguax78]

Great video, please come visit Tampa next!

[@jonbryden3307]

I lived there for over 30 years mostly in Azaela Park. I enjoyed watching the video seeing the places I know. I live in Kissimmee now but Primary Doctor is right on Corrine Drive. I don't really think of it as a city. Downtown is so small, full of bars. I have walked around and it is dead during the day. Nice video looking forward to the one on Winter Park.

[@dennisc6716]

For most weekends during the summer of 1985 I was driving from St. Petersburg every Saturday morning to Zellwood where I would work for a customer the entire weekend. One Sunday night the road back to I-4 at Altamonte Springs was closed due to a wreck so I drove down US-441 to catch I-4 downtown. I had never been in Orlando off I-4 before and was surprised how desolate it looked. The guy eventually offered me a permanent job there and I gave it a hard pass. St. Pete was a much better place to live then.

[@electric_eel]

damn what an ending

[@C1K450]

Orlando also became dead because certain events hosted in the downtown area attracts certain groups of people to have fights and shootouts with each other on the weekends, leading to a downtown curfew and change of business hours on certain nights or events.

[@bov5020]

He is clueless

[@kevinp.h157]

What we need more of is more options for living spaces, some might prefer single family surburb homes, others like you might want to live closer to the city center, people like you have made that pretty clear

[@Rct3Mike]

You missed the mark a bit on Mills 50, which refers to the intersection of Mills and Colonial (state route 50). This intersection is terrible from an urbanist perspective because of the amount of traffic, but its pretty much the center of the (very good) asian food scene in Orlando. There are a few nooks built into some of the strip malls where you can get slightly away from the traffic noise, but overall there's not that much charm outside of the food itself. It seems pretty hopeless to fix areas like this because of all the surrounding suburban sprawl and how unreasonable it would be to take Colonial/SR50 down to one lane each direction to give space for anything else. The political pushback from the suburbs, which hold more influence by numbers, would be massive. I've pretty much given up hope for Orlando as the pace of change has been painfully slow and the hole is dug deeper every day as more and more suburbs and highway expansions are completed. I moved away to somewhere more walkable recently and have no regrets.

[@sunrise3216]

Am I the only one that finds downtown actually very beautiful and pretty? Lake Eola area is awesome with many restaurants, grocery store and new small business less bars. I think the city has much potential. They need more small businesses, shops, less bars, more corporate offices to bring jobs, and remove homeless. It’s slowly getting better.

[@njv1234]

I’ve never seen an urbanist crap on Mills Avenue until today 😂

[@bov5020]

Urbanism crap on everything

[@sammiret4472]

One of the main reasons for "car centric" communities in Florida is the heat/humidity. Try walking or biking in the summer. You'll be drenched in sweat. Not to mention the daily, afternoon lightning and thunderstorms.

[@Kodeb8]

The weather is always used as an excuse by NIMBYs. Up here in the midwest the reason we can't have good cities is because our winters are too cold and our summers are too hot. Even in the west coast, which arguably has some of the most desirable weather in the world, NIMBYs STILL find a way to use the weather as an excuse for why walkable cities wouldn't work there.

[@sammiret4472]

@Kodeb8 this really has nothing to do with a NIMBY. Seriously, the heat, humidity and afternoon thunderstorms (every day) are the reasons why Florida is so car based. You need to live here to understand

[@bov5020]

@@sammiret4472you are correct but don’t ruin these kids fantasies

[@Gilthwixt1]

I also live in FL and you're not wrong, I would hate to strictly bike or walk anywhere in Florida weather, but the weather shouldn't preclude good mass transit infrastructure from existing. At the very least it would be nice to able to drive/bus to a station and take a train to where you want to go. I-4's traffic hasn't gotten any better despite all the lane additions - a light rail down the middle might perform better but the real issue is that nobody wants to pay for anything because "TAXAtIoN is theFt" or whatever. They really need to at least lengthen the Brightline route from MCO to the themeparks so people don't have to uber in from the airport. Going all the way to Tampa would be even better.

[@CasualScrub]

Last summer I had to live without a car for about a month and so I was walking to my local publix about 15-20 minutes one way. Even while carrying groceries, I don't think the heat was ever that bad, as long as there was adequate shade. I visited Italy the same summer and it was much hotter there, yet people were still walking everywhere in those cities. I think you're likely over blowing the negative effects of heat when it comes to walkability. Rain is an interesting one because I'll admit it sucks to bike in the rain, but walking in the rain is debatably more enjoyable (and certainly safer) than driving in the rain, as long as you have an umbrella. Additionally, Orlando suffers with flooding which is extremely difficult to deal with largely due to its size. Sprawling infrastructure is incredibly expensive to repair, and local cities and counties don't have the funds to fix it (Oviedo for example just recently had to increase its utility bills). If these communities were more dense, not only would storm water infrastructure be easier to repair, but it would also allow for more wetlands and flood plains to exist in place of the impermeable asphalt we have built.

[@ttopero]

Is there anyway I can connect with you directly for planning my urban exploration trip to Orlando?

[@harveyschwartz6789]

Park Street and Rollins College in Winter Park is gorgeous.

[@joshua6287]

Downtown Orlando is full of homeless persons as well, not what people want to see when they go on a walk.

[@ItsJustStevesWorld]

Lymmo isn’t BRT. It’s a downtown circulator. Big difference.

[@ttopero]

Orlando is really cheap to fly to from Denver so despite my abhorrence to flying Frontier (sardine can taxi of the sky), this video convinced me to take a 2-day, 1-night trip there. Now if I can just get around without a personal private vehicle, I’ll be ecstatic-probably means Celebration is off the table

[@IAFB]

I hate that you came in the winter and not spring, summer or fall. Downtown is not a dead zone everyday.

[@GirtonOramsay]

Oh man, if you had walked one more neighborhood east, you would have run into the "new" urbanist neighborhood of Baldwin Park. It offers a sort of walkable modern development with a main street and crap load of parking behind the buildings. Celebration by WDW is another new urbanist town thay tries to replicate the walkable city but has no identifiable main street IMO.

[@njv1234]

city featured at 26:20 is not Orlando, it could be Nashville

[@AllTheUrbanLegends]

Stitch incoming 😉 But yeah, mostly accurate. There's a lot going on behind downtown. Most of the decline happened during Covid. I'll explain in more detail.

[@HelloHi-g2u]

I am in the minority, but I love nearly empty, gentrified, corporate areas like the downtown of Orlando. Makes me feel safe. I’ve never been a fan of humans. I’d rather have clean well kept architecture, landscaping, and not having to deal with people.

[@ttopero]

Sounds like an empty Disney park would be heaven! LOL

[@HelloHi-g2u]

@@ttoperoTacky architecture haha. More like an empty downtown high rise Miami or Chicago or Dubai would be heaven.

[@ttopero]

@@HelloHi-g2u I think a condo in one of those billionaire row pencils would allow you a fairly empty building if you didn’t leave it. You present yourself in a diametrically opposed conundrum LOL

[@JoeBoat0T]

He’s so edgy 😭

[@jamisontanksley112]

Not being a fan of humans and living in a city are two things that don’t go together. I think if you grew up in a society where you had so actually communicate with others, then you’d think differently. A lot of European smaller cities are clean, not to full of people and still lively.

[@plutosotherchannel8753]

yooo

[@Staticc146]

No next question

[@bov5020]

Remember it is humid so walking is hit or miss depending on the event

[@eatbutter]

first

[@kevinbarnes218]

good for you buddy

[@bov5020]

It’s called economics for why it is. Same as everywhere