Frank Urbanism

Dispatches from the Bleeding Edge - EoS v. EoM 1

2011-11-16T10:57:00.000-05:00

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Agenda 21 from Outer Space! and The Tea Party

2011-07-12T14:38:00.000-04:00

This anti-sustainability backlash seems to be responding to a perceived conspiracy with a counter conspiracy. Tea Partiers talk a big game about olden times, Founding principles, traditions, etc., but fail to observe that life during those agrarian times-and the social context in which our great Nation’s founders conceived our Republic – bore a striking resemblance to the sustainability “Agenda.”

University of Miami Lectures

2011-02-07T17:03:00.001-05:00

Here is a link to streaming video of the lectures I gave at the University of Miami's Masters of Real Estate Development + Urbanism program this past fall. There were 8 lectures in all, but the first one hasn't been posted yet. The lectures are organized as 4 pairs of lectures: Pair 1 looks at the history of New Urbanist development as the "Renaissance" of urbanism. First, the Founders/

Imagining Florida Essay Summary

2010-12-26T22:46:00.000-05:00

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Dan Solomon on Sprawl - which he calls the "Second-Era Town"

2010-06-04T22:15:00.000-04:00

In his book Rebuilding, Daniel Solomon sketches out the dilemmas of sprawl, which he refers to as the ''second-era town,'' in his essay ''Two Eras.'' There are five major ways in which the second era town is different from the first era town – five ways in which the second era town is deficient FIRST The second-era town wrecks the landscape, both natural and man-made. The blurred

Why I Do (and how and what)

2010-05-24T23:31:00.001-04:00

Longleaf – Downtown Longleaf – Businesses of Downtown Longleaf – Town Ground Frank Starkey – May 13,2010 Why? We are about connecting people: We believe that people connected are better than people separated; We believe that a society of connected people is better than a society of separated individuals; We believe that people

"Conservative" transportation policy?

2009-09-10T10:42:00.003-04:00

I was struck by one of the comments to an Orlando Sentinel article on transportation. The article featured my friend and former consultant Billy Hattaway, who advocates both "Road Diets" (reducing pavement width to make roads more civilized) and mass transit.The first commenter comes out of the blocks on what he labels "liberal" transportation policy (transit), implying that our current system

Trust Fund Kids and Gulf Drilling

2009-06-25T12:26:00.004-04:00

Oil is like a zillion dollar trust fund given to us by super-rich grandparents, which we have been spending with reckless abandon. In fact, we've been profligately paring down the principle, under the drunken delusion that the endowment is endless.Oil under the Eastern Gulf of Mexico is like a $10,000 savings bond, also given to us by our forebears. A nice sum which, if invested wisely, could

What's a boy to do?

2009-06-23T09:26:00.004-04:00

There is a nexus between agriculture, human habitat, jobs, economic development, renewable energy, education and entrepreneurship; the way our species functions. For the last century that nexus was a system based on fossil fuel, a system which is unsustainable by definition, and which in fact has been proven to be rather destructive in many ways. For the coming century it'll have to be

Vitamins - good and useless

2009-06-22T15:33:00.003-04:00

Health experts tell us that some cheap vitamin tablets are useless because they don’t dissolve. Even though they contain ingredients that would be beneficial our bodies, they pass through without ever being absorbed into our system. We may tell ourselves “I took my Vitamins” but in reality, we’ve gained none of their benefits. When it comes to urbanism, many jurisdictions - including Pasco

Rays Stadium

2009-06-08T18:28:00.001-04:00

I've posted the following to the St. Pete Times Editor, in response to today's editorial. (see the link above)The current discussion about future regional growth focuses on transit, infill and redevelopment. The Stadium should be the leader in that shift, and a downtown location is the place to do it. Think small and think urban. The problem with the Trop is that it’s too big, and too

Blog Number One

2009-06-08T08:42:00.001-04:00

Rather than write my thoughts, observations, analyses, and ideas in the form of letters with no addressee, essays to no-one in particular, or journal entries to myself, I have decided to throw them out there to the Blogosphere.I hope someone else finds these to be of use, and that this corner of the internet improves an actual street corner in the real world. I believe in urbanism. The Congress