Downtowns and Small Towns
Herb Hiller and Dan Pennington
Throughout Florida, downtowns and small towns are
the interesting places where things happen! You can see a re-birth,
experience a sense of community, and feel energy in these places. In
fact, place is the critical idea, everything important in the re-emergence
of Florida downtowns and small towns concerns the quality and diversity
of place. In a state overwrought with sprawl and mind-numbing suburbanization,
many of our existing downtowns and small towns offers sought after quality
and diversity of experience and serves as the hub to the surrounding
hinterland experiences. In this light, Visit Florida, the State's tourism
marketing organization, has been working with 1000 Friends of Florida
and others to use these obvious place-based attributes and flesh-out
the new tourism marketing theme - Downtowns & Small Towns (D&S).
A theme that is supportive of managing growth, increasing economic activity
and building healthy diverse communities.
To be economically smart, Florida is learning to
better market and promote downtowns and small towns for tourism. In
the larger economic sphere of the world economy, the new "cultural
creative" markets are finding Florida's urban places more attractive
than ever. Supportive of this, the state is also becoming more Latin
than ever, not just in population but in the look and feel of the urban
subtropics, with its plantings, with its sleek buildings, with its chic
restaurants and shops, its sidewalk cafes. The change is nowhere more
fully in place than along Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach
with their soaring residential towers. More than ever, visitors are
coming for how people here live.
In a wholly new way, our downtowns and small towns
are driving tourism growth, separate from the traditional theme park
and beach based markets. Thus, D&S is being launched as a multi-year
tourism development and marketing program. The D&S initiative is
envisioned to reinforce urban revitalization efforts currently taking
place, in addition to serving as a legitimate new tourism product promoting
the arts, historical and cultural districts, and of course, involving
residents, retail, dining, lodging and entertainment establishments.
Further, D&S is intended to define and establish our downtowns and
small towns as the gateways or portals from which to explore and enjoy
the surrounding natural Florida. Our downtowns and small towns naturally
serve as the base camp from which to initiate a host of short trips
to the surrounding hinterlands with the later prospect of returning
for the enjoyment of the downtown sophistication and nightlife.
This new D&S marketing initiative will serve
to expand the depth of diversity of the Florida vacation experience
while also engaging and advancing pragmatic community interests. When
D&S marketing directs visitors to these downtowns and small towns,
it reinforces the importance of tourism's contribution in sustainable
economic development and uses tourism to support necessary community
development aims. In this way healthy, diverse downtowns and small towns
play a part in controlling suburban sprawl. They satiate the urge of
young singles and older empty nesters to re-locate from the suburbs
to places where they can engage in active and interesting social lives
or resume post-family-raising personal growth in sophisticated arts
and cultural communities. Tourism in this service adds to free-market
efforts enhancing the vitality, job creation and lure of downtowns,
thus encouraging infill and revitalization.
The new D&S initiative provides a demonstration
of tourism marketing being more fully engaged with state processes than
ever before and, accordingly, justifies consideration for greater public
funding. The D&S marketing effort would bolster current state tourism
development efforts, connecting with many other programs, and leverage
funding, human and financial resources to better assist many of our
Florida communities.
1000 Friends foresees use of the D&S approach within
the context of the sub-regional service areas wherein the downtowns
and small towns are specifically marketed as portals and base camps
from which visitors are encouraged to initiate a host of short trips
to the surrounding natural and cultural experiences and sites. A number
of possible example areas have emerged from our work in involving: (1)
The Apalachicola basin with the cities of Apalachicola, Chatahoochee
and Mariana serving as the principal regional small towns; (2) The Eglin
and Blackwater River State Forest sub-area with Pensacola and the neighboring
communities of Milton, Bagdad and possibly Crestview serving as the
downtowns and small towns; and, (3) the lower St. Johns River sub-area
with Jacksonville and Mayport and Atlantic Beach serving as the downtowns
and small towns. Other possible sub-regions and associated communities
abound and the hope would be that successful pilot projects would translate
into a model approach for other communities to follow.
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