Isolation by choice chips away at our connectivity
By SANDRA THOMPSON
Published May 24, 2003
While east Tampa is battling drugs, south Tampa has also become a bit of war zone. Drive down Barcelona in Palma Ceia, and the block between Malijo and Concordia is lined with hand-stenciled signs that say: "SAY NO TO CONDOS."
This is the block where a homeowner chopped down a tree that they said endangered their house, then sold the house to a developer who wants to build townhouses there. You can't blame the neighbors for getting mad. But to ban condos and townhouses, and, presumably, apartments - all types of multifamily housing? That's what the neighborhood might decide on, through rezoning, and if it does, it probably won't be the last.
Whoever thought "condo" or "townhouse" - like "duplex" - would become dirty words? If done correctly (and this is, admittedly a big if, the same as it is with a single-family house), multifamily housing can be gracefully incorporated into a neighborhood, even one as charming as this.
A New York friend once referred to the fact that I live in the suburbs. No! I contested. I live in a city. "Yeah, but it's a city where people live in houses." That was supposed to be a putdown.
Here the opposite is the case.
There's nothing wrong with multifamily housing; some of us even prefer to live in it. It's space-conservative; it puts more people in less space, which is intrinsically more urban. If we want to be a city, and not just a suburb with tall buildings downtown, we have to start acting like one.
Try to enter Parkland Estates at the pink arches off Swann that announce the neighborhood, and you'll find the entrance is closed, cemented shut. The people in Parkland Estates didn't want drivers cutting through their neighborhood, speeding through their streets, and who can blame them? But to shut off a whole neighborhood, so that no one - even people working in or visiting Parkland Estates, even people who live in Parkland Estates - can get in through one of its most logical entrances? What's next, sandbags?
The closed entrance looks awful, but not as awful as the message it sends. "Keep Out" is not civic-minded. In a city, people - all people - should have access to city streets. If they speed, the problem should be handled by the police. Ticket them.
We like what city life has to offer in South Tampa: proximity to downtown, a short commute, retail and restaurants and services at our fingertips, neighborhood parks and Bayshore where we can all go, no matter where we live, to run or bike or just see each other.
We don't like the crowding or the traffic, but a certain amount of that comes with the territory. There are ways to deal with high-density problems other than shutting out people - whether they're drivers or those who prefer to live in multifamily residences - out of a neighborhood. The whole idea of a city, as opposed to a suburb, is inclusiveness and diversity, which means getting along with people, even those whose values may be different from ours.
It means using a little common courtesy, like not speeding past other people's houses and on the streets where their kids play. And, if you're a developer, keeping the neighborhood in mind when it comes to things like scale, design, landscaping, encroachments on close-by property and appearance from the street. (If courtesy is not a selling point, consider that you might not have the opportunity to build any more townhouses or condos, period.)
South Tampa developers might drive over to east Tampa for some ideas. Belmont Heights Estates, a huge development that combines apartments, townhouses and single family houses in complementary styles and colors and preserves green space and trees, doesn't look at all like what you might expect in a mixed-income development.
In fact, it really looks good.
- Sandra Thompson is a writer living in Tampa. She can be reached at tampa@sptimes.com City Life appears on Saturday.
