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Old 06-24-2007, 03:35 AM
 
1,573 posts, read 4,057,311 times
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It seems to me the Orlando area has alot of ugly stuff... alot of suburban sprawl and eyesores. Go down Colonial Drive and it's unending retail, usually low-class looking, very few trees or landscaping, lots of billboards and check cashing places; very guady, not very attractive. And this stuff spreads and speards. Why can't more places look like Winter Park, the better parts of Sanford, or Mt. Dora?

I live in Oviedo, and while it has its share of problems (poor road layout, roads are not well mantained), it does have alot of green space left, and alot of landscaping. Unfortunately, it seems like alot of that is going to be paved over too. Is anybody else bugged by this? I live at home with the parents but if I moved out, I'm not sure I'd want to live here.
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Old 06-24-2007, 06:14 AM
 
Location: Downtown Orlando, FL
631 posts, read 2,446,796 times
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I assume you haven't been to any other city before because if you had you'd know this is a fact of life. In fact, ORlando is one of the cleanest and prettiest cities you will ever find. Go try living in another state and see how great things are 6-7 months out of the year when the cities are ugly and gray and dirty and industrial. You'll apprecaite Orlando much much more.

You have massive landscaping here even in the ugliest of areas. You won't find that in most other cities. You won't find tropical trees and plants.
The sprawl sucks, yes, but it's a city and a beautiful city. I also hope you aren't attached to the water and lakes around here because you will not find another city with so many lakes and water nearby.

People take this place fior granted so much it's crazy.
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Old 06-24-2007, 06:18 AM
 
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I have to agree. This is one of the cleanest and greenest cities there is. We stay green all year.
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Old 06-24-2007, 05:51 PM
ARC
 
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There's alot I don't like about Orlando, but I have to agree that in general, it's one of the cleanest, greenest, prettiest cities. Yes, of course, there are always some areas that are uglier than others. But even my hometown back in Texas, which I LOVE DEARLY, isn't as clean, green and devoid of billboards like Orlando.
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Old 06-24-2007, 08:06 PM
 
Location: arrlando, flarida
2,227 posts, read 8,200,672 times
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i agree with all posts. while parts of orlando do look really nice, colonial has it's issues. i live in the 32828 zip code, and going 50/colonial is one route that will take you to my house. stoneybrook/avalon park/waterford lakes are nice, but if you go down 50/colonial to get there, it is kinda ugly imo.
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Old 06-24-2007, 09:01 PM
 
Location: Oakland, FL
131 posts, read 577,001 times
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I agree on both accounts. 50 sucks and the sprawl is just so ugly. However, there are many nice aspects of Orlando. My thing is seeing the same cookie cutter subdivisions over and over.. I really enjoy the older FL, like the dirt roads of Windemere and Oakland and the old charm of Mt Dora and Winter Park. On the positive.. I like Waterford Lakes from a sprawl perspective and being "pretty" whereas many of the other areas of sprawl on the west side are just plain ugly.
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Old 06-25-2007, 02:45 AM
 
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My beef is that so much of the new developement is devoid of character. You need some real character in the architecture and layout of a town, not just greenery, for an area to become a community. You get character by building on a human scale and having memorable buildings and landscape features, not just greenery. Look at the number of roads in Florida that can't even be safely crossed on foot or that are unfriendly to bicyclists (here's a hint, bicyclists like right turns, not left turns across traffic), and you'll get an idea of the problems inherent with alot of these newer developing areas.

I think Avalon Park, if the developers continue with the design plans for the area, will probably turn out to be a nice place aestheticly and in terms of land usage. The area's master plan was layed out by Duany-Plater-Zybek, a well known urban architecture firm. But you know what they say about plans, "the best plans of mice and men..."

Look at Winter Park. It's got a nice downtown area and houses there are worth lots of $$$ and probably won't change alot even with the housing slump. It is classy not really because of the old trees but because it was built on a human scale and has alot of interesting architecture and neigborhoods. Why they aren't building more areas like this is just baffling- instead they are building strip malls and gas stations along major thoroughfares and wondering why the heck crime seems to be blossoming up in the big corridors. Communities like Oviedo need to be saying "NO" to more strip-malls and paving over greenery with parking lots, and yes to better roads, more bike paths, and less car-oriented developement.
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Old 06-26-2007, 06:39 AM
 
8,289 posts, read 13,538,788 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by backtofla View Post
i agree with all posts. while parts of orlando do look really nice, colonial has it's issues. i live in the 32828 zip code, and going 50/colonial is one route that will take you to my house. stoneybrook/avalon park/waterford lakes are nice, but if you go down 50/colonial to get there, it is kinda ugly imo.
I live in the same area & moved up here from the Miami area recently. East Colonial Drive is one of the most horric looking commercial streets in all of Florida and that's saying alot because south Florida has it's share of ugly streets.

Is there any zoning in unincorporated Orange County? It looks like if you have money to buy land on SR 50 you could pretty much build whatever you want!
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Old 06-26-2007, 07:05 AM
 
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Most of old Colonial was built at a time when there was no zonning! This is the streach from John Young to about McGuire. There were no setback requirements, and this has caused many of the old buldings to become obsolete. Part of the problem is that if someone tears down an old building, most likely you could not rebuild because the lot would be too small. So, this causes people to keep those old crappy buildings around forever, barely renovating them to make them useable.

There are several things that the City could do. One would be to permit rezoning of some of the residential areas just behind the commercial strip so that there would be enough room to tear down and rebuild with nice setbacks and landscaping. However, there is some resistance among residences to this. Personally, if I was a resident and the person asking for rezoning agreed to make a greenspace buffer and a concrete wall, I'd be all for it as it would preserve the residential charicter of the remaining neighborhood. Those people who's land would be rezoned would make lots of money when their property goes commercial. The City/County could even give some temporary tax breaks so that the developer would be willing to donate some green space and build a nice wall.

The other thing that can be done is for the City to condemn some of this are for city projects. But, as we all know, government is really good at making a bad thing much worse. I mean, if anyone here has ever had to deal with Orange County Building and Zoning, you would know how completely stupid and moronic these people can be - this is NOT an exageration. I could give you story after story about this, but I'll save it for another topic.

Every city has streets like Colonial. Tampa has several. Miami and Miami beach have many. If that's your biggest complaint about Orlando, that you don't like the way Colonial Drive looks, then I'd say you really need to stick to living in places like Celebration.
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Old 06-26-2007, 07:21 AM
 
Location: Downtown Orlando, FL
631 posts, read 2,446,796 times
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From downtown east to 436 Colonial looks just fine. In fact, I love it and think it has an "old Florida" feel to it.

People talk about how wonderful Austin is (and I agree) but Austin's tacky strip mall streets are 10x worse than Colonial, yet people there embrace it.
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