National Geographic article on Orlando (Ocala: appointed, new home, taxes)

[SandyCo]

If anyone gets a chance, pick up the March 2007 National Geographic. There's a long, very informative, and well written article about Orlando, titled "Orlando Beyond Disney", the subtitle is "The Theme-Parking, Megachurching, Franchising, Exurbing, McMansioning of America". It talks about what Disney's vision was vs. what Orlando has become, etc. I found it fascinating given the tone of some of the threads on this forum.

[BlueWillowPlate]

Thanks for posting this, Sandy. I'd definitely like to read that piece.
Also, in the latest issue of National Geographic Traveler, there is an article about Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park and Cross Creek (above Ocala.)
I'd really like to go there some day.

[Lawstudent]

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/n...re4/index.html
This is the link to the story> I don't know if it is ok that I post this.

What a wonderful article. I think it does portray all that I have read on this forum.

[BlueWillowPlate]

Wow.
Snippets:
Without warning or explanation, FM 100.3, Orlando's famous "golden oldies" station (known as the Big 100s), had vanished. Rumba 100.3, new home of central Florida's hottest Latin sounds, had taken its place.

Nothing is more obvious than the need for a light-rail system connecting Disney, downtown, the airport, and points in between.But in Orlando people love their cars as much as they hate paying taxes.

We have drive-by citizens," says Linda Chapin, a former Orange County commissioner. People move to Florida, but they don't bring their loyalties with them. In such a situation of psychological rootlessness and moral detachment, the question isn't whether the problems arising from unchecked growth can be solved. It's whether there is any chance of them being addressed at all.

I sincerely hope these issues can be addressed.

[blueoktober]

This is the best article ever written on the current state of Orlando. Thank you for sharing it. It does echo what many of us have said, but much MUCH more eloquently!

[crikey]

Originally Posted by blueoktober

This is the best article ever written on the current state of Orlando. Thank you for sharing it. It does echo what many of us have said, but much MUCH more eloquently!

Yes, the article was dead on.

[Prichard]

Without warning or explanation, FM 100.3, Orlando's famous "golden oldies" station (known as the Big 100s), had vanished. Rumba 100.3, new home of central Florida's hottest Latin sounds, had taken its place.

FYI, the oldies station is now on AM - check out 810 on the AM dial. With the advances in AM radio, I can't tell the difference with the old FM station.

[RedWingsFan]

Thank you so much for posting that link to the article. I found it so interesting! Great article.

[Dalt10]

Very good article

[Rhett_Butler]

Great Article.... My favorite blurbs...

Originally Posted by article

Disney acted out the old American idea that if you can just grab hold of enough American wilderness, you can create a world free of the problems that besiege people in places like the frost belt. Kerouac evoked a rootless America where, no matter how far people wander, they never reach their destination.

We have a little debate about that here every day if you stop and think about it...... though I'd say today it's the disgruntled who are looking to leave Orlando that encompass the spirit of Walt Disney in this particular case. Someone was widely praised on this board for joking at how many in Florida are looking to locate to Tennessee or North Carolina. See the parallel in hope and attitude??? The people looking for thier "slice of wilderness"???

Originally Posted by article

Today Orlando is a cauldron of all the communal characteristics Disney sought to control. In its Parramore district, you can stock up on crack, meth, and angel dust. According to the Morgan Quitno research firm, in 2006 it joined such cities as Detroit and St. Louis to become one of the 25 most dangerous cities in America. The result is armed guards at the gates of "communities" where entry is solely by invitation. The Orlando area also has one of the highest pedestrian death rates among the largest metro regions in the country. Four decades after Disney's fateful flyover, Orlando is a place of enormous vitality, diversity, ugliness, discord, inventiveness, possibility, and disappointed hopes, where no clown in a character costume can tell people how to live, let alone where to park.

Yup, the paradox that is Orlando....

Originally Posted by article/Linda Chapin

"We've allowed Florida to be turned into a strip mall," says Chapin. "This is our great tragedy." .......

....."Just because we've ruined 90 percent of everything doesn't mean we can't do wonderful things with the remaining ten percent!"

Love these quotes by Linda Chapin (former Orange County Commissioner).