Downtown field trip 4

Field trip 4 Downtown Fort Myers
What is new urbanism? It is an urban design movement which promotes walk able neighborhoods that contain a range of housing and job types. Yes downtown fort Myers completely fits this description. They have the luxurious high rise condos to middle class condos then to low-income housing. Job types vary from court house and city jobs to small mom and pop shops.
I feel most comfortable and energized walking into the park area. Landscape is scattered around nicely. Grass is green and cut very well. The whole area feels open and inviting. There are not abundant amount of parks and green spaces here. I don’t feel a sense of connection to this area but it is a nice place to visit.
A ton of space is devoted to vehicles. There is paid parallel parking everywhere. It cost you a dollar an hour. There is so much parking devoted to this area for all the people that need to come here even just for an hour. You have the courthouse, county jail, water management and several law offices. At night parking is free for all the bars that open up in the evening. There are busses that travel down that way which might be least expensive. I would not use the county bus since I have a car.
Most of the city’s tax base goes to maintenance these days. They have spent a ton of money in the past few years renovating it and some parts are still under construction. Now our tax money goes to keeping it clean and beautiful. People who live in the inner city can shop for groceries at the Publix right down McGregor or there are a few smaller locally owned stores. I think they are trying to tax more to gain more of a profit.
Yes there are several signs of homelessness. Graffiti is in a few places but I think with the remold it has covered up a great deal of it. No I don’t feel comfortable in the city during the day and especially at night. During the day there are so many people driving crazy and walking around angry from the courthouse. You just never know what’s going to happen. At night the bars open up, so you mix alcohol with anger. The news always talks about all the gun shootings down there too. It isn’t a safe place. Tourist probably isn’t safe in this area either. They won’t be in any harm’s way if they just go to the park and leave but I wouldn’t trust it. I would not consider living down here at all.
I learned that downtown can be a pretty place if you just stop and take a minute to look around. My favorite place was the playground and least favorite place was the parking lot. The playground had nice landscape and the parking lot had graffiti in it and made it look run down. Advantage of living down here is you are close to a city park and government offices. Disadvantages of living here would be all the violence and nonstop traffic. People here do feel very connected to their space. They show this the way they stand on the streets and run their stores.
Some changes that could take place would be safer streets. A nicer parking area and better sidewalks would be a great improvement also. I definitely think safer streets should be improved immediately.