After Hurricane Michael, Orlando’s vision is priceless

In an era of “fake news,” nature is truth. After a U.N. study announced that forestalling climate change catastrophe required the “rapid and far-reaching” transformation of human civilization, Hurricane Michael raced across the abnormally warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico to intensify at an unprecedented rate. As Michael blasted ashore with 155 mph winds, Gov. Rick Scott issued his usual screed to evacuate and escape death. An acutely visionless leader, he is capable of little more.

Tax cuts, denying climate science and eviscerating environmental regulations yield quick profits, but they negate the long-term investments that ensure survival. Moreover, harmonizing development with the state’s rich, watery mosaic of natural capital is a moral obligation. “We have no moral right to destroy any part of this great capital, instead it should be passed on with interest,” William Straub, founder and editor of the St. Petersburg Times, wrote in 1913.

A nonpareil visionary, that year Straub engineered the creation of a four-mile waterfront park modeled on Nice, France. After World War I, he chaired Florida’s first city planning board, and hired preeminent city planner John Nolen to make St. Petersburg an American Riviera. To attract tourists, barrier islands— the land forms most susceptible to hurricane damage — were preserved, while parks were placed within walking distance of residences. Streetcars linked compact arrangements of hotels, businesses and neighborhoods,

HOME DELIVERY RATES and parkways were designed to store and channel a tropical storm’s floodwaters.

The plan fell prey to the quick dollar demands of Realtors. To open new land for speculation, public funds built an infrastructure for a city of 200,000. When the real estate boom collapsed, St. Petersburg’s 40,000 residents held an unmanageable debt. In 1928, the city went into default, a harbinger of the Great Depression.

Nolen’s method of planning was forgotten until the 1980s, when it inspired Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk’s plan for Seaside in northwest Florida. The iconic New Urbanist community’s resilient design brought it through Hurricanes Opal and Michael unscathed. Seaside also set the blueprint to make cities across the nation sustainable. Today, compact mixeduse neighborhoods designed in harmony with nature and for pedestrian movement not only mitigates climate change, they attract capital.

Such neighborhoods are going to define the city of Orlando by 2040. The interconnected and walkable “villages with the city” are called for in Orlando’s new “Greenworks Plan.” One of a score of initiatives to make the city “resilient to the impacts of climate change,” the goal is to transform Orlando “into one of the most environmentally-friendly, economically and socially vibrant communities in the nation.” In the aftershock of Hurricane Michael, Floridians can take solace in having a plan to protect lives and meet the long-standing moral obligation to secure a sustainable return from Florida’s “great capital.”