Jen wrote:
nice hometown websites too, clay top roads and live oaks festooned with moss, definitely huckleberry.
Well, I don't live in the town where I work. Real estate is a bit expensive there; it's also a small town where everyone knows me, and I want to be able to really leave work at 5:00 -- or 7:00, as the case has been recently.
I live in Ocoee, which is about 1/3rd of the way between that small town and downtown Orlando. Ocoee is a western suburb of Orlando; it used to be known as a "hick town" of sorts, but it's rapidly developing into a desirable suburb. Tough design regulations, big houses ... it's not bad. It
is a suburb, though.
The location of my job provided a lot fo challenges when it came to house hunting. If I lived where most singles tend to congregate, in Orlando's northern 'burbs, I'd be looking at a 50 minute commute to work. Not too far south is Dr. Philips and Windermere -- unaffordable on a planner's salary. Closer to downtown is Pine Hills, otherwise known as "Crime Hills" -- a once middle-class suburban area that is experiencing rapid socioeconomic change. Winter Garden is close to work, but the built environment there leaves a bit to be desired, and demographically it has a "traditional rural Southern working class" orientation -- friendly, but I wouldn't fit in. (The planners there are trying hard to turn things around, I'll give 'em credit for that.) If I want to get to work in a reasonable amount of time, not be so far from downtown that feel like I'm in the sticks, and live in a nice place I can afford, I'm pretty much limited to Ocoee.
I'll hold a Planfest when Cyburbia reaches critical mass, and there's enough Cyburbanites from Central Florida that'll fill my yard ... or at least be able to sit around the dining room table.