Recommended Reading
by Van Jones
Mullet lovers try to give fish an image makeover by Kate Spinner New Smyrna's center of town re-emerging but foot traffic vital, planners say by R. Conn and S. Swisher
by Christopher Leinberger
Breaking the Spell
by Scott Russell Sanders by David Brooks |
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SPONSORS
Signature Sponsor
Diamond Sponsors
PRESENTED BY
ANNA MARIA ISLAND PRESERVATION TRUST 
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Vision
Authenticity advances sustainability for Florida's future.
Themes criss-cross as the conference enters into its final four months of planning and recruitment. With the website up and people alerting people, inquiries are coming in. Certainly a good time to remind ourselves what registrants can expect in two and a half days together after 18 months of planning.
Our conference background reaches back 125 years during which Florida has been turning water into land for housing and other development. We have dried up springs, rushed freshwater to sea and let saltwater intrude into our aquifer. Riverboats and railroads were early fuel-powered transportation soon shut down by cars. Results are severe air and water pollution, an overheated atmosphere, and an unsustainable way of life. We know much but we perform little remedial action.
On top of this we now witness the break-up of the middle class, so far with little prospect for repair. We're told, just wait until the economy comes back. Well, yes and no. What good if the economy roars again by extending our subdivisions into still further places where we will only worsen the conditions we already have to cure?
So, how to proceed?
The conference will suggest that if we turn our purpose toward preserving intrinsic resources, we can re-focus our attention on tasks worthy of our humanity. But can preserving nonrenewable resources sustain an economy? What will we have to sell? Who will buy into what resource conservation most importantly represents, which is to say, authenticity?
The four places that our conference will highlight have all found answers. Miami Beach, DeLand and northwest Volusia County, Wakulla and mainland-Franklin counties, and coastal Manatee focus their economies on a conserving way of life - of authenticity - that attracts people to live, invest, and visit. People may not declare that they're choosing these places because they're authentic. Nor is this to say that people aren't still attracted by basically warm winters and beaches. Florida has many beach places, but so far few that have moved toward sustaining their economies by sustaining essential resources.
Conference registrants will learn about how others from elsewhere are making choices the same as we in Florida. Might people not prefer warm-in-winter places that also show they have a handle on a great human priority? Our four places all answer yes; that this course of going forward works.
None of us has to give up acquiring what we need. But might we consider how much of what we want might also derive from renewed regard for civic engagement? Might living in authentic places constitute a gift?
At the conference, we are lay people looking for answers
Herb Hiller, Conference Director herbhiller12@gmail.com Caroline McKeon, Conference Associate Director caroline@floridajourneys.com |
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Conference Updates
● The conference newly welcomes program speakers Duane De Freese, Ph.D., and Clay Henderson, J.D. Duane has three decades of experience in marine and coastal scientific research, conservation, coastal policy and education in Florida. Clay is the foremost Florida environmentalist of his generation. Extended profiles of each will appear in subsequent memos.
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Presenter Spotlight - Gary Mormino
A renowned figure in Florida intellectual circles, Gary Mormino, Ph.D., Frank Duckworth Professor of History and Co-Director of the Florida Studies Program at the University of South Florida, is a prolific writer and author of academic and popular books. Almost two decades ago, Gary began his research into the social history of modern Florida. "Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams: A Social History of Modern Florida" was published in the spring of 2005 by the University Press of Florida. Readers have called it a seminal study in state history. Michael Gannon, Distinguished History Professor at the University of Florida, writes that "'Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams' will be the book by which all future studies of modern Florida will be measured." In 2006, the Florida Historical Society awarded the book the Charlton Tebeau Prize. Gary has written for the St. Petersburg Times, Orlando Sentinel, and Miami Herald. He currently writes a bi-weekly column on state and local history for the Tampa Tribune. In 2003, the Florida Humanities Council named him its first Humanist of the Year. The March 2012 issue of Florida Trend named Gary a Florida Icon.
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Place-making
Portland, Maine (Maine Office of Tourism)
A recent stay in Portland showed how that Maine city practically grooves our Florida path. Look at www.liveworkportland.org. Portland is a national leader in how it goes about economic development. It's about more than the usual incentives. It's about actively recruiting people the city wants. As the site makes clear:
"Portland works primarily because of its people. . . [It's] dense enough to host dynamic communities in almost any discipline, quiet enough to allow sustained concentration and productivity, busy enough to never run out of things to do or people to meet, beautiful enough to energize the body and inspire the spirit, and delicious enough to remind you why you're here." It's a brewpub and coffee capital of America, and when the city eliminated gaudy Times Square-like neon signs along with all billboards in 1977, imaginative entrepreneurs flourished.
Says writer Kent E. St. John about the city, "The town is gruff; brick architecture exemplifies the hard-working heart of this seafaring town. Portland may have a nightlife riddled with top restaurants and top names of every venue the entertainment world has to offer, but its exterior is the glossy coating of a 19th century stalwart fishing village gone metro."
While there, I had lunch with three economic development people, each youthful, all fresh in their outlook: Laura Burden leads liveworkportland's action group 2°p, so called because Portland says that "[Here] it's really two degrees of separation, not six."
Laura is that second degree. She networks people who value Portland's creative community, from marine scientists to photographers, Web designer to biotech Ph.D.'s, ballet dancers to software engineers. As one statement reads, "We're bridging traditional silos and providing a place for creative people to cross-pollinate ideas and get inspired."
"As soon as you make a personal connection, your behavior changes," Laura says.
Jennifer Hutchins is executive director of LiveWork Portland and of the Portland Arts & Cultural Alliance; Elizabeth Trice, Grants & Special Projects Coordinator for Cumberland County, who works on federal grants and brings municipalities together for common purpose. Elizabeth typifies her colleagues in their creatively full lives. She studied in Costa Rica and New Mexico, has traveled to Europe and West Africa, often leading trips by bike, schooner and horseback. She enjoys yoga, hiking, swimming, dancing and performing in her tango band. Laura and Jen are bike commuters; Elizabeth aims to be. 2°p is their common passion.
"Maine is the oldest state and the whitest," says Elizabeth, "and it's only going to grow older and whiter unless we counteract this. That's why we want creative people to join us from around the world."
"It's all about balancing out Vacationland," says Laura. "Tourism may lead the economy, but the more creative people that move here, the more like them will come visit. We want people to come for how we live."
(Herb's contribution.)
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