Hey all, I am from Tampa. I love cities and this paper usually gave good reviews of our metropolises in Florida. Anyway, two things about this article, good and bad news:
1. GREAT photography work! Excellent pictures and in fact I saw a couple street corners I am yet to see here.
2. Although, this article is SEVERELY overlooking and underreporting our urban core:
-Davis Islands was not mentioned. It is a beautiful island community with a small, charming business district that has a lot of nice restaurants and bars, etc. It is located right next to Harbour Island and Bayshore Blvd. One block from the business district you have amazing views of the Seddon Channel, Harbour Island, the skyline, and the Port.
-Harbour Island was implied to be residential-only but indeed it has some of the best restaurants in the area, with waterfront and skyline views. Jackson's is a hugely popular and attractive club on the island that hosted several official Super Bowl parties.
-Hyde Park Village was not mentioned. It is a really nice outdoor shopping area among the streets of Hyde Park, mostly on Swann Ave. Closest thing I can compare it to in Jacksonville is Five Points.
-Nightlife in Downtown proper was not mentioned. There is a lot of nightlife and dining downtown, especially on Franklin Street. The Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center (TBPAC) is one of the largest in the country and was not mentioned at all. Also, the area is becoming increasingly residential with just as many condo towers as Channelside. The RIVERWALK project was also completely ignored. It will wrap around the entire downtown area going through parks, and even meander to the historic Tampa Heights neighborhood. Speaking of Tampa Heights, it is on its way to being part of the core. You can't discuss Downtown Tampa in 2009 without mention of the Riverwalk.
-Channelside has way more content than was mentioned, including a lot of new shopping, an expanding retail corridor along 12th Street directly in front of the complex, etc. The busy nightlife and tons of luxury residences completed in the district were also not spoken of.
-A map of our urban core was not shown. When you combine the land area/block lengths of Hyde Park/Bayshore, Downtown, Harbour Island, Davis Islands, Channelside, and Ybor City, it is am impressive area that is entirely contiguous. The streetcar lines were briefly mentioned but there is also a separate trolley connecting Downtown, Channelside and Harbour Island. Also not mentioned were the water taxis currently in use and plans to utilize them more fully, AND the Neighborhood Electric Vehicles being used by small companies to shuttle people between these core neighborhoods.
-West Tampa is not too far from the core. It is a neighborhood with Cuban roots on the national register of historic places. Tons of Cuban eateries and marketplaces. The "Vi-Mi/Mills 50" district in Orlando is just like this and was featured.
-Although not part of the urban core, the Westchase neighborhood is suburban but designed like Baldwin Park in Orlando, etc. It has a town center called West Park Village with a lot of shops, bars, etc in a streetside setting. I mention this because similar neighborhoods have been highlighted for other cities but not for this article.
-Perhaps the best part is that this is disregarding the entire other side of the bay: St. Petersburg and its impressive urban core of Downtown/Old Northeast/Kenwood, the 40 miles of ranking beaches, Clearwater, Tarpon Springs, Dunedin, Gulfport, Palm Harbor, etc. I know this was just about TAMPA only but the Orlando article discussed Winter Park which is not in Orlando proper.
To back up my claims just browse Tampa's well-sourced Wikipedia page. Follow the links to read about all of the core neighborhoods:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_TampaThanks to whomever read my diatribe, hopefully you'll see Tampa is better than this article described.