{image source} NEW YORK (AP) — America's cities are beginning to grapple with a fact of life: People are getting old, fast, and they're doing it in communities designed for the sprightly. To envision how this silver tsunami will challenge a youth-oriented society,...
Some places just feel right. The buildings, the street, the proportions, the trees, the aesthetics, the uses—in some places they all converge to create little nuggets of urban perfection. Certain medieval Italian vias and French boulevards come to mind, but so do many...
CHAPEL HILL, NC—A study published Thursday by psychologists at the University of North Carolina concluded that all American problems—from stuck jacket zippers to the national debt—could be solved if citizens just stopped, took a deep breath, and thought for two...
{image source} Andres Duany has been a polarizing figure in Sarasota ever since he and his firm helped author the downtown master plan in 2000. While some of his recommendations warrant criticism, it is probably more his demeanor that creates controversy. After all,...
[ted id=1037] We like to call Laurel Park Sarasota's urban village. But what do we mean by that? Isn't "urban village" an oxymoron? Not necessarily. At Laurel Park Management, we see "urban" as a condition of density and diversity, basically a place where a variety of...
You don't have to be a marketing guru to know that youth sells. Everything it seems, including cities, are sold to the youth. Picture crowded sidewalks in the vaunted Creative City—a bunch of stylish 20 and 30 somethings, right? But as important as the energy and...
photo source It's hard to live in Sarasota and not have heard of Owen Burns, the man for whom Burns Court (and by extension Burns Court Cinema) is named, and the honoree of the week-long Owen Burns Week fete November 8-14, 2010. But how much do you know about one of...
There are all sorts of debates about architecture. Should houses in a neighborhood all look similar to give the area a sense of cohesion? Is a diversity of styles more desirable? Is the architecture of the past best? Should architecture be more concerned with the future instead? Is architecture about art? Functionality? A building’s relationship to its surrounding environment? Its climate? All of the above?
Sarasota residents love to engage in hearty debates about our fair town/city, and issues surrounding architecture and development are always hot button. Our own neighborhood, Laurel Park, has seen sweeping changes over the past several decades, and is constantly working to find the right balance of development and preservation, of urbanism and village life, of past and future.
With words like “green” and “sustainability” being thrown around so much these days, we at Laurel Park Management thought it might be good to take a look at what Sarasota is actually doing to become increasingly “green” and “sustainable.” The following is from the official Sarasota County government website:
Sarasota County acknowledges that sustainability is an interlocking network comprised of everything a community touches. Its Roadmap to Sustainability holistically integrates environmental, societal and economic initiatives, fundamentally shifting the role that governance can play in building a sustainable community and transforming its identity. County Administrator Jim Ley presented his Roadmap to Sustainability to the County Commission on Oct. 22, 2006, as an overview of Sarasota County’s direction.
The Bradenton-Sarasota housing market showed no ill effects from the expiration of federal homebuyer tax credits, with sales of previously occupied homes hitting their highest point since the building boom, according to figures released Thursday.
A total of 1,068 existing single-family homes changed hands in June, the most since August 2005, the Florida Realtors trade association said. It also was the fourth consecutive month of 1,000-plus sales, something that also hasn’t happened in five years.
“That’s just absolutely phenomenal,” said Cindy Greco, the Manatee Association of Realtors’ president and an agent with Wagner Realty.
