Let's Go DOWNTOWN!

High rises, hustle, bustle, lots of people, Starbucks on every corner, horns, honking, breaks, night life, opportunity for business…these are the sort of things that immediately come to my mind when hearing the word ‘downtown.’ However, in visiting Downtown Ft. Myers today, none of these really came to my mind. The city of Ft. Myers could be considered a city experiencing something of a renaissance. The streets were practically silent, and there were hardly any people, save for a few businessand law practicers. The buildings generally didn’t exceed 3 stories and I noticed a lot of greenery, including Banyan trees, Royal Palm trees and plenty of grass space to be sure and brick pavers instead of cold concrete and asphalt. Dr. Durham pointed out that the reason for these brick pavers, and perfectly fitted awnings were installed as elements in an equation for ‘new urbanism,” meaning people and pedestrian friendly…even though there weren’t many pedestrians to begin with! Another thing that I quite liked about this area was that from any point in the city, we weren’t more than a 10 minute walk from the Caloosahatchee River, meaning “the River of the Caloosa,” that of which I learned is one of the connecting bodies of water that bring boat traffic from West to East coast.

The Gulfà Caloosahatcheeà Okeechobeeà Atlantic

Another interesting tid bit learned on the trip to day, was that the Caloosahatchie was indeed tinkered with, by man, in order to fit the needs for being a proper water causeway. It was dredged and straightened, creating a nutrient deficient body of water and also one that unfortunately erodes quickly.

I imagine that cities all around back in the day were more like this small city of downtown Ft. Myers and have over time evolved into bigger and more bustling metropolises. Speaking of back in the day, I was very interested to learn about some of the history that comes along with Ft. Myers, the first being that it was once, during the time of the Seminole wars called Ft. Harvey and the name was later changed to Ft. Myers, the name we know it by today. Another bit of history that was my favorite to learn, and also most likely for the reason why Ft. Myers is the city that it is today is due to FDR’s New Deal. Right around the 1930’s when America was feeling the effects of one of the biggest stock market crashes in our history, and entering a deep and long depression, it was out with Hoover and in with FDR. The New Deal, as we know, was intended to create jobs, any and everywhere. And this is really how Ft. Myers came to be, with cattle moving and citrus growing as it’s big industries, offering people the opportunity to work.

All in all I would have to say that Ft. Myers, compared to most other cities in the wonderful land of U.S.A, is pretty sustainable. I feel that its retro build, pedestrian friendly model, quiet streets, and greenery sprawling are all elements to render it more sustainable than most other cities in America. Surely it has the potential to grow in the future, but overall I think it will be considered quiet and quaint for now.