Feeling Blue About Being Green

Saturday's Urban Tour of Homes throughout downtown Tampa and the Channel District revealed an interesting range of places for people to live who want to call the downtown corridor home.

While touring living spaces sprinkled among new skyscrapers to street side lofts, a couple of thoughts came to mind as I considered the full impact of every space being occupied and what that means to traffic, trash pick up and more. Wasn't this a perfect opportunity to encourage more people to travel on the city's mass transit system? A multi-passenger shuttle swinging by a designated pick up spot near One Laurel Place, The Residences, Element and Skypoint could have dropped passengers at the downtown trolley stop for a quick trip to the Channel District where Grand Central, Ventana, Victory Lofts and the Meridian were easy to reach and then re-board to continue on to Ybor City for a look at Box Factory Lofts.

Instead what seemed to be crowds of people who dropped in to these developments were forced to park-drive-park-drive throughout the day, trying to navigate what for many were new routes and unfamiliar intersections while locating their desired destinations.

Traipsing through even air conditioned buildings during a typical hot summer day in Florida took a toll. Most units I visited offered chilled water and soft drinks in bottles and cans - but not a single highly visiable collection point for recyclable materials. What a shame all of those containers were not collected and recycled. Hopefully there are areas where newspapers, glass, plastic, cardboard and cans can be thoughtfully discarded for collection by recycling services.

Some residents already call some of the newer buildings home, as evidenced by a few who patiently shared the elevators with those participating in the tour. Plastic bags from local supermarkets were being carried by the armful. What if a washable, re-usable, durable bag with the logo of each building was provided to residents (with extras conveniently stored near a main entrance) that would encourage residents to re-use these bags to carry purchases and eliminate any need for plastic and paper bags profered by retailers. Preferably a strong tote or backpack could be designed (maybe from recycled materials) that would not be transparent enough to reveal what personal hygiene items each tenant prefers.

I also wondered whether these new stacked neighborhoods would create communal efforts to enhance the environment and collectively work to conserve resources. Community gardens, compost centers, carpooling programs are a few that quickly come to mind. With a little thought and enough effort, a few projects could be implemented that would add appeal to these urban living centers and create a more positive impact on our planet.

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