Charlotte Katz

Courtesy Fort  Myers News-Press, February 11, 2011
Brian Liberatore

The next generation doesn’t want sprawling subdivisions, strip malls and multi-lane highways, says real estate adviser Woody Hanson, and failure to recognize that will condemn Lee County to decades of stagnation.

“I will tell you now, Generation X will not come here,” Hanson told a crowd packed into the Harborside Events Center on Friday. “Generation X will not buy a three-two. They want a 24-hour city and things within walking distance. We’re no longer moving to suburbia.

“Finally, we’re turning around and moving back to the cities.”

Hanson joined a panel of economists, local leaders and land planners in downtown Fort Myers for an all-day symposium on land planning over the next 25 years.
Speakers universally panned suburbia in favor of planning that puts housing, entertainment and businesses next to one another or within walking distance.
It’s the key to economic recovery, they said, and a necessity in a rapidly changing world.

About 140 students invited to the event — the top 10 students from area schools — confirmed Hanson’s assertion.

More than two-thirds said in a survey they would be most likely to stay in Lee County if development is focused in dense urban areas.

Ninety-two percent rejected the stark division of housing areas and commercial centers now dominant in Lee County.

The Great Recession has changed Florida permanently, economist Henry H. Fishkind told the crowd.

Turning swampland into housing won’t save it.

“If we just keep doing what we’re doing, stagnation is what we’re seeing,” Fishkind said.

Typical of Florida, Lee County has botched land use, Fishkind said. Functional public transportation is non-existent and the county pays for its services on the backs of new development with sky-high impact fees and inequitable property taxes.

“We all need to pay for infrastructure,” Fishkind said. “The days of sticking it to the new people is over.”

Real estate professional Gary Verwilt said tourism will still be the base of the region’s economy two decades from now. And beaches will still be the backbone. But people want a link to those attractions: public transportation between multiple-use town centers and attractions.

Change will happen, Hanson said.

“You have no choice,” he said. “We cannot go about doing business as usual.”