Creating a Tallahassee that thrives takes united vision, planning, buy-in

Holy Cow. It was recently published that we lost 300 residents last year. While we don’t want the challenges of unbridled growth like South Florida, a shrinking community is not good for many reasons.

We currently have all the ingredients to be a world class city, but we can do better. New residents can bring the following benefits:

• Airport - Imagine an airport that offers numerous competitively priced flights in and out of our town. No longer would it be the norm to drive to other airports for flights.
• Concerts and Entertainment - Imagine bringing more big-time concerts, arts and culture, and entertainment in our community. Bring On Taylor Swift or the Rolling Stones.
• Local Business – envision plenty of job applicants for our local businesses. We currently have an acute shortage of employees. The Florida Chamber estimates that for every 100 job openings we only have 50 possible applicants.  This has a huge impact on the success of our local businesses. My business, IMS Business, is limited in our growth by a lack of accounting professionals.
• Food - Imagine a wider choice of quality eating establishments.
• Jobs – Think of new companies bringing great paying jobs.

At Choose Tallahassee our focus is to improve our quality of life while attracting and retaining new residents. This is very important.

We just traveled down to South Florida, and I am not willing to recreate that lack of planning. Let’s proactively plan so people are not afraid of growth due to concerns about traffic and congestion.

Many of us believe we can grow without following the path of numerous other communities in our country. We have too many good things we must not lose.

I suggest there are ways to improve our quality of life with proper planning.

We should encourage 15-minute communities. The theory behind this concept is to create or retrofit neighborhoods where you can walk or bike to many of your essentials in 15 minutes.

A 15-minute city enables residents to access most daily amenities within a 15 to 20-minute walk, bike, or other mode of transportation from any point in a city, town or village regardless of size. The concept integrates transportation planning, urban design, mixed-used development, safety on streets and sidewalks, with policy making and the real-life experiences of residents to allow for more freedom of mobility and increased opportunity.

No, this is not anti-car.  This is a voluntary approach that is attractive to many folks, including my wife and me.

The beauty of this concept is we take all these commutes off our streets and lessen our congestion.

Just like a business, we should start planning for what our town will look like in one, three or five years.  Let’s create a simple plan based on planned population growth.

While we are evolving, let’s keep what’s “cool” about Tallahassee.

Some of the “cool” things that we want to preserve about living in Tallahassee:

• We still have a small-town atmosphere with access to many big city amenities.
• We have an average commute of 20 minutes or less.
• There are two universities and a community college that bring sports, arts and culture to our community. We also have lots of learning opportunities.
• Our outdoors amenities are incredible with lots of trails and parks, plus we are near the coast but not on the coast.

If we all join forces and create a vision, we can be a community unlike any other.

More: People are moving here. Are we ready? | Choose Tallahassee

More: Robust private sector is critical to shaping Tallahassee’s future

Let’s create more opportunities for our residents while keeping “what is cool” about Tallahassee and our surrounding communities.

Check us out at www.choosetallahassee.com

Contact us if you are interested in creating a positive vision of our community.

Are you in?

Gregg Patterson is executive director of Choose Tallahassee. He can be reached at gregg@imsbusiness.net .

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Creating a Tallahassee that thrives takes united vision, planning, buy-in