[Ronald]

Before moving into Gainesville for the start of college next week, I took a few days time to explore Orlando (no, not the theme parks!). It has a nice downtown, and Lake Eola Park really is an asset to cherish. However, it is pretty dead after business hours, except for clubbing nights on the weekends. On saturdays and sundays everyone appeared to be at the Mall of Florida instead. There aren't that many parking lots downtown, it's pretty built up & dense by American standards. The colonial architecture, combined with recently built glassy skyscrapers certainly make the town worth visiting.
Also I noticed that, compared to European city centers, everything looks tidy and clean. A whole different world from, say, Amsterdam's or Venice's city centre where bits of trash/ garbage is all over the place.
It becomes obvious there's an abundant supply of land in Florida when you travel through some of the neighbourhoods surrounding downtown. You'll find nothing but strip malls, 6-lane avenues, and incedibly ' spacious ' residential neighbourhoods. Downtown seems to be the only neighbourhood that does not consist of single family homes.
All around Downtown there are busses that take you to the main busstation for free. Transit all around Orlando is cheap, but don't expect a lot of service. At busstops there are no schedules, so you just have to wait and see if and when your bus will show up. And due to the city (outside of downtown) being incredibly spead out, and the bus stopping every 400 yards or so, it takes ages to get anywhere.
That said, it's still a town well worth visiting if you're ever in Florida.

Nice use of the public space below the freeway.

That's all, hope you enjoyed!

 

[khris]

I like those older buildings. Those are the only ones I do like. The newer glass towers are all hideous. Every single one of them.
That park is really nice, and I like what they did under the highway.
Also the street levels are nice, but wow it's dead!

 

[adma]

"Hideous" is too unflatteringly obvious an epithet for the towers. I'd rather use "ingenuous".

Underlined by how I was last in Orlando in '78, and would never have expected *this* much high-rise urbanism taking over the joint--it's like last being in Downtown North York in '78...

 

[junctionist]

It's another comparatively lifeless southern American city reminding me of Atlanta, with the massive suburbs. National Geographic even wrote an article on Orlando's suburbs, which they argue are a microcosm of contemporary American suburbs, influenced by theme park principles.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Cripes, it basically looks like a cleaned up version of downtown Kitchener with a few Are Be centres thrown in for good measure. It's depressing to think that there's nothing of substance between Washington DC and Miami Beach.

 

[Dichotomy]

Egad, lots of parks and trees - but where are the people? The place looks desolate.
Still, it's amazing what can be done in an environ that has nice weather 12 months of the year.

 

[Edward Skira]

Cripes, it basically looks like a cleaned up version of downtown Kitchener with a few Are Be centres thrown in for good measure. It's depressing to think that there's nothing of substance between Washington DC and Miami Beach.

Have you been to Savannah or Charleston?

 

[ganjavih]

Looks very pomo and sterile. I don't like it.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Have you been to Savannah or Charleston?

No, and you're right.

Even so, those are smaller cities. The fact that the bigger stuff: Charlotte, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Tampa and Miami proper have only very small pockets of urban vibrancy for their relative size is a disgrace.

Almost all of the south's "urban" character was formed pre Civil war, and sadly most of that was concentrated in New Orleans.

 

[someMidTowner]

Dusting off this old thread to post a couple aerial views I snapped earlier this month:

Orlando by Jack Landau, on Flickr
Orlando (II) by Jack Landau, on Flickr