Sociology 24: Social Problems

Blog 3.X Greenville v. DeLand, Florida. College towns with and without sprawl.

Whenever I reflect on my hometown, DeLand, FL the Simon and Garfunkle song, “My Little Town” usually comes to mind. The chorus sings, “nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town”. This usually is because my theme song used to be The Animals “We Got to Get out of this Place” (it was actually the song I put in the background of my graduation video I sent to family members). Animosity towards my hometown aside, it makes sense! My little town is about 18 miles from the outskirts of Daytona Beach, an area that reminds me a lot of Haywood Road, about 25+ miles from the Atlantic Ocean and finally about 40 minutes from Orlando, Florida (but over an hour to Disney World, since that is all anyone ever thinks is in Orlando). We are the skydive capitol of the world. I could watch parachute jumpers during lunch in high school. I never realized that I lived in a place that made sense until I moved to Greenville. Us DeLandites always poked fun at Deltona, our next door neighbor, because the joke was that the city planners took a bowl of spaghetti and turned it over then traced the roads thru it. There are major roads that intercept TWICE. I now completely acknowledge that Deltona is complete SPRAWL.

Now this isn’t just me comparing my hometown to Greenville, because that would be silly. There is a very unique feature that links both towns. Colleges. DeLand is home to Stetson University, a small liberal arts school with a fondness for fountains…see any similarities? Stetson is a “sister school” to Furman with just shy of 3000 students. Much like Furman. Both were founded in the 1800s. And John E. Johns is a former President of both (he actually hired my dad when he taught @ Stetson, back in the day). The main difference is that Stetson is in the middle of Downtown. Our downtown looks kind of like Greenville’s. Except we know how to parallel park, and do. Galleries, antique shops, local restaurants, coffee shops and boutiques line Woodland Blvd (Main St.). Woodland runs IN THE MIDDLE of campus, splitting it in two. There are traffic lights and pedestrian walks for students, and while Woodland is a main thru-faire, it is easy to cross the road (between walk signals…). I grew up on campus, both of my parents were faculty way before I was born (small business owners during my lifetime) and took me to the library when I was little, walked me around and took me to the Hat Rack for popsicles. As a high school student I would sometimes skip to go hang out on the lawn between the buildings (to check out boys) and use the library to write papers. I did summer programs, had friends on campus and went to the senior thesis art exhibits yearly. But it wasn’t weird in a Park Furman kind of way. DeLand just lives at Stetson. You literally cannot avoid it. Minnesota avenue runs perpendicular to Woodland but stops on either side of the campus and picks up on the other side. Students can easily walk (less than 5 mins) into downtown for pizza, coffee or a place to sit and people watch in the small garden/courtyards offset by DeLand’s murals (ooo…aesthetically pleasing public spaces) (a historical thing, they bother me honestly, but some people like them).



DeLand makes sense because it is a grid. You can’t turn at the main interception downtown. We talk in ‘blocks away’ and really mean it. I gripe about running errands on ‘the other side of town’ but it’s still only 10 minutes away. To go to a Barnes and Nobel or a Best Buy or an Olive Garden I have to leave the city. What is weird is for me to go to a Barnes, in Daytona Beach, it takes nearly as long as going to Woodruff Road. It is just a different town. Barnes seems like a special outing because you leave the city. Woodruff seems like an inconvenience And what is between DeLand and Daytona? A forest (and the county jail..). Deland is not some podunk little town, it is the county seat. In the city proper there are around 25 thousand people. When you move towards 1-4 (the interstate that connects Daytona to Tampa, thru Orlando across the state) it gets a little sprawly. Native DeLandites HATE the new subdivisions. Ick. I’m totally a big city type of gal, give me San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago any day before my tiring little town, but give me grids or nothing! I can walk to Stetson (I usually wouldn’t, it’s just too damn hot, but there are trees the whole way but 100+ degrees with 100% humidity with trees is still hot) and can get almost anywhere in town without using a main road. When I take school friends home they are surprised by the turns and 4 ways stops and ways I can get to my house from any side of town without going on a main road. The only place I cannot get to without crossing Woodland is my church because it is on the other side of the road. I can get all the way there, until I can see the steeple until I have to cross the road and pull into the parking lot.

Furman forced Greenville to sprawl. Furman use to be to downtown as Stetson is. In the middle. When Furman moved to the edge of the town professors moved further from the downtown and so did the community. From research for my big project, there was nothing on Poinsett before Furman moved to its present location. I wonder, what would Greenville be like if Furman stayed downtown? I think Greenville would have stayed more compact. I think downtown would never have needed to be revitalized because it would never have died. Having a student body downtown encourages commerce. Natives enjoying the campus would not be a nuisance when they take over for events because it’s not a mass migration, people walk. I think Furman being so far from downtown (and technically out of the city limits) really hurt the relationship between the campus and the community. Business are a major part of Stetson. The annual student art show is a big deal and the students are awarded thousand of dollar in prizes awarded in the names of local businesses. The community participates in Stetson Baseball (football team undefeated since 1958…the last year Stetson had a football team) because the newly renovated stadium is in the middle of downtown. Go grab dinner, head to the field and enjoy the community. Shop keeps hang banners and signs rooting on not just Stetson but DeLand High. Being a part of the physical downtown makes the school part of the town and makes it a better place for students, there is no real gate, no enclosure and just as safe as Furman. Furman students sometimes go from one gated community growing up to another.

My high school is bigger than Furman, and is 7 minutes from my house by car (during school traffic). I could not walk to school if I wanted to. It takes 5 turns to get to High School from my house, including turning from my driveway and turning into the parking lot at school.

I know this seems a little rambley, but the point I am trying to make with all these examples is Greenville was FORCED to move because a major thing that people utilize (a school…) is not where the people go. A good thing about Stetson and DeLand is community, is being a part of something. This is something that Furman and Greenville really lack, and having come from a place there it is common to be a student and a part of the community I notice the difference and see what it could be like the other way. Some “college towns” merely exist because of the college, DeLand and Stetson were founded around the same time and grew together, DeLand has other things besides the school, but for DeLand, the school is an incredible asset and I think really helps keep the town together and prevents the city from becoming a sprawling monstrosity (not calling Greenville a monstrosity but yes, implying that it is sprawling).

“In my little town
I never meant nothin
I was just my fathers son
Saving my money
Dreaming of glory”

Blog 3.3 Urban Sprawl Field Trip Response

While I have been to the Shops at Greenridge before, I seemed to have missed a few major, well not necessarily flaws, but most defiantly shortcomings. When we arrived on Friday I recalled the hot summer afternoon that I drove to Best Buy then opted to walk to Barnes and Nobel. Big mistake. Long walk, I was nearly taken out by a few cars and I swear that my sneakers nearly melted to the asphalt. Well I made it to Barnes unscathed until I decided that since I had time to kill I’d walk to World Market (which I love, but would much rather be in Chinatown or some open market but hey, it’s the South, I make due). Well the sidewalk in the area near Barnes ends at a large intersection. In the middle of the parking lot. And so I walked. And walked. And at this point could barely see my car over the heat-haze over the parking lot. I finally collapse into the air conditioning of World Market. Bought nothing. What a waste. Even more of a waste is that the parking lot of ¾ empty of a Saturday afternoon @ 3pm (I would consider this a “peak” shopping time). Why did they build this lot to reflect the worst-case scenario (day before Christmas)?

Now back to yesterday. More waste ideas. I was standing in front of the Barnes and looked back towards the Panera. There is the ALLUSION of a straight line, a complete sidewalk leading to bagels and bad-chai tea (don’t call me some Panera hater, I really do like their food, but their chai sucks). The Shops website refers to the area as “shopping redefined”. Well, the redefined area is the allusion of a clear sidewalk. The sidewalk between Barnes and Panera is nicely paved, with some cute bricks on either side. Well this sidewalk is slightly raised in 2 points. Do you remember what crosses this sidewalk? A road. This road is marked from the side of the cars, but not to the pedestrians. I’m not sure about you, but I don’t trust cars (even when my friends are driving). If you’re walking, you are not informed by a sign or even a change in the brick pattern that cars have a tendency to cross your path. Cars are supposed to slow down at the cross. Do they? Probably not. My theory on why they don’t is because it would ruin the aesthetic view between the two locals.

Everything at Greenridge is about aesthetics and social perceptions. Not only is pedestrian safety in jeopardy, but the area wants to be socially perceived as a higher end shopping district. The stores to the front include higher-end women’s clothing lines (White House Black Market, Talbots, Ann Taylor Loft etc) are placed at the front of the complex where they are visible from the road and the lower-end clothing is placed to the back (Ross, the cheap shoe place, discount wines). By pushing the lower cost stores to the back it automatically limits a whole income bracket of people from shopping here. We spoke about mixed income brackets, which usually is more about housing and we hypothesized about if mixed-use housing was added to the storefronts and what income bracket they would reflect. That question has so much more to do than just housing, in this specific instance the stores do NOT reflect mixed income brackets. Greenridge is a step in the right direction, it is an ATTEMPT to do things that traditional strip malls fail to do, but not entirely.

Blog # 3.1 - Suburban Furman

Here lies Gambrell Beach. This oh-so-grassy knoll can be found between the art building and the lower half of lakeside housing. This is a prime example of an urban park. It could be argued it is adjacent to a cul-de-sac (the loop around Gambrell) and even off a collector that goes from the main loop to NV. But I would argue that it is just right. It mirrors more a quaint square in a big city than anything suburban. It is highly accessible from the Lakeside housing complex and is very convenient to the walking path that connects NV to the heart of campus. When you walk from Lakeside to the Art/Music buildings you can frequentally see people you know making use of the natural sense of enclosure provided by the art building high on the side and the lower maze of gardens on the other side. The parking lot is far enough way that there is no chance of cars interfering with the activities of the area. This is an incredibly useful public space for tanning, throwing Frisbees, baseballs, flying kites (trees are far enough apart as to not eat kites, a la Charlie Brown) and most recently tight ropewalkers between the sculpture and the trees. In the fall and spring, the human activity is huge because it is so sunny and accessible. The day it snowed this was a popular place for rolling down the hill and snow angels. In the sunny but cold days brave Frisbee-rs can be found here playing.

The large sculpture provides a place for (big) kids to climb and play. I have either participated or witnessed people sitting talking on the phone on a ledge, studying, chatting with friends and even stringing up hammocks from the upper levels. This large sculpture is a strong metal that is forgiving for people to climb on and use more as gym equipment than for art. Art students have been known to try and copy this piece for a lesson in perspective and give up in utter frustration. The piece brings a nice aesthetic balance to the area because it provides something there to visually break up the area. The sculpture itself is a destination. It also discourages large scale games, such as soccer, that would make this area only available to one group at a time (safely). Many activities can peacefully co-exist on this one field. This is the problem with the NV fields, they are single use game fields during the times that other people would want to use them. The art is also not taller than any of the trees and even the top level is safe for someone to climb to.

If you stand in the right spot and look under the arch/path thru lakeside you can see the bell tower. It’s a stretch to call it a terminated vista, but you could try and convince someone of it. The nice thing about the area is because it IS sunken, you can’t see the rest of campus. It’s a nice park/retreat in the middle of the campus whereas the mall is too narrow to do anything and since it is part of the picturesque view of campus we are discouraged from utilizing it. E-field is too elevated, balls get lost on the roads and people up on the field feel more like animals @ the zoo being watched by cars than students playing games.

An odd thing about Gambrell Beach is the overrun gardens closer to the building. This maze looks like it was once used as a meeting area but now the brick walkways are just neglected and nearly hazardous. When it rains the area floods and is a pain to walk thru. The problem with this area is that it is too dark. Even on the sunniest of days the sun just can’t seem to penetrate the overgrowth, almost to the point it is spooky @ 3pm. If some of the hedges were cut back and benches put in this would make a great place to curl up with a cell phone and call a friend.

This is why Gambrell Beach is the most successful public place on Furman’s campus.