Category Archives: Sarasota

Yes, I’m on a bike. No, I didn’t lose my license.

Who knew what a litmus test simply riding a bicycle could be? I’ve been running errands for the past hour. Library. Pharmacy. Grocery Store. Bank. I got flipped off twice (both times by teenagers in passing cars), and glared at with disgust several other times. The only other bicyclists I encountered were indigents, who acknowledged me as one of their own with kindly nods. Really? Because I’m on a bike? Continue reading

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Creative Destruction

Creative destruction really just means change, albeit change in major ways. As the authors write in Getting to Maybe, “Change of this kind is always difficult. It often means stopping doing something we have done for years. It may mean leaving a job, ending a program, abandoning an approach or a system that has served us well. But the adaptive cycle tells us that unless we release the resources of time, energy, money and skill locked up in our routines and our institutions on a regular basis, it is hard to create anything new or to look at things from a different perspective. Without those new perspectives, and the continuous infusion of novelty and innovation in our lives, our organizations and our systems, there is a slow but definite loss of resilience, and an increase in rigidity.” Furthermore, “change is necessary. And for some that change will feel like a loss of the cherished, familiar and safe.” Continue reading

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What Sarasota Can Learn from Portland

Bill Fulton of the California Planning and Development Report recently returned from a trip to Portland, Oregon – the planners’ nirvana, he calls it – and wrote a post detailing six lessons he learned there that can be applied anywhere. In response, I’m considering how those lessons might be applied here in Sarasota, Florida. Continue reading

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