The View From Here: Old Bonita is evolving and the city is guiding its future

Bonita Springs is a beautiful collection of offices, shops, restaurants, and restricted-access communities fronting on fairly high speed six or four-lane roads.

(The April 2005 "Governing" magazine article describes a similar roadway in California as a "soulless paved spine.") These privately owned and managed facilities are attractive and highly successful for their intended purpose, but by and large they represent the all to typical Geography of Nowhere and they do not provide the sense of place and the public spaces that are necessary for a healthy vibrant community.

Bonita Springs has the potential, and is well on its way to becoming a great city, but it has no old city center, downtown, or heart. Outside of the Recreation Center, the YMCA, and an occasional special event at Riverside Park, the only "public" gathering space opportunities are at the Renaissance Center on U.S. 41 and an occasional outside seating area at some restaurants.

Nice areas that do provide limited opportunities for discourse, but these are not a public space where people are encouraged and provided opportunities to linger. These areas do not facilitate the sense of community or pride of place and a connectivity with ones neighbors that all great cities need.

Think of all the wonderful cities that you know of: Naples, St. Petersburg, Chicago, New York, Cincinnati, Savannah, Charleston, etc. They all have public spaces mixed with commercial spaces that provide ample opportunities for public leisure while encouraging continuous public participation.

All of these cities have public space adjacent to, and mixed with active commercial space — restaurants, shops, galleries, etc. — that provides and encourages an opportunity to participate in public discourse or just to relax.

In January 2003, the city council purchased Bamboo Mobile Village because it was the single best action that the city could take to spark the redevelopment of Old 41 Road. In removing the dilapidated trailers in the heart of the only area we can remotely call downtown, the city was well along in its efforts at self revitalization.

During our purchase discussions, the independent appraisal for the site indicated that there was 10 to 20 years of useful economic life left in the trailer park. In other words, had the city not acquired this property we could expect at least another 10 years of steadily increasing decay, disrepair, and economic decline.

Subsequently, staff began the arduous process of removing 94 dwelling units, which took more than a year to humanly provide relocation opportunities.

Everything evolves, and that includes cities. Old Bonita Springs is on the edge of its evolution process and can go either way. The city has the immense power of deciding what it wants to become.

Most cities never have this chance. It can continue to be a black hole, devouring ever larger percentages of city general funds for police, streets, code enforcement, and drainage repair or its can emerge as the heart of the city bringing with it increased property values and providing and supporting the rest of the community with increasing tax revenues.

Improving the quality of life for the whole city for the present, and providing hope for a better future, is a responsibility of local government.

To single out an area of the city for continued inattention, the treatment that Old 41 has received since 1976, when U.S. 41 traffic was redirected away, would be a serious detour in improving the future health of this great city.