Rollins debuts urban program

A still staggering real estate market, the increasing cost of oil and the overgrowth of a once suburban-based society has two Rollins College professors launching a program that they hope will influence and change Florida's way of life.

"What we are trying figure out is how do you prepare for the future?" Rollins professor of environmental studies Bruce Stephenson said. "Take a look at the Gulf of Mexico, and there's probably a message there that depending on oil is not a long-term solution when it comes to city planning."

Stephenson and professor of politics Richard Foglesong are teaming up to instill the idea of a walkable community to their Rollins' graduate students through a new master's program offered through Rollins' Evening Program, Hamilton Holt School.

The Master Planning of Civic Urbanism is a 12-course, two-year degree that will launch in the 2010 fall semester. It will offer students two specializations: Place Making or Green Infrastructure, which will enable them to prepare and/or enhance careers in either the private or government sector.

"The message was uniform that Rollins was the right place, that this was right time, and our approach was the right one," Foglesong said. "And that was the approach of creating a boutique program, not an urban planning master's program for everyone… but rather a boutique program that would focus on walkable urbanism… what some call the new urbanism."

The goal is to inspire young minds to use places such as Winter Park, Baldwin Park and Rollins' campus as examples of good walkable communities, and carry out these examples to other communities.

"Winter Park is a model of great design… it's designed around being able to walk to the train station," Stephenson said.

He also said the other goal is to train city planners how to deal with the growth in Central Florida, and teach them how to build new infrastructure, such as commuter rail, differently.

According to www.myregion.org, a two-year study on the growth of Central Florida, in 2008 the super region of Florida had about 7.2 million residents and 4.1 million jobs. It is projected that by the year 2030, it will grow to 11.2 million residents with only an increase to 4.8 million jobs.

"The bottom line, whether we like it or not, the way we've been doing things the last 25 years isn't going to be the way we're going to do things in the next 25 years," Stephenson said. "That would be impossible."

Michael Holbrook, director of planning at Bowyer-Singleton & Associates Inc., and adjunct professor at Rollins, believes the master's program will be a great way to re-educate Central Floridians.

"We are not going to stop growing," Holbrook said. "Central Floridians need to become re-educated and learn what other alternatives are out there. We really need to work together, as a community, and learn what we have to do to create a great community, a livable community."

Learn More

For more information on Rollins' master's program call 407-646-2232 or visit www.rollins.edu/holt or for more information on the growth of Central Florida visit www.myregion.org.