According to a recent article from Orlando Weekly, "Orlando is a car-reliant hellscape," but its new director of transportation, Tanya Wilder, intends to change that.

Central Florida is famous for its tourism industry, but it's also one of the fastest-growing regions in the United States, and has subsequently seen a growing demand for better multimodal infrastructure and more walkable development patterns. For Wilder, this means thinking more regionally about transportation, while also taking more targeted approaches to managing investments, including outside of city limits.

Here at Strong Towns, we love talking about Disney World, but on today's episode of Upzoned, host Abby Kinney and Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn focus instead on "upzoning" Wilder’s approach to regionalism—i.e., they look at it through the Strong Towns lens. They also discuss how did such an auto-oriented "hellscape" came about in Florida, and in other places in the U.S., particularly in southern regions. And, well, it can't be helped: there has to be some discussion about Disney World, too.

Then in the downzone, Chuck has been doing yard projects while thinking about how humans deal with "end of the world" scenarios, and Abby has been listening to interviews with a Gonzo journalist.

"Orlando is a car-reliant hellscape. Tanya Wilder hopes to fix it," by Ken Storey, Orlando Weekly (April 2021)

Abby Kinney (Twitter)

Charles Marohn (Twitter)

Theme Music by Kemet the Phantom (Soundcloud)