Gainesville ranks high in “For the Love of Cities”

Peter Kageyama’s new book “For the Love of Cities” is all about the ways people connect with their places – and why some places are more worth connecting with than others. Peter traveled the US looking for the most loveable cities, and our very own Gainesville is on his list — right along with the usual suspects like New York City, Chicago and Denver.

So, what makes Gainesville loveable? We chatted with Peter, and between bicycles, intelligence and being green, he had a lot to say for our little title town:

So why is Gainesville on the list? Gainesville popped up all on its own. When I was looking for different factors, I was looking for equivalence and proxies, the things we value in a relationship, and I was looking for the totality in cities of 100,000 plus. So I started looking at these different lists like friendliness, green issues and Facebook likes per capita. Gainesville keeps showing up in a number of these categories. And when I was putting together the final matrix, Gainesville was showing up near the top. And it makes sense; you’re probably the most educated city in Florida. A smart community has a lot to do with it.

But what makes Gainesville stand out? Gainesville was the first city in America to use solar feed-in tariffs, which allows you to sell energy back to the utility companies that you don’t use. And it’s these little gestures that have significant meaning. It’s commitment to the environment. If you love something, you want it to be long-lived and healthy. There’s vitality to a college town. When people think of Gainesville, the first thing they think of is UF because UF has such a strong identification with the city. UF has risen to a world class institution and I think Gainesville has benefited from that.

You talk about making an imprint, about stimulating, reaching out to those around us. How can that be specific to Gainesville? I think Gainesville has a pretty significant advantage because studies show you’re the youngest city in Florida. With that youth comes a ton of energy. I think the trick is to be able to channel that energy back into the community. Every college town loses its graduates, but if you can keep just a small percentage more of those folks and keep them in the community, they can translate a really incredible college experience into opportunities. They’ve got to have a job; they’ve got to feel like they can engage. A lot of younger workers and recent college grads, they want more than just a job. They want to feel like they make a difference.

You also discuss walking-friendly and biking-friendly cities. How important is that for a city? It’s really surprising in the sense that most Florida cities have not done well in the bike friendliness (like Gainesville has), but I think that goes back to being a college town and needing alternative transportation.

I think that’s far more important than most people would assume, because so much of our public policy involves getting the car from point A to point B. The bicycle friendly to me was a marker: It said that communities that are bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly are aspiring to be something more than just places for cars.

So it was these types of factors that encouraged you to write this book? For the last several years in my work, I’ve been traveling around to different cities. I was getting to meet these amazing people in every city that I went to, the ones who were doing stuff and making things happen, and I started to realize that these folks are unique because they each have this very personal relationship with their city. But, they’re not unique in that every place seemed to have them. They had these deep relationships. I started to realize these were the people who were making things happen in all these cities, and I wanted to write their stories. I don’t think they were ever looked at as incredible resources; their story was not being told in a way that equated their importance in their communities.

-Melissa Pender