Many of you are familiar with the fairly new town of Celebration, Fl right outside of Orlando. And sure, it’s a suburban utopia in a bubble, with a mixture of education, work, health, and housing all combined by modern architecture to form what many urban sociologists would call the perfect town. Well did you know a town exactly akin to this is in the works right in our backyard?

 The town of Nocatee is being developed in Northern St. Johns County and Southeast Duval County. It will allow its residents to live, work, and play in one location. I first became aware of this last semester in my Intro to the Metropolis course and it fascinated me.

The four cornerstones of the community are environmental preservation, housing, recreational activities, and work. They somehow preserve 2/3 of the land and with the remaining 1/3 cater to all ones basic necessities.

A variety of housing options insure anyone can afford to live there if they want. An atheltic facility, waterpark, and community playgrounds in every neighborhood as well as trails to hike and camp on allow residents to enjoy a variety of leisure activities that are all in walking distance! Their town center will be larger than ours and an office park will be included in it as well as a neighborhood, making it the “epicenter of business and shopping” according to Richard Ray, a partner with the group who applied to start the town.

Not to mention the pictures are flawless of what the town is potentially going to look like. It’s an economic wonderland and a place any UNF student could possibly live in and raise a family in future years.

A downfall though, is it’s land sits smack dab across two counties: Duval and St. Johns, which could cause a frenzy regarding the sharing of local resources, the education system, and roadways.

Visit www.nocatee.com to learn more for yourself!