Seaside, Florida

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Seaside is an unincorporated master-planned community on the Florida panhandle roughly midway between Fort Walton Beach and Panama City. It was founded by builder/developer Robert Davis and the town plan was designed by architects/new urbanists Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. Seaside is located in Walton County.

The community is often cited as the first New Urbanist development. At the time of Seaside's construction, Walton County had no zoning ordinance, leaving Seaside's founders able to plan with a comparatively free hand. In the absence of these regulations (e.g., minimum lot size, separation of uses), Duany and Plater-Zyberk (DPZ) were able to design a mixed-use development with densities greater than conventional suburban development.

DPZ hired architects such as Melanie Taylor and Robert Orr to design the buildings and housing for the development. Seaside is primarily a resort community, consisting of residents who live there for months at a time as well as vacationers renting cottages and houses.

Seaside is often cited as an example of successful implementation of New Urbanism. It has been used as a model for other New Urbanist developments in the United States and abroad. However, some have criticized Seaside as being overly rigid (the community's architectural standards provide strict limitations on the external aesthetics of the houses), resulting in conformity of style rather than creativity -- which some people call a manufactured fantasy. Others have criticized the community for its lack of socioeconomic diversity, which some see as particularly ironic given that the community was itself modeled on the diverse and urban neighborhoods of large North American cities such as New York City and San Francisco.

However, Seaside (and New Urbanism more generally) has had a significant impact on urban planning in many cities. New Urbanist developments continue to proliferate across North America, and many planners and urban designers are beginning to understand the importance of mixed-use and higher density communities (see Transit-oriented development).

The movie The Truman Show was filmed in Seaside. Director Peter Weir was planning on building a movie set town for the movie when his wife happened to visit Seaside and thought it was perfect for the film. The Superintendent of Okaloosa Schools, Don Gaetz, was one of the original property owners of Seaside and his personal cottage was utilized as the Burbanks' house in the film.