Preserving Old Florida: Research From the UF School of Landscape Architecture and Planning Featured in Florida Planning
Read the full story in Florida Planning.
Faculty from the University of Florida School of Landscape Architecture and Planning (SLA&P) recently had their cover story featured in the spring issue of Florida Planning magazine. SLA&P houses both the Department of Urban and Regional Planning (URP) and the Department of Landscape Architecture (LAE).
“Understanding Old Florida: Planning and Preservation Research in Action”, explores the team’s research on the meaning behind the term “Old Florida” and the importance of preserving Florida’s cultural and historical sites. Faculty working on this research include:
- Kyle Dost, AICP | Urban and Regional Planning
- Dr. Cleary Larkin | Urban and Regional Planning
- Dr. Kathryn Frank | Urban and Regional Planning
- Dr. Nicholas Serrano | Landscape Architecture
The team centered their research on the town of Cedar Key, Florida, a gulf coast community of 800 residents that remains a pristine example of “Old Florida”. The town is primarily a mix of fishing, local business, and small-scale tourism, having become more dependent on the latter two since the 1996 state-wide “Net Ban”. Working alongside students and community members, faculty conducted their research in a variety of ways that culminated in a better understanding of the town and its cultural significance as a representation of Old Florida.
Beginning in 2023, the town experienced four major hurricanes in just fourteen months, decimating waterfront development and local businesses – a tragedy the community is still recovering from today. After the hurricanes, Dr. Cleary Larkin, director of the Historic Preservation Program, secured listings for the town on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places and Florida Trust’s 11 to Save list in 2025. URP’s Kyle Dost and his team analyzed the prevalence of cultural landscapes in academic practice and literature, noting a lack of representation for “Old Florida” and recognizing the importance of taking multiple perspectives into account to find common ground.
In the Fall of 2025, students from URP’s Dr. Kathryn Frank’s Graduate Community Engagement course traveled to Cedar Key to explore the town and engage residents in conversation about their own definition of “Old Florida”. A collaboration with the Cedar Key Historical Society Museum, the project had residents record their thoughts with postcards and photographs, highlighting the waterfront, historic structures, and local food traditions – presenting “Old Florida” as a living, evolving cultural landscape rather than a static historical site.
LAE’s Dr. Nicholas Serrano and a team of students also conducted cartographic analysis of the town to better understand the evolution of the region’s landscape and ecology. The analysis focused on moving from isolated site documentation to a landscape-scale assessment of coastal hazard exposure for regions prone to natural disasters.
Overall, the research team aims to expand their analysis to other gulf coast communities in order to find ways of empowering locals with the tools they need to preserve these cultural landscapes.
