ordinary man could have a chance to get all that the rich have ever been able to get out of Florida." "Nature led the way" and the plan, Nolen wrote, "followed her way." Greenbelts protected important natural features, and parkways extended from the hinterlands into Venice's downtown (Figure 1). A greenbelt bounded the town to the east and south, while Venice Bay marked the northern edge and the Gulf of Mexico lay to the west. Nolen paid special attention to the town's Gulf front location. A linear park ran along the waterfront, with an amphitheater and beachfront park lying at the terminus of Venice Parkway, which connected the beach to the Civic Center. The Civic Center's grouping of parks and public buildings offered a view of the Gulf and marked the western edge of the commercial core. From this point east, Venice Parkway narrowed to Venice Avenue, which ran the center of a three-block commercial core between the Civic Center and Rialto Avenue. The Civic Center not only defined the town center, but it stood midway between the commercial core and Venice's most sublime natural feature — the Gulf of Mexico. In Venice, Nolen effectively balanced his design between two transcendental ideals — civic virtue and Nature. From City Hall, one could view the palette of Nature while surrounded by the physical form of the "civic spirit." An ideal site for contemplation, a vision of Nature was always at hand, but it never remained the same, shifting with the tides and the seasons. Two diagonal avenues defined the neighborhoods lying between the Gulf and the Civic Center. School sites and the commercial center provided focal points for neighborhoods. Common greens and playgrounds were provided in each neighborhood, while a wedge-shaped golf course buffered the eastern section of town from the railway and industrial uses. Nolen also placed Harlem Village east of the railway, surrounding it with "white farms." Segregation was a staple of southern life, and if Nolen failed to fight the southern caste system directly, he remained adamant that African-Americans receive the benefits of good planning. In Venice, like other southern cities, he connected African-American neighborhoods to the larger community via a parkway. In cities separated by race, interconnected parkways offered the hope of uniting diverse people through "nature" and to, Nolen wrote, "the brotherhood of man." The BLE invested heavily in infrastructure, before the land boom crashed in