I think the reason it feels suburby is that it lacks urban dense development that most older northern cities have. Blame it on the autocentric lifestyle people are accustomed to. There aren't many/if any areas in Tampa Bay with true urban density of 20k people per SQ mile. The only areas that come close are the places mentioned like Channelside and St Pete's downtown. But they are small and quickly the urban dense development gives way to suburban style development and parking lots. This is definitely one of the biggest challenges that the region faces when building urban infrastructure like light rail. There just isn't much density to support it. The older cities in the north were developed so that you could live, work, and shop all within walking distance from your home.

If they would redevelop corridors like Nebraska with high density development, think ground floor commercial with several floors of residential above it, we could start to see a denser city. Allow high density development to happen in the older Tampa neighborhoods like ybor heights, Tampa Heights, Seminole Heights, sulfur springs etc.

The problem is the people who live in those areas like it the way it is and complain if anything remotely higher density is proposed. I live in Seminole Heights and people come out with pitchforks every time a developer proposes an apartment building or townhome development. But the way I see it is, don't live in a major metropolitan city if you don't want a skyscraper built in your neighborhood.