Influence Map
Who shapes downtown Lake Wales
The organizations, people, programs, and institutions that decide what gets built, preserved, funded, and celebrated around the Rhodesbilt Arcade and the historic Northwest neighborhood.
4 actors shown
Civic Power
4 actorsPlanning, infrastructure, and redevelopment policy. Controls zoning, redevelopment approvals, infrastructure projects, and grant allocations.
Controls redevelopment districts, property incentives, and project approvals. Has sold CRA-owned property on vacant lots to spur development and enhance the tax base.
Approves land use and development changes.
Influences redevelopment indirectly by addressing blight and property compliance.
The network
More local reading
Context for this map comes from a small family of Florida-made sites tracking Lake Wales, the Ridge, and the people building here.
4 of 4 sites
An independent guide to Lake Wales and the Florida Ridge — tonight's music, weekend markets and festivals, restaurants and bars, parks and lakes, and the city government most guides skip. 131 verified places across 10 Polk County cities.
Source: lakewalesguide.com homepage · Updated
A deep-dive editorial documenting Florida cities one at a time — built environment, local history, culture, institutions, and people. Each edition is a lasting city record, not a disposable travel list.
Source: floridaslice.com homepage · Updated
AI visibility infrastructure — helping organizations become discoverable, interpretable, and citable across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and AI Overviews. Also home to the AI Visibility podcast, recorded in studios like this one.
Source: backtier.com homepage · Updated
Jason Todd Wade — Florida writer and publisher, founder of BackTier, and author of AI Visibility Architecture, the Entity Lock Protocol, and the Agentic Visibility Path.
Source: jasonwade.com homepage · Updated