Consolidation v Deconsolidation

[vicupstate]

Any city, whether consolidated or not, has exponentially much more surbanban development residents than urban/Downtown residents (NYC, Chicago excluded).  That hasn't kept the urabn core of most cities from being revived to a much greater extent than Jacksonville.

Blaming Jacksonville's ills on Consolidation is a scapegoat/crutch with no basis in fact.  Put the blame where it belongs, a lack of understanding and vision on the part of the elected leadership.

[ChriswUfGator]

Any city, whether consolidated or not, has exponentially much more surbanban development residents than urban/Downtown residents (NYC, Chicago excluded).  That hasn't kept the urabn core of most cities from being revived to a much greater extent than Jacksonville.

Blaming Jacksonville's ills on Consolidation is a scapegoat/crutch with no basis in fact.  Put the blame where it belongs, a lack of understanding and vision on the part of the elected leadership.

We already had this debate, and I already drew the distinctions between the other consolidated cities you compared to Jacksonville, none of which are in fact truly comparable for a variety of reasons.

Consolidation is most certainly at least partly to blame for the sprawl problems and the dying condition of Jacksonville's urban core today. The whole point of having smaller governments is to allow each area to compete and develop on its own merits without being saddled with every surrounding community's competing interests. Consolidation dismantled that natural advantage, with predictable results.

But then again, I'm sure you must be an expert in local Jacksonville politics, given your eagle's vantage point in a different city in a different state hundreds of miles away. What's next?

[vicupstate]

Any city, whether consolidated or not, has exponentially much more surbanban development residents than urban/Downtown residents (NYC, Chicago excluded).  That hasn't kept the urabn core of most cities from being revived to a much greater extent than Jacksonville.

Blaming Jacksonville's ills on Consolidation is a scapegoat/crutch with no basis in fact.  Put the blame where it belongs, a lack of understanding and vision on the part of the elected leadership.

We already had this debate, and I already drew the distinctions between the other consolidated cities you compared to Jacksonville, none of which are in fact truly comparable for a variety of reasons.

Consolidation is most certainly at least partly to blame for the sprawl problems and the dying condition of Jacksonville's urban core today. The whole point of having smaller governments is to allow each area to compete and develop on its own merits without being saddled with every surrounding community's competing interests. Consolidation dismantled that natural advantage, with predictable results.

But then again, I'm sure you must be an expert in local Jacksonville politics, given your eagle's vantage point in a different city in a different state hundreds of miles away. What's next?

Maybe if you spent some time in a city, any city,  besides Jacksonville, you would see the flaws in your logic.   Sprawl has nothing to do with consolidation.  Atlanta is sprawled all to hell and back and it city's limits' have moved in decades.  

Building infrastructure (Water, sewer and highways,etc) on demand (of the devloepers) is the cause of sprawl.  If the true costs of sprawl were paid by those that profit from it, there would be less of it.  

[mtraininjax]

If the true costs of sprawl were paid by those that profit from it, there would be less of it. 

+1

[ChriswUfGator]

Any city, whether consolidated or not, has exponentially much more surbanban development residents than urban/Downtown residents (NYC, Chicago excluded).  That hasn't kept the urabn core of most cities from being revived to a much greater extent than Jacksonville.

Blaming Jacksonville's ills on Consolidation is a scapegoat/crutch with no basis in fact.  Put the blame where it belongs, a lack of understanding and vision on the part of the elected leadership.

We already had this debate, and I already drew the distinctions between the other consolidated cities you compared to Jacksonville, none of which are in fact truly comparable for a variety of reasons.

Consolidation is most certainly at least partly to blame for the sprawl problems and the dying condition of Jacksonville's urban core today. The whole point of having smaller governments is to allow each area to compete and develop on its own merits without being saddled with every surrounding community's competing interests. Consolidation dismantled that natural advantage, with predictable results.

But then again, I'm sure you must be an expert in local Jacksonville politics, given your eagle's vantage point in a different city in a different state hundreds of miles away. What's next?

Maybe if you spent some time in a city, any city,  besides Jacksonville, you would see the flaws in your logic.   Sprawl has nothing to do with consolidation.  Atlanta is sprawled all to hell and back and it city's limits' have moved in decades.  

Building infrastructure (Water, sewer and highways,etc) on demand (of the devloepers) is the cause of sprawl.  If the true costs of sprawl were paid by those that profit from it, there would be less of it.  

I've lived in many other cities, almost all larger than this, and larger than your home turf in the Carolinas. But thanks! And of course, now I live here. Unlike you. So let's keep it real.

Secondly, your infrastructure argument is exactly my point. Were it not for consolidation, the tax revenue of the self-supporting portions of this City couldn't have been redirected to fund sprawl everywhere else. That is exactly why consolidation has blown up on us. Really, you're trying too hard to disagree, when you've clearly identified the main problem as funding of sprawl. Which I agree with. Were it not for consolidation, most of that funding would never have been available, and the market would have taken its course.

Leadership is generally only as good as the restrictions you place on it. We all know the old saying about absolutes.

[ChriswUfGator]

Any city, whether consolidated or not, has exponentially much more surbanban development residents than urban/Downtown residents (NYC, Chicago excluded).  That hasn't kept the urabn core of most cities from being revived to a much greater extent than Jacksonville.

Blaming Jacksonville's ills on Consolidation is a scapegoat/crutch with no basis in fact.  Put the blame where it belongs, a lack of understanding and vision on the part of the elected leadership.

you are 100% correct vicupstate.  It is the execution, rather than the consolidation that has been disastrous.  

The problem isnt the competing interests of the surrounding population clusters, far from it.  The problem has been a small handful of developers and infrastructure contractors who were able to seize control of the central government in order to create a development environment that served their personal interests rather than the interests of the community.

None of that would have originally been possible if each segment had remained self-governing, so that the revenue-positive portions weren't made to fund sprawl in the other portions, as is what happened.

Cause, meet effect.

[ChriswUfGator]

Any city, whether consolidated or not, has exponentially much more surbanban development residents than urban/Downtown residents (NYC, Chicago excluded).  That hasn't kept the urabn core of most cities from being revived to a much greater extent than Jacksonville.

Blaming Jacksonville's ills on Consolidation is a scapegoat/crutch with no basis in fact.  Put the blame where it belongs, a lack of understanding and vision on the part of the elected leadership.

you are 100% correct vicupstate.  It is the execution, rather than the consolidation that has been disastrous.  

The problem isnt the competing interests of the surrounding population clusters, far from it.  The problem has been a small handful of developers and infrastructure contractors who were able to seize control of the central government in order to create a development environment that served their personal interests rather than the interests of the community.

None of that would have originally been possible if each segment had remained self-governing, so that the revenue-positive portions weren't made to fund sprawl in the other portions, as is what happened.

Cause, meet effect.

interesting to hear you prove the idea, im sure.  But the idea just sounds good.  Like blaming everything on 'white flight'.  No one is doomed to make bad decisions based political unity.

I've never blamed everything on white flight. Consolidation is another story, however.

And I'm entitled to my opinion without proving or disproving anything to anybody. That said, I suppose a starting point would be a simple question; Would the infrastructure funding for sprawl, as you've identified it, have been as readily available had the tax base of the core and urban neighborhoods not been available to artificially support it?

[tufsu1]

If the true costs of sprawl were paid by those that profit from it, there would be less of it.  

+1

and Hogan (endorsed by builders and realtors associations) will deal with this issue how?

[ChriswUfGator]

Yes.  Because there is the legal requirement for a county government to administer the needs of the county.  Obviously.  The sprawl had begun before the second great Consolidation in 1967.  Arlington was already a defined area, as was San Jose, and the old Sin City areas.  There was no consolidation to blame when those neighborhoods provided a simple way to enjoy the benefits of the city of Jacksonville without paying any of the municipal taxes.

Similarly, we do not hear about the actions of the cities of orange park, middleburg or green cove springs, but rather we hear about the plans presented by Clay County.

Duval County was more than happy to tip the balance of property taxes in their favor, to the detriment of the City of Jacksonville.

I know that you have never mentioned white flight, chris.  I was just citing another common misperception of what happened in the downtown.  Jim Crooks often ascribes the collapse of downtown to white flight, and no doubt there was an element of this happening, but it wasnt the cause of the problem.

What has led to Jacksonville's sprawl and corresponding core collapse is a set of factors.

1.  We were one of the first large cities, unconstrained by natural boundaries to adopt zoning laws in the US.  Those laws, led by our groundbreaking City Planner, George Symonds, were designed to structurally demassify the city.  The Sprawl that you see today is the natural outcome of that early adoption.

Many other cities had natural limitations:  Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, New York to name a few--- that provided a natural stoppage to the sprawl and redirected the development back inwards.  Jacksonville does not have those natural boundaries of water or mountain.

Other cities started zoning implementation decades after Jacksonville, and were in an earlier state of demassification before the technology and building techniques provided an equally pleasant alternative to demassified suburban living.

2.
The financial underpinnings of Jacksonvilles core economy relied on a complex, self organized system of commerce based around a transportation connection between rail and water transport.  Instead of catapulting that critical mass, Jacksonville made the fatal connection of unlocking the connection---which had been downtown---and stopping the underlying forces behind its urban core's economy.

3.
The third economy of the downtown which Haydon Burns implemented in his administration---administrative, modern corporate--- was demolished as a critical mass creator by the computerization of the workforce and the resulting 'downsizing' of the corporate world beginning in the 90s.  This trend is intensified by the present technological trend to digital work environments and further automation of the corporate service economy.

There are other contributing reasons to the present day, but none of them have anything to do with administrative streamlining of the city and county processes.

The real problem is that when other cities began to address what was happening to their urban cores, they found leadership willing and able to take corrective action and begin the process of remassification.

Jacksonville, further along in the process than most cities, simply lacked the right leaders.  We all identified the problem, we spent a few billion dollars to correct it,  but the efforts were ineffective due to a failure of leadership.

That's what consolidation does, Stephen. Guarantees a lack of effective leadership, where a bunch of disparate parts have to be represented when they have conflicting interests. To make this point, one really needs look no further than your response. Because whether Jacksonville's post-consolidation leadership has been "ineffective" really only depends on what side of town you're from, doesn't it?

I suspect the people in and around the Southside, Gate Parkway, Mandarin, etc., feel they have had very effective leadership. And they'd be right, as relates to their own area. This is a serious problem.

[ChriswUfGator]

Hmm.  Seems like sheer speculation, and in no way does the list of factors that I discussed support this claim.

Lack of leadership has more to do with the nature of the business environment, the education levels and the media prerogatives of the city than it does with the governmental forum.

It could be just as easily said that the lack of consolidated government created a nightmare scenario for the Atlanta Metropolitan Area that has led to the extremely polarized exurban communities of Dunwoody, and all perimeter points.

Extreme Sprawl likewise is most legendary in a city called Los Angeles, which is so exurbanized that the outlying bedroom communities have had to create what are actually city governments in order to manage the private, sentry post guarded housing and retail developments.

Considering the fact that Sprawl has happened in every part of the United States with the sole exception of the cities limited by geographical controls, and that Jacksonville is only one of a few cities that features Consolidated Government, don't you think it seems a bit ludicrous to claim that Consolidation was the cause of the downfall of downtown, on the basis that political empowerment of the county over the old municipal interests caused sprawl?

The engine of sprawl was the zoning policy, which was instituted in 1926 on a voluntary basis, and in 1932 as mandatory legal code.

The downfall of Downtown was caused locally by a decoupling of the Railroads from Riverbased transportation, and that happened in the 1950s followed by a national trend of computerization of the corporate business model, which wasnt caused by the Consolidation of the City of Jacksonville.

The downtown development agency whose plan destroyed the retail environment of the downtown was based on a study group which began meeting in 1964 that led to the instutition of a commission in 1969, which released a plan in 1971 that then took a few years to fund and implement in 1981.  While it happened in the era immediately following, the ideas that it used were not caused by Consolidation, although Consolidation made it easy to fund and implement it. 

A fact which would point away from "Consolidation has hurt Downtown".  The early efforts to redevelop downtown wouldnt have been implemented so easily without consolidation.  It was only with the taxes drawn from the entire county that the City was in the position to launch such a massive failure---but the failure lay within the vision and with the wholly incorrect understanding of what lay at the root of urban decay.

In short, it was leadership, not consolidation, and this can be backed up with another thousand objective facts.

Calling something speculation hardly makes it any less accurate. And even if it were, as I already noted, I'm certainly entitled to speculate. Now what seems altogether more speculative is the argument that 1920s zoning policies somehow caused sprawl in the 60s and 70s, sprawl that in an apparent total coincidence really picked up steam after consolidation. Quite a delayed reaction, no? Sprawl prior to consolidation wasn't truly sprawl yet, we had the urban neighborhoods and Arlington in the 50s, and Atlantic and Beach were naturally going to develop anyway, given their traffic counts and people going to/from the beach. That's not really problematic sprawl. The wholesale creation of new business centers out of cow pastures in unsustainable locations, which is emblamatic of our current problems, only began after consolidation.

And regarding Atlanta, that example contradicts your position. Sure they've had sprawl, but without consolidation forcing it into a solomonic competitive disadvantage, downtown Atlanta remained strong as the city's central business district. Rather my whole point, really.

[Dog Walker]

Jacksonville also invented the other engine that helped hollow out downtowns everywhere; the suburban office park.  The Koger Center off Beach Blvd was the first suburban office park in the U.S.

We also had the very first expressway system in the South, even before Atlanta....and before Consolidation.

[ChriswUfGator]

Similarly, pointing at random objects and claiming "That makes my point!" isnt quite the same thing as providing a solid example which backs up your speculations.

Its actually a pretty curious story, the impact of Zoning on the various cities.  Jacksonville and Atlanta share a lot of the same physical attributes when it comes to the city itself.  Both were cities created out of transportation joints:  Atlanta from Rail connections, Jacksonville from Rail to Water connections.

Both are located on endless plains of flat land in which to expand.  Jacksonville historically less so because of the ocean and the vast swamp lands on the south and north sides.

But there was a distinct difference in the early implementation of zoning laws in Jacksonville that made it quite different from the rest of the country.

Jacksonville was a Progressive City, and while racial tensions existed, it was also a port city and the government was a fairly enlightened group of people up until the end of the 1930s.  Grace Trout the famous Suffragist sat on the first planning board here in 1919, three years after the implementation of comprehensive land plan based zoning laws in New York City following the erection of the Equitable Building in 1916.

When George Simonds was brought here to work in Jacksonville, his work constructing the city plan was done in accordance with northern, rather than southern goals in mind---as evidence by the beautiful drainage resevoir system implemented by Henry Klutho along Hogan's Creek.

The rest of the South was still obsessed with the darker impulses of early zoning, which had been developed in Germany in the late 1870s, and that was racial zoning.  Atlanta was no exception.  Nor were the other Southern cities.  

Their early attempts at zoning were coupled with this forgotten goal of the early zoning movement in fact.  Jacksonville never attempted to erect such egregious laws.

For example, from Christopher Silver's remarkable study:

http://www.asu.edu/courses/aph294/total-readings/silver%20--%20racialoriginsofzoning.pdf

Robert Whitten's Atlanta Zoning Plan of 1922 was a prominent post-Buchanan attempt to link legalized residential segregation to comprehensive planning. Actually, what Whitten proposed differed little from the City's original "unconstitutional" racial zoning scheme, except that it employed the nomenclature of conventional zoning along with racial designations such as: R1-White district; R2-colored district; and R-3-undetermined. Whitten defended racial zoning on the grounds that the Atlanta plan allowed "adequate areas for the growth of the colored population," that residential separation would instill in Blacks "a more intelligent and responsible citizenship," and that racially homogeneous neighborhoods promoted social stability. Even in its new guise, Atlanta's racial zoning plan failed to survive its initial court challenge.

This renewed attempt to institute racial zoning took place within the context of a major metropolitan planning initiative, under the guidance of planning consultant Warren Manning, to make Atlanta “a beautiful, orderly place, the wonder city of the southeast.”

Even though the explicit racial designations in the city's zoning ordinance had to be excised, Atlanta still pursued the "controlled segregation" objective of race-based planning over the ensuing decades. According to the 1922 plan, Atlanta's Black residential expansion was to be confined to the west and southwest sections of the city. That was, in fact, exactly the direction of Black residential expansion from the 1920s onward, even though the traditional heart of the Black community was in east Atlanta.

While the rest of the southern cities were busy implementing these egregious plans, and struggling to make them seem legal, to be followed by a few decades of constitutional wrangling, Jacksonville's zoning plan was based on the social progressive movement of the 1890s, of demassification, public health and harmonious living. (I know its hard to visualize Jacksonville with that set of ideals, but this was once a very special place).

The effect of the zoning, especially when the demassification goals were taken so seriously, therefore had a couple of decades head start here than in other cities.

And that zoning, is what led to demassification.  Not Consolidation.

I was hardly pointing to any "random object." You originally brought up Atlanta, and I only responded by quoting your own point about Atlanta, and then pointing out that it actually contradicts, not supports, your argument. If you feel Atlanta is a random non-sequitur, why did you bring it up?

[ChriswUfGator]

Jacksonville also invented the other engine that helped hollow out downtowns everywhere; the suburban office park.  The Koger Center off Beach Blvd was the first suburban office park in the U.S.

We also had the very first expressway system in the South, even before Atlanta....and before Consolidation.

Thank you DogWalker.  I was saving the Expressway Authority for later, but you are quite right.  The Jacksonville Expressway is now known as I 95

Dog Walker's statements don't support your point. It was more of a history lesson, though he's welcome to correct me if I've misinterpreted his point. The expressway system wasn't far-reaching enough to cause the sprawl which has become a problem in Jacksonville today, namely it didn't connect unsustainable areas, its purpose largely was as a suburban commuter link to Arlington and the Atlantic/Beach area that supported downtown's CBD. Those original suburbs, in another shocking coincidence given your viewpoint, mysteriously declined along with downtown.

[ChriswUfGator]

Also, I have to object to the thread title, the point here is not that consolidation is a "City Leveller" (sic), merely that Jacksonville by virtue of its unique attributes was a poor candidate for consolidation, and that this mis-match between too great a land area and too great a mix between rural and urban environments, has caused many of our current sprawl problems.

[ChriswUfGator]

Hearst would have been proud Stephen, what an excellent collection of shocking photographs, I must admit they tug at my heartstrings, notwithstanding their having nothing whatsoever to do with our current debate over city-county consolidation in another state in another region 140 years later.

Perhaps I can petition for the release of the bin Laden autopsy photos and post them in this thread to gain similar shock-value for my argument? After all, I did hear Abbottabad may have been a consolidated government!

Moving on, the red herring here is considering either zoning or consolidation as the sole reason for our current problems. Zoning played a role, but that role would have been largely minimized were it not for consolidation effectively removing the ability of each independent area to compete for itself in a rational market.

I understand your views are what they are, however there is a significant body of work pointing out that consolidation rarely delivers the promised benefits, and often leads to buerocratic nightmares and the solomonic compromises that have effectively shattered the sustainability of our local economy in Jacksonville. And while I understand you may have been banging the consolidation drum for 25 years, the body of actual outcome-based research showing consolidation often results in negative outcomes has only really come into existence in the past several years. So I would humbly suggest it may be time to take another look at your position;

http://www.cdhowe.org/pdf/bish.pdf

http://oldfraser.lexi.net/publications/forum/1998/september/section_01.html

http://www.mtas.utk.edu/KnowledgeBase.nsf/a50db8b131a4d94e85256e46000d6fce/7095fcf640f20f2185256fe0005c3547/$FILE/Consolidation of City and County Governments.pdf

http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/pdf/materials/401.pdf

http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031012/EDITORIALS/110120005/-1/editorials11

http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031012/EDITORIALS/110120002/-1/editorials11

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050814/NEWS01/508140416/1006/NEWS01

I understand our consolidated city government has been sacrosanct and above criticism for decades, however I think most would probably admit many of the promised benefits have not materialized, and I would argue the consolidated government structure has removed the natural ability of each individual piece to vie for its own interests in a rational market, which is key to the fiscal success and long-term sustainability of any urban area.

The fact is that the original areas of Jacksonville which have avoided the decline that befell the remainder of the pre-consolidated city have thrived because community organizations (e.g., RAP) took up where their post-consolidation governmental representation left off. This is also why an organization like SPAR has such power. Consolidation creates micro power-vacuums, where the districts are simply too large to account for the varying needs of the constituent communities, and no clear process exists for handling situations where the interests of one constituent community conflict with one or more others. Or, where the interests of the CBD conflict with the interests of the outlying areas, but both areas are entitled to equal representation.

That can only lead to solomonic compromises which cause more problems than they solve. I think a reasonable person would be hard-pressed to deny that has indeed happened in Jacksonville, though I must compliment you, as you certainly seem to be doing your best.