San Diego 30 Years Later: Special Report

[Metro Jacksonville]

San Diego 30 Years Later: Special Report



Ever wondered what Downtown Jacksonville could look like if we changed public policy, invested in fixed mass transit and clustered complementing development in a compact setting?  Metro Jacksonville visits a West Coast city that was in our shoes in 1981: San Diego.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2011-aug-san-diego-30-years-later-special-report

[Steve]

Wow - this really could be Jacksonville. Probably one of the closer comparisons that MJ's ever done where you can just see the glaring differences in a similar city.

[Mal]

I really like that you guys show a comparison of the metro area growth rate, but the problem is that Jacksonville nearly always looks superior to the comparison city and it doesn't reflect the negative growth of our downtown area. Is it possible to include a comparison of Jacksonville's pre-consolidation area growth rate with the city limit growth rate of the comparison city?

[jaxlore]

great article. Makes me wonder how much this whole recession thing has set things back though. I hope Alvin can jump start things.

[copperfiend]

I need to go to San Diego on my next trip to California.

[tufsu1]

Wow - this really could be Jacksonville. Probably one of the closer comparisons that MJ's ever done where you can just see the glaring differences in a similar city.

yep....noticed that myself when there two years ago...and discussed it with lake when putting together a front page MJ story 

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2009-jul-elements-of-urbanism-san-diego

[dougskiles]

Awesome pier, and I love the Navy ship docked for a museum.  Any word on what's going on with USS Adams?

[urbaknight]

The problem is that we have people in Jax that are aggressively fighting against this type of development. These ideas are no brainers, but most our leaders have no brains.

[cityimrov]

The problem is that we have people in Jax that are aggressively fighting against this type of development. These ideas are no brainers, but most our leaders have no brains.

At this point, I'm not sure it's just only the leaders. 

I like these articles but can you guys include some comments of the political climate of the city at the time?  I'm curious to see what kind of policies and what the citizens thought at the time.  Like in 1979 something San Diego: "The entire city was unified in creating this" Jacksonville: "During this time the citizens decided to take a vacation".