question for Downtown experts

[simms3]

JHAT76,

I live in Midtown and commute to Buckhead.  I would still live in Midtown if my commute were even further.  Usually when you live "in" the city, your commute out of the city is reverse.  Also, I would love it if my job were right in Midtown, but I live here because I prefer the lifestyle.

In a town like Jacksonville, city living is not going to come due to jobs.  Jacksonville's downtown is not going to be the center for jobs for a while, and may in fact continue to lose jobs in the near term.  Downtown can still be a nice place to live.  Urban living is dependent on having certain conditions met, and jobs aren't necessarily the deciding factor.  An excellent park is a huge factor.  A diverse community with an artistic/creative population eventually giving way to an upwardly mobile "white collar" professional class is going to be how it probably occurs.

I can literally go on and on with living proof examples of major turnarounds, not due to local job growth, but due mainly to private groups and passionate business leaders and visionaries who paved the way for great neighborhoods for living.  I have to cut my own self off.

Secondly, look at Houston and Dallas.  These cities have enormous downtowns, but their downtowns are pretty lifeless and have no residents.  Metro job creation is fascinating in these two Texas towns, but only Austin is creating a truly livable downtown and it is not being done with a mass of office highrises.  Miami is a downtown with very little office space relative to the area's size and importance, yet it has 30,000 condos (granted we know how overbuilt it is, point still remains).

Jacksonville is losing and has lost its edge to other FL cities and SE cities in terms of white collar job growth, which leads to more office buildings and downtown business addresses.  We must focus on industrial job growth because that is where we have a competitive advantage.  Therefore we should not concentrate energy on paying firms millions of dollars in incentives to locate downtown.  Instead, we should look towards other cities such as Portland and Austin for hints on how to bring residents and permanent life and culture downtown.  Corporate expansions and relocations may then follow, but only in certain sectors such as law firms and consulting firms.  I don't foresee huge expansions in our finance and insurance sectors.  All we have to do is look towards Birmingham and Charlotte for living proof examples that those firms are concentrating in New York and the Upper Midwest.

We have to ensure that our Riverwalk and the Emerald Necklace are in constant pristine condition, forming a protective layer of beautiful public space around the CBD.  We have to do something about a convention center so that we can at least have a fallback layer of visitors to the city to keep things livelier and help small independent businesses.  We have to foster the arts and creativity.  We have to have a separate private organization running downtown, with taxing authority to boot.  We don't necessarily need a regional identity to help "downtown", per se.  We don't need to try to compete with Southpoint or Gate Parkway; Downtown won't ever be able to offer what those submarkets can.  We don't need to spend money on incentives.  We need to spend money on proper infrastructure (i.e. parks, convention center) and we need to lay the groundwork for a private CID organization to run the show.  We need leaders to step up and find what they are passionate about and form organizations to improve something, i.e. the Emerald Necklace.  I can guarandamntee you the city will not do anything about it.  Form a nonprofit and make sure you have someone on there who can go to local deep pockets who would be willing to donate to have it restored and maintained.

This is how it will be done, in my humble but I think educated opinion.

Midtown Atlanta has been a longgg time in the making and hasn't truly hit high marks until the past couple years, but it is purely a private show.  Nothing in Midtown is supported financially or even regulated by the City of Atlanta (I mean to a large extent).  The Midtown Blue police force is a private creation and locally supported through local Midtown taxes.  Piedmont Park is what it is (i.e. one of the most popular and most well known parks in the country and even the world) because in 1989 the Conservancy was formed and has raised tens of millions of dollars to restore the park since.  Sidewalks, roads, the master plan, coordinated neighborhood banners, advertising, web sites, events...all Midtown Alliance, which brings together businesses, residents, organizations, committees, and city services in the neighborhood.  It was founded in 1978 when the area was still high-crime and seedy.  In 1996 Peachtree St corridor was over 80% surface parking.  Daytime office workers do not outnumber the residents, students, and tourists in the area.  Now there are 7 other similar taxing CID organizations like it throughout the city, and more extensive public-private partnerships like Atlanta Beltline Inc (city) - Atlanta Beltline Partnership (non-profit) that works with Atlanta Development Authority (TIF bond financing), Central Atlanta Progress (downtown CID), and Midtown Alliance (Midtown CID).

The city has kind of stepped back and tasked local leaders within the community and within the various neighborhoods to do what is necessary to run the neighborhoods.  All the city does is do what it does best: hire 50,000 too many bureaucrats who do nothing but get paid well, award kickback contracts to road construction firm Archer Western, and cheer the private organizations who have taken control of the city, from downtown to Gwinnett County.

1986 picture of Midtown:
http://themidtownarchive.tumblr.com/post/8697716152/1986-view-of-now-demolished-buildings-at-10th

1996 Article: "Much of the walk between the Fox and 10th St is frankly, pretty creepy."
http://themidtownarchive.tumblr.com/post/9481397396/olympic-walking-tour-1996

Selling famed counter-culture magazine The Bird
http://themidtownarchive.tumblr.com/post/10945484641/selling-the-bird-at-10th-and-peachtree-streets-in

Famed hippie Jesus mural/graffiti
http://themidtownarchive.tumblr.com/post/9294555442/the-crazy-cool-jesus-mural-at-the-northeast-corner

Point being...the area has seen DRASTIC turnaround and actual job creation was really the last to happen!