Four Things That Nearly Wiped Jacksonville Off The Map

[BrooklynSouth]

I think this may have been true, to a certain extent up until the 80s, but the part thirty years has just been bad decisions, racism and cupidity.

I think there has always been greed and there always will be. I think the collapse came, maybe in the 80s as you say, when there was no competition left downtown, no other economic powers to push and pull the government and to keep things relatively fair. Everyone else left downtown and the only ones still around were the land speculators that are a particularly powerful force in Florida. I am a liberal, so I would say that the 80s were an especially bad time for the little guy, as factories closed and unions lost power to represent workers. New York City had Donald Trump in this period. I don't know the names, but I'm sure we had our own set of rascals to ruin the city neighborhoods of Jacksonville. My point is still that focusing on the rascals does not help a strategic plan for the city. The rascals will always be around trying to steal land and tax money. Who are the new economic powers that can be recruited as our allies against persistent "rascal-ism"?

[rgold]

Thanks for the great history/story about Jacksonville! I have lived here all of my life. I love Jax! I actually took dance lessons from Buddy Sherwood and then Gloria Norman@Norman Studio's when I was a child.

[Jim Crooks]

A fascinating conversation. As some of you know, I have written extensively about downtown since the 1960s in my book, Jacksonville, the Consolidation Story, from Civil Rights to the Jaguars. What so-called urban renewal did to LaVilla was disruptive and dysfunctional. The redevelopment around the sports complex strikes me as creating a viable center. Moving city hall to the St. James building was a good first step, but now we need to develop Hemming Plaza. The stores, museum, library and court house around the Plaza work. The Jacksonville Landing, however, has only fulfilled a small part of its potential, I think due to unimaginative leadership. Originally the convention center was going to be there, across from the Omni, but others had different plans and it currently is removed from downtown. The prosperity of the 1990s helped downtown (eg. more housing). The great recession has hurt. We need creative  minds to move forward.
Jim Crooks

[Cheshire Cat]

Hi Jim!  Glad you are sharing your thoughts here.
Creative minds are certainly important in a community, especially one the size of Jacksonville. Any ideas for Hemming Plaza?

[Tacachale]

A fascinating conversation. As some of you know, I have written extensively about downtown since the 1960s in my book, Jacksonville, the Consolidation Story, from Civil Rights to the Jaguars. What so-called urban renewal did to LaVilla was disruptive and dysfunctional. The redevelopment around the sports complex strikes me as creating a viable center. Moving city hall to the St. James building was a good first step, but now we need to develop Hemming Plaza. The stores, museum, library and court house around the Plaza work. The Jacksonville Landing, however, has only fulfilled a small part of its potential, I think due to unimaginative leadership. Originally the convention center was going to be there, across from the Omni, but others had different plans and it currently is removed from downtown. The prosperity of the 1990s helped downtown (eg. more housing). The great recession has hurt. We need creative  minds to move forward.
Jim Crooks

Welcome to the forum, professor. It's hard to argue with those comments.

[thelakelander]

Welcome to the forum, Jim. Glad to have you aboard.

[Ocklawaha]

A fascinating conversation. As some of you know, I have written extensively about downtown since the 1960s in my book, Jacksonville, the Consolidation Story, from Civil Rights to the Jaguars. What so-called urban renewal did to LaVilla was disruptive and dysfunctional. The redevelopment around the sports complex strikes me as creating a viable center. Moving city hall to the St. James building was a good first step, but now we need to develop Hemming Plaza. The stores, museum, library and court house around the Plaza work. The Jacksonville Landing, however, has only fulfilled a small part of its potential, I think due to unimaginative leadership. Originally the convention center was going to be there, across from the Omni, but others had different plans and it currently is removed from downtown. The prosperity of the 1990s helped downtown (eg. more housing). The great recession has hurt. We need creative  minds to move forward.
Jim Crooks

Hello Jim and welcome!  Creative minds?  What do you think about our heritage streetcar proposals?
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2009-jan-streetcars-coming-to-downtown-jacksonville
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2012-aug-the-electric-7-a-streetcar-proposal-on-a-shoestring
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2011-jul-how-to-get-a-streetcar-system-in-jacksonville

[BoldBoyOfTheSouth]

During the 1970s and 80s many downtowns across the country were dying and if you could fit in the suburbs and needed good schools for your kids and worried about urban crimes against your wives, then you moved to the suburbs.  Yet , many cities in the south and nationally had a segment of the population who was not welcome in the suburbs and became urban pioneers.  These were gay men who found refuge in abandoned downtowns and slowly upgraded their lofts and  patronized edgy restaurants a decade before straights felt comfortable coming downtown.

Why did downturn Jacksonville never get a groundswell of gays like so many other cities did?  Gay men led the way towards downtown revitalization of many cities because they really had no other viable choices.

It's just hard to believe that JAX suburbs were welcoming and affirming to gays in the 1970s and 80s.  Was downtown so bad that even the gay pioneers were not even interested?

[mtraininjax]

Stephen - Great article! I think the parking deck at Main and Bay has been there since I took Driver's Ed at Wolfson in 1985. Having had to drive downtown with an instructor who failed to educate me that there were two right turn lanes on Main Street and nearly crashed the car by having me jump over 2 lanes (crazy teen driver) to head back to Wolfson after some downtown driving.

I met a couple of new architects from UF over the weekend, and they used to live in Brooklyn, they asked me a lot of questions about consolidation and why Jacksonville needed it and showed me examples of how it is hurting Jax now. I know we have many threads on consolidation. Most new people to town may need to revisit those threads to see why it was needed and why it still is needed to this day, if indeed it is.