Jax's Inferiority Complex

[Sentient]

There are two issues with Jax which lead to the frustration, lamentation, under-achieving etc.  The first, as some have hit on, is that there are so many good raw ingredients here to build on - population - ocean/river - weather - historic neighborhoods - low taxes - etc. and yet they are never combined in a really tasty way and over and over again. So you are left wanting more, and scratching your head as to why things didn't quite click.  A restaurant you would go to again, everything was OK enough, but not one you are looking forward to all week, or people travel to in anticipation and excitement.  The Biscotti's of cities.

The second issue, which I believe creates the above paradox is that JAX really does not have any identifiable culture, the way you know even smaller places like Charleston or Savannah etc. have.  I'm not talking about an art museum or symphony or eating with a knife and fork culture, I'm talking about an ethos, a "way" a point of view...  The closest I can point to when people ask what the culture of Jacksonville is like is "SEC football"...

[BoldBoyOfTheSouth]

When people in JAX stop acting like white trash then we can give them the honor of being southern.

BTW - the term "white trash" is southern and southerners have to deal with the dregs of society that make our whole region look bad.

[BoldBoyOfTheSouth]

Jacksonville does need to do a better job at marketing itself.

Why does Denver and Colorado Sorings have a reputation for being an outdoors and athletic paradise? Because they knew how to market themselves.

We have beaches, rivers, tidal estuaries, intracoastal waterways and the largest urban park system in the country. Close by are great swamps and springs. 

Plenty of place to bike riding and kayaking.

Year most people in JAX don't even take advantage of our great outdoors and very few outsiders consider us an outdoor recreational destination.

We fail to take pride in what we have and are clueless in how to market ourselves.

[Sentient]

Jacksonville does need to do a better job at marketing itself.

Why does Denver and Colorado Sorings have a reputation for being an outdoors and athletic paradise? Because they knew how to market themselves.

We have beaches, rivers, tidal estuaries, intracoastal waterways and the largest urban park system in the country. Close by are great swamps and springs. 

Plenty of place to bike riding and kayaking.

Year most people in JAX don't even take advantage of our great outdoors and very few outsiders consider us an outdoor recreational destination.

We fail to take pride in what we have and are clueless in how to market ourselves.

Marketing and boosterism create disatisfaction...  Outdoors places get reputations from people being outdoors and DOING stuff.  Same way REI and Patagonia got reputations in retail for actually DOING the stuff they were selling...  An outdoors culture.

In Jax - How many Kayaks do you see out on the water?  How many bike rides do you see?

It gets back to a culture.  You can market a culture (New Orleans, Las Vegas, Colorado), you can only market potential for so long.

[Adam White]

In Jax - How many Kayaks do you see out on the water? 

Oh fuck. I think you just opened Pandora's box.

[johnnyliar]

hahahahahah ^

[BoldBoyOfTheSouth]

That the point, you should see more kayaks on our waters, more bikes on our roads, more ocean sports, more people exploring our phenomenal park system.

We have the natural assets to be a great, athletic and healthy city.

But to be honest, if you look at the average Jaxon, do they make the poster boys/girls of health and recreation?

[Sentient]

That the point, you should see more kayaks on our waters, more bikes on our roads, more ocean sports, more people exploring our phenomenal park system.

We have the natural assets to be a great, athletic and healthy city.

But to be honest, if you look at the average Jaxon, do they make the poster boys/girls of health and recreation?

Exactly - it's not a health focused culture by and large.  So you just market potential. 

Tell me assembled what IDENTIFIES Jacksonville and a native J'Villian?  What is THE dish that everyone grew up on and expats are pining for?  What is the shared common experience among families and neighbors?

Or is it all lost to time at this point?

[BoldBoyOfTheSouth]

I'm all for arts and culture, however, currently the arts are not a competitive strength in Jacksonville.

Don't missunderstand me, there is plenty of culture and arts and creative people in JAX but it's all sprawled out except for maybe one night a month downtown.

We are too sprawled for synergy.

A group could be at the Florida Theater one night for a great event but rarely is it the same night when the Times Union has packed houses for shows and concerts.

You can leave a show at the TU and never know there is an Elbow much less where it was.

Go to Theater Jacksonville for outstanding community theater, when the show is over it's just you and a few stragglers at restaurants.  You have to travel downtown or go out to the beach to see people leaving the theater out there.

None of those theater people will find the CoRK district for a pre dinner art gallery show opening unless they drove way to get there and that's if they even knew where there (CoRK) was.

Unless we do an ART SPRAWL to find all of these venues and artists, actors & musicians.

This is the problem with sprawl.

[Sentient]

"We are too sprawled for synergy."

This is actually something I have been thinking about since the BOLD NEW CITY OF THE SOUTH picture, which was taken on the day of consolidation.

Consolidation has been a huge failure in most regards.  Yes the white guard preserved the control of downtown but at the expense of diffusion of energy and inhibiting development of pockets of culture across the city.  The irony is downtown is lost nevertheless and the surrounding areas never living up to their potential. It's always dangerous to approach a drowning person... you usually end up with two lost.

[BoldBoyOfTheSouth]

I, for one, believe that if we were no so sprawled out then we would have developed closer together and certain places would be undisputed creative areas and those areas would excite locals and visitors with most creatives working, living, breathing and creating in the same communal neighborhoods and those neighborhoods would represent JAX like they do in other cities.

Pick any semi great American city and people will sing the praises of that city and if you want to experience that city then everyone tells you to go to X neighborhood but Y and Z neighborhoods are great too because of ABC but not much the D.

If we are being honest, can we really say that about Jacksonville?  Go to one or two neighborhoods and you'll experience JAX culture and fell like a JAX native?

SPRAWL IS WHAT WE HAVE, so how do we go from here and play up to our strengths and market ourselves?

[BoldBoyOfTheSouth]

As others have pointed out, Jacksonville culturally and our natural landscape is both southern and Floridian.

This should be our marketing niche.

Queen and sable palms intermixed with southern live oaks dripping with Spanish moss where the setting sun dapples just bought light threw the moss to light the tree up like a soft chandelier and magnolia blooms showing their glory in the full moonlights.

Beaches that are never crowded and whole areas in our region just north and south of JAX where on slightly chilly days you are the only person walking there for maybe a half mile with a few joggers or dog walkers passing by in the distance.

Our population is mostly transplants from southern states and the northeast which can great a nice blended culture of tradition and change.

We have a great ocean, a the great St Johns River, the Ortega River, nearby St Mary's River, Intreacoatal Waterway, marches, hidden coves and silent creeks, nearly Okeefenokee Swamp and Cumberland Island.

Hardly any local knows of the wonders that is White Oak Plantation Conservation and wildlife sanctuary.

Why do most locals over look these great assets and why do must southerners within a day's driving distance have no idea it's all here in one place?

[BoldBoyOfTheSouth]

we actually have an amazing history and a pretty vibrant group of artists and performers who are from here.  The present dysfunction isn't a result of sprawl or lack of marketing, its the direct result of the Culture Wars of the 1990s when wealthy conservatives seized control of the various cultural institutions and then pretty much destroyed them.

It took away the infrastructure in place that allowed for people to go on to regional and national careers.  There was a massive exodus of artists, writers, performers etc from the city by the mid 1990s.

Terrible.

That is tragic and true and hopefully changing.

Also a problem when the artists allowed wealthy benefactors to control the culture.

Many creative centers once had royal or high society controlling atge museums, operas and arts funding, though, most art centers ha e long ago developed their own arts undergrounds (just throwing a random term out there) that they were confident enough in their own creativity and had the synergy to open up spaces and galleries and theaters to show work no officially sanctioned by the establishment.

They created arts and experimental theaters on the cheap but they also insisted on quality so they didn't need the support from the ladies of the garden club or the bankers or local prep school cliques.

JAX apparently did not evolve with a strong and confident arts community to challenge the prudes in the stuffy clubhouses.

Let's just hope that we've learned from our past and ensure that our artists, actors and writers don't need to royal seal of approval from OLD LINE STUFFY ART MATRON ON HUBBY WHO WRITES THE CHECKS.


##### and I know that I've over simplified what happened here within the last twenty years.

[vicupstate]

As others have pointed out, Jacksonville culturally and our natural landscape is both southern and Floridian.

This should be our marketing niche.

Queen and sable palms intermixed with southern live oaks dripping with Spanish moss where the setting sun dapples just bought light threw the moss to light the tree up like a soft chandelier and magnolia blooms showing their glory in the full moonlights.

Beaches that are never crowded and whole areas in our region just north and south of JAX where on slightly chilly days you are the only person walking there for maybe a half mile with a few joggers or dog walkers passing by in the distance.

Our population is mostly transplants from southern states and the northeast which can great a nice blended culture of tradition and change.

We have a great ocean, a the great St Johns River, the Ortega River, nearby St Mary's River, Intreacoatal Waterway, marches, hidden coves and silent creeks, nearly Okeefenokee Swamp and Cumberland Island.

Hardly any local knows of the wonders that is White Oak Plantation Conservation and wildlife sanctuary.

Why do most locals over look these great assets and why do must southerners within a day's driving distance have no idea it's all here in one place?

+1000

Consolidation and sprawl are not the issue at all. It is a lack of leadership, a lack of a plan, and a told absence of marketing and branding. 

[southsider1015]

As others have pointed out, Jacksonville culturally and our natural landscape is both southern and Floridian.

This should be our marketing niche.

Queen and sable palms intermixed with southern live oaks dripping with Spanish moss where the setting sun dapples just bought light threw the moss to light the tree up like a soft chandelier and magnolia blooms showing their glory in the full moonlights.

Beaches that are never crowded and whole areas in our region just north and south of JAX where on slightly chilly days you are the only person walking there for maybe a half mile with a few joggers or dog walkers passing by in the distance.

Our population is mostly transplants from southern states and the northeast which can great a nice blended culture of tradition and change.

We have a great ocean, a the great St Johns River, the Ortega River, nearby St Mary's River, Intreacoatal Waterway, marches, hidden coves and silent creeks, nearly Okeefenokee Swamp and Cumberland Island.

Hardly any local knows of the wonders that is White Oak Plantation Conservation and wildlife sanctuary.

Why do most locals over look these great assets and why do must southerners within a day's driving distance have no idea it's all here in one place?

+1000

Consolidation and sprawl are not the issue at all. It is a lack of leadership, a lack of a plan, and a told absence of marketing and branding.

Agree.  Sprawl is the knee jerk answer for our problems, but with better leadership, management, and investment in quality of life, this thing could really take off.

I also think the Jags really do have a huge impact on this city.  Everyone talks about joae days when he Jags were in the playoffs, the Super Bowl was here, and times were so good.  A lot is riding on Shad right now, in my opinion.

I feel like this city is big, unlit firework just waiting to explode.  And we're all just kinda sitting around...waiting and hoping...