How many Jacksonvilles can fit inside Jacksonville?

[vicupstate]

I'm sticking to exactly what I said, the tax money is spreaded throughout the city versus 'little municipality here paying for there own crap here and little municipality there paying for their own crap'... It's really simple...

That would be true for SOME things but not others.  Things like parks and public safety would be that way.  But things like highways, roads, jails, courts , etc are at the County/State/Federal level as far as funding.  Those are very expensive things that get spread over a larger tax base.  The industrial and commercial properties pay a very disproportionate  share of that. So a largely residential district/town/city, particularly one WITHOUT a lot of affluence, would be receiving more benefits than they contributed.       

[finehoe]

Baltimore received 1.8 BILLION dollars during Obama's stimulus

And Florida received $13.4 BILLION.  What's your point?

[thelakelander]

Baltimore received 1.8 BILLION dollars during Obama's stimulus

And Florida received $13.4 BILLION.  What's your point?

Yeah. The a good amount of stimulus money went to construct SR 9B.

[Tacachale]

IMO Jax's consolidation is actually a liberal idea in principle; Someone in Mandarin or Baymeadows somewhere is paying for the city's core, believe that. Versus these core only cities (many which have alot of poor) that are left to fend for themselves. I do not want to see Jax deconsolidate ever.

It's quite the opposite. Neither Mandarin or Baymeadows have anywhere near the amount of industry, manufacturing, port terminals or major companies operating in a limited amount of land area as the historic core of the city. A place like downtown would be fine if the tax money it generated, was only reinvested within that particular district. Without cash coming from elsewhere to pay for infrastructure that makes development in places like Baymeadows feasible, what you see today would not be there.

It's somewhat more complicated than that. Before consolidation, the 'burbs were paying taxes for county services, including services like police and fire that duplicated what COJ already had. Merging the Jacksonville Police Department with the Sheriff's Office alone has saved millions a year, and the chief benefitters of that are in the Old City, where the Sheriff was mostly redundant with the city PD.

However, historically, Downtown in particular generated a lot of tax revenue that mostly flowed out, especially before Consolidation. I don't believe that's the case with the Old City more generally, however, which included/includes most of the poorest parts of the metro area.

[Captain Zissou]

IMO Jax's consolidation is actually a liberal idea in principle; Someone in Mandarin or Baymeadows somewhere is paying for the city's core, believe that.

I really like your use of "believe that".  Really drove the point home. 

[thelakelander]

IMO Jax's consolidation is actually a liberal idea in principle; Someone in Mandarin or Baymeadows somewhere is paying for the city's core, believe that. Versus these core only cities (many which have alot of poor) that are left to fend for themselves. I do not want to see Jax deconsolidate ever.

It's quite the opposite. Neither Mandarin or Baymeadows have anywhere near the amount of industry, manufacturing, port terminals or major companies operating in a limited amount of land area as the historic core of the city. A place like downtown would be fine if the tax money it generated, was only reinvested within that particular district. Without cash coming from elsewhere to pay for infrastructure that makes development in places like Baymeadows feasible, what you see today would not be there.

It's somewhat more complicated than that. Before consolidation, the 'burbs were paying taxes for county services, including services like police and fire that duplicated what COJ already had. Merging the Jacksonville Police Department with the Sheriff's Office alone has saved millions a year, and the chief benefitters of that are in the Old City, where the Sheriff was mostly redundant with the city PD.

However, historically, Downtown in particular generated a lot of tax revenue that mostly flowed out, especially before Consolidation. I don't believe that's the case with the Old City more generally, however, which included/includes most of the poorest parts of the metro area.

For I-10's, I used downtown as a quick high level example, without diving into the depths of detail. However, the urban core includes much more than downtown.  A good chuck of our local heavy industry and manufacturing base in still disproportionately located in or adjacent to the old central city.  Even at this point, I highly suspect that the overall tax revenue produced within a limited amount of land area from businesses like Ardagh glass, Swisher, Beaver Street Fisheries, etc. (let's say 30 square miles of old central city) still flows out to help cover lower tax generating sections of the consolidated city, that still need infrastructure, public services, schools, etc.

[Tacachale]

IMO Jax's consolidation is actually a liberal idea in principle; Someone in Mandarin or Baymeadows somewhere is paying for the city's core, believe that. Versus these core only cities (many which have alot of poor) that are left to fend for themselves. I do not want to see Jax deconsolidate ever.

It's quite the opposite. Neither Mandarin or Baymeadows have anywhere near the amount of industry, manufacturing, port terminals or major companies operating in a limited amount of land area as the historic core of the city. A place like downtown would be fine if the tax money it generated, was only reinvested within that particular district. Without cash coming from elsewhere to pay for infrastructure that makes development in places like Baymeadows feasible, what you see today would not be there.

It's somewhat more complicated than that. Before consolidation, the 'burbs were paying taxes for county services, including services like police and fire that duplicated what COJ already had. Merging the Jacksonville Police Department with the Sheriff's Office alone has saved millions a year, and the chief benefitters of that are in the Old City, where the Sheriff was mostly redundant with the city PD.

However, historically, Downtown in particular generated a lot of tax revenue that mostly flowed out, especially before Consolidation. I don't believe that's the case with the Old City more generally, however, which included/includes most of the poorest parts of the metro area.

For I-10's, I used downtown as a quick high level example, without diving into the depths of detail. However, the urban core includes much more than downtown.  A good chuck of our local heavy industry and manufacturing base in still disproportionately located in or adjacent to the old central city.  Even at this point, I highly suspect that the overall tax revenue produced within a limited amount of land area from businesses like Ardagh glass, Swisher, Beaver Street Fisheries, etc. (let's say 30 square miles of old central city) still flows out to help cover lower tax generating sections of the consolidated city, that still need infrastructure, public services, schools, etc.

Well I don't have the numbers on me, but I'd really tend to doubt it, considering how much our tax structure depends on property tax, and how many more people and businesses are outside the Old City than in it (even more now than in the 60s). Stuff like the School Board was countywide already, but looking at how the district is funded it's almost certainly a case where more money is spent in the Old City than comes out of it.

[thelakelander]

^This would assume we're excluding funds spent on road construction and associated maintenance of those facilities, based on the funding mechanisms not all being 100% local.

[Tacachale]

^This would assume we're excluding funds spent on road construction and associated maintenance of those facilities, based on the funding mechanisms not all being 100% local.

Yes, but if we're taking that into consideration, money people pay to the state or feds would never be tied only to one municipality, consolidation or no. In other words, you'd never be able to keep all tax money from Downtown or the Old City only in those areas; county, state, and federal taxes and fees were always spent outside it (and tax money from other areas was/is also spent back in Downtown and the Old City). It's an interesting thought experiment, but anything higher than the county level doesn't really say much about consolidation. Neighborhoods equivalent to Mandarin and Baymeadows were well established well before consolidation.

[thelakelander]

I guess it would depend on how one would look at the numbers but what we have right now is fiscally unsustainable. Comparing the amount of tax revenue produced in 30 square miles verses 717 square miles would be radically different from comparison based on similiar land area or by population/employment density.

As far as the story of consolidation goes, it's hard to figure out if we're better off one way or the other. Most of the country's cities were in pretty bad shape by the 60s and 70s. However, things go in cycles, so many have turned things around during the 90s and 00s. Many of the issues we face in certain areas today (and the amount of money spent dealing with them) may have been radically different if they were properly addressed 40 years ago. My guess, is Jax and Duval County would not be significantly different from what's taken place in Central and South Florida since the 1970s. We'd have a few more municipalities and the core would probably be better off. Yet, some areas outside of it may not have grown up to be what they are today.

[Tacachale]

I guess it would depend on how one would look at the numbers but what we have right now is fiscally unsustainable. Comparing the amount of tax revenue produced in 30 square miles verses 717 square miles would be radically different from comparison based on similiar land area or by population/employment density.

As far as the story of consolidation goes, it's hard to figure out if we're better off one way or the other. Most of the country's cities were in pretty bad shape by the 60s and 70s. However, things go in cycles, so many have turned things around during the 90s and 00s. Many of the issues we face in certain areas today (and the amount of money spent dealing with them) may have been radically different if they were properly addressed 40 years ago. My guess, is Jax and Duval County would not be significantly different from what's taken place in Central and South Florida since the 1970s. We'd have a few more municipalities and the core would probably be better off. Yet, some areas outside of it may not have grown up to be what they are today.

What I imagine is that Jacksonville would have successfully annexed a number of different areas in the older Southside and Westside, and the coveted Airport and Jaxport. Perhaps they could have persuaded Arlington which was seen as the "it" spot at the time and was where a lot of the residents and businesses were fleeing to. At any rate, that, plus jacking up the utility rates, should have helped mitigate the lost population and revenues that the city was facing.

We would have certainly seen a higher level of African-American participation in politics, as they'd have been a much higher percentage of the city. Even though the previous government was dysfunctional and tended toward corruption and old boy-ism (we had 2 mayors who served over 16 years), that's something that could have been improved without consolidation.

However, services would have been harder to distribute than they are now, particularly in the neediest areas, which are largely in the urban core. For one, crime would be harder to deal with in the urban core, as the money county folks paid for the Sheriff would not have had its full effect in the Urban Core, which had its own department. Additionally, Old City residents would have had to find a way to fund "city" infrastructure on their own, even though they still had to pay county taxes that would be mostly spent in the more populous burbs. Between those two things alone, I think people really underestimate it.

That said, I think (parts of) the urban core would be doing better, as it would be easier for everyone to see the true state of the city, as well as mechanisms to fix them that no longer exist. There would have been more long-term focus on the neighborhoods, as the city wouldn't be seen as so vast, and it seems likely that we would have started addressing a lot of our problems sooner. It's possible we'd have jumped on fixing public transit a lot sooner, but I think the we lag more due to the failure of the Skyway than our government structure.

Looking at the rest of Florida, not consolidating wouldn't have done anything to stop sprawl. As in places like Orlando and our own suburban counties, the County Commission would probably have become the predominate local government body, which wouldn't bode well the burbs. Transportation and traffic would likely be worse as it would be handled by multiple competing governments.

In the end, though, who knows. Struggling urban cores don't seem to be characteristic of consolidated city-counties, and God knows there are plenty of non-consolidated cities with struggling urban cores.

[I-10east]

No one still didn't really refute anything that I said.  Finehoe's Baltimore to the entire state of FL comparison was laughable; Comparing the Everglades, FL state roads etc to a faltering city that needs help from the feds LOL, nice try. Bottomline IF it comes down to it, the actual taxpayers will pick up any slack from the less fortunate areas in this city; However you wanna phrase it, shape it, or mold it. 

[thelakelander]

Bottomline IF it comes down to it, the actual taxpayers will pick up any slack from the less fortunate areas in this city; However you wanna phrase it, shape it, or mold it.

Yes. Just the "less fortunate" areas of the city may not be exactly what you imagine them to be.

[I-10east]

Yes. Just the "less fortunate" areas of the city may not be exactly what you imagine them to be.

Yeah, it isn't always about race (although on MJ it is...). It can be out Normandy Blvd in the Cecil Complex; An Equestrian Center that we rarely use.

[I-10east]

^^^Thanks, that means alot.