Amazon $5 bil co-HQ's in play

[CityLife]

Amazon said in their press release that they will likely move all the NYC jobs to DC and Nashville (where they had already planned a large expansion).

Will be a very interesting case study in 5-10 years.

[thelakelander]

Nice come up for Nashville!

[jaxlongtimer]

Nice come up for Nashville!

I don't think it is clear yet if/where Amazon is replacing the NYC hub jobs based on press coverage.  No doubt, they will have to find somewhere to put those jobs if they truly plan to fill them.  Looks like some runners up are already pitching for a second look including New Jersey and Chicago.

Per CNN:  "In its statement, Amazon said it has no plans to "reopen the HQ2 search at this time." Instead, it plans to move forward with its office expansions in Virginia as well as Nashville, where it is building a new hub expected to employ 5,000 people."

[thelakelander]

I guess I haven't been following this as much. I had no idea they were putting 5,000 employees in Downtown Nashville. That's like DT Jax landing five VyStars....

[jaxlongtimer]

I guess I haven't been following this as much. I had no idea they were putting 5,000 employees in Downtown Nashville. That's like DT Jax landing five VyStars....

Nashville seems to be doing a lot of things that Jacksonville is not and it seems to be paying off big time.  Another city poised to pass us by?  Joining Atlanta, Charlotte, Tampa, Orlando, Ft. Laurderdale, Miami, Austin... How many more before we figure out that other ingredients besides incentives and low taxes are needed to get us up to the level these cities are playing at?

[thelakelander]

It passed us about 15 years ago. I remember back in the Urban Planet forum days (2004ish), there used to be arguments between Jax, Louisville and Nashville forum members on which "ville" would take the next step first.

[jaxlongtimer]

Here is an interesting tidbit:

Below, from the almost 100 years ago 1920 census, are the Southern cities in the top 100 ranked by population.  Given this was before the advent of modern suburbs, it is probably safe to say these numbers also approximated well the metro area populations.

Jacksonville is the only Florida city on the list and no cities from North (Charlotte?) or South Carolina (Charleston?) made it.  Other than several Texas cities, Atlanta and Nashville, none are really "top tier" Southern cities today.  Amazing to see New Orleans and Louisville at the top of the list by quite a bit in 1920.

By the way, Florida had a total of 968,470 persons as the 32nd most populous state.  Our estimated 2018 census is 21,300,000.  If Jax grew proportionally to Florida, we would have about 2,014,000 in the metro area, nearly double what we actually have today.

New Orleans: 387,219
Louisville: 234,891
Atlanta: 200,616
Birmingham: 178,806
Richmond: 171,667
Memphis: 162,351
San Antonio: 161,379
Dallas: 158,976
Houston: 138,276
Nashville: 118,342
Norfolk: 115,777
Ft. Worth: 106,482
Jacksonville: 91,558 (equal to Waterbury, CT, Oklahoma City, OK & Flint, MI)
Savannah: 83,252
Knoxville: 77,818
El Paso: 77,560

[thelakelander]

^I've been using this link to 1790 - 1990 historical US city census population and density rankings since the beginning of the forum:

https://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/twps0027.html

It's a great resource for understanding the historical development patterns of cities and determining which ones have larger pre-WWII walkable urban cores than others. New Orleans, Savannah, Charleston, etc. were early coastal port cities. Louisville and Memphis are all cities that boomed during the steamboat era. Atlanta, Birmingham, etc. came to life with railroad expansion. During the civil rights era, Atlanta capitalized as being seen as progressive while Birmingham came off as racist and the rest is history between those two. The Texas cities have continued to boom as epicenters of the oil industry (Houston basically took New Orleans' place). Florida was a latecomer, so although Jax was Florida's first major city, in comparison to the rest of the US, it was still smaller than Wilmington, DE, Spokane, Tacoma, Erie and Flint in 1920 and by 1940 had been caught by Miami. So whenever, we compare ourselves to other regions, the scale of their DTs, urban areas, densities, etc., it's always good to have a general background perspective of historical scale because most of this country's post WW2 growth has been autocentric. That's the reason why Jax still has a more walkable historical urban core than Orlando, despite Orlando's metropolitan area being twice as large now.

[thelakelander]

^This is what makes what the Nashville, Charlottes and Austins of the south have done in the last 30 years really impressive. Jax caught and surpassed Nashville by 1940 and was larger and denser in 1960. Both consolidated that decade but Nashville has really elevated itself since the 1990s.

1940:
Jacksonville - 173,065 (30.2 square miles)
Nashville - 167,402 (22.0 square miles)

1960:
Jacksonville - 201,030 (30.2 square miles)
Nashville - 170,874 (29 square miles)

It will be really interesting to see what the urban area population numbers are in the 2020 census. In 2010, we were still larger:

2010 Urban Area Population:
Jacksonville - 1,065,219
Nashville - 969,587

When it comes to DT development, Nashville has certainly clustered much of its investments within a pedestrian scale environment, allowing additional synergies to build off those investments. That type of scene eventually leads to economic coups like an Amazon coming in and bringing 5,000 jobs. On the other hand, spreading your investments out and relying on expensive gimmick one-trick pony projects leads to 2019 Jax where we're still talking about revitalizing DT after decades and billions already spent.

[CityLife]

Yeah, Nashville surpassed and has since lapped Jax. Was there over the holidays after not visiting for a long time and it's incredible how much the City has grown. The Gulch area is impressive and there is a lot more stuff around there coming soon. My BIL works in RE development up there and shared some upcoming projects that Jax would drool over.

[vicupstate]

Both consolidated that decade but Nashville has really elevated itself since the 1990s.

But how can that be !!! Everyone knows Consolidation destroyed all the ability or political will to ever do anything with the original part of JAX.     

[thelakelander]

Nashville also has 35 council members for those who think Jax's 19 is too much:

[ProjectMaximus]

Yeah, Nashville surpassed and has since lapped Jax. Was there over the holidays after not visiting for a long time and it's incredible how much the City has grown. The Gulch area is impressive and there is a lot more stuff around there coming soon. My BIL works in RE development up there and shared some upcoming projects that Jax would drool over.

Yeah, Nashville has lapped us no doubt. Their one glaring weakness is transit, which shows no signs of being properly addressed.

[CityLife]

Good point on Consolidation succeeding there, but I'm not sure it's apples to apples. Other than maybe Franklin (which imo is overrated), there is not much around Nashville to draw population and power base to.  Jax has St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra Beach, and the Beaches.

[vicupstate]

Good point on Consolidation succeeding there, but I'm not sure it's apples to apples. Other than maybe Franklin (which imo is overrated), there is not much around Nashville to draw population and power base to.  Jax has St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra Beach, and the Beaches.

The complaint with Consolidation isn't that St. Johns County or anywhere else takes all the power base, but that people INSIDE the consolidated city (but not in the core) will not support a strong urban core nor understand the importance of one.