Greenville SC Developments

[Steve]

So if it isn't consolidation, what keeps Jax from having the necessary effective civic leadership to pull of what Greenville has?

I don't know that much about Greenville but I'd wager to say that the lack of follow through between administrations and weak leadership is the main thing that's holding (downtown) Jax back. Term limits, structural problems in the government, and party politics play into that.

And you don't see those problems as a direct result of Consolidation?

Charlotte and Greenville both have City Managers.

We have that role-it's called CAO. Lex Hester had that role for a million years before he passed away in the role. Sam Mousa took over for him (Mousa was his deputy if I remember right). Aside from Peyton pushing the guy out and Brown's just....weird....org), We've kept it.

Now, Curry appointed Brian Hughes into the role which is totally political.

Here's the difference-it isn't the role, it's the use of the role and the fact that Curry politicized a role that shouldn't be political. Not a fault of the structure.

[thelakelander]

I don't see how consolidation can be blamed for DT Jax's woes. If so, the majority of consolidated cities across the country should be suffering from similar issues with their CBDs. However, that's clearly not the case in this country. For every Jax, I can show you a Nashville or Philly. On the other hand, for every Greenville, I can show you a Macon or Youngstown.

[Kerry]

So if it isn't consolidation, what keeps Jax from having the necessary effective civic leadership to pull of what Greenville has?

I don't know that much about Greenville but I'd wager to say that the lack of follow through between administrations and weak leadership is the main thing that's holding (downtown) Jax back. Term limits, structural problems in the government, and party politics play into that.

And you don't see those problems as a direct result of Consolidation?

Charlotte and Greenville both have City Managers.

We have that role-it's called CAO. Lex Hester had that role for a million years before he passed away in the role. Sam Mousa took over for him (Mousa was his deputy if I remember right). Aside from Peyton pushing the guy out and Brown's just....weird....org), We've kept it.

Now, Curry appointed Brian Hughes into the role which is totally political.

Here's the difference-it isn't the role, it's the use of the role and the fact that Curry politicized a role that shouldn't be political. Not a fault of the structure.

You realize in a City Manager type government all those mayors couldn't have done that right?  It would have taken a majority of the City Council to remove the City Manager.  They Mayor would just be one vote.

[Tacachale]

So if it isn't consolidation, what keeps Jax from having the necessary effective civic leadership to pull of what Greenville has?

I don't know that much about Greenville but I'd wager to say that the lack of follow through between administrations and weak leadership is the main thing that's holding (downtown) Jax back. Term limits, structural problems in the government, and party politics play into that.

And you don't see those problems as a direct result of Consolidation?

Charlotte and Greenville both have City Managers.

We have that role-it's called CAO. Lex Hester had that role for a million years before he passed away in the role. Sam Mousa took over for him (Mousa was his deputy if I remember right). Aside from Peyton pushing the guy out and Brown's just....weird....org), We've kept it.

Now, Curry appointed Brian Hughes into the role which is totally political.

Here's the difference-it isn't the role, it's the use of the role and the fact that Curry politicized a role that shouldn't be political. Not a fault of the structure.

You realize in a City Manager type government all those mayors couldn't have done that right?  It would have taken a majority of the City Council to remove the City Manager.  They Mayor would just be one vote.

Depends on the city. In Miami, for instance, the city manager is appointed by the mayor and is effectively the same as Jax's CAO. There are also qualifications on Jax's CAO position. Those may be bypassed but there would be ways to do that if the council was appointing the manager. This also has nothing to do with consolidation.

[Tacachale]

So if it isn't consolidation, what keeps Jax from having the necessary effective civic leadership to pull of what Greenville has?

I don't know that much about Greenville but I'd wager to say that the lack of follow through between administrations and weak leadership is the main thing that's holding (downtown) Jax back. Term limits, structural problems in the government, and party politics play into that.

And you don't see those problems as a direct result of Consolidation?

Charlotte and Greenville both have City Managers.

None of those problems are due to consolidation. Term limits were imposed because people were sick of corruption in the Burns era before the city was consolidated. Party politics and structural issues also long predated consolidation. There are plenty of cities with strong mayor governments with vibrant downtowns. Nashville, Indianapolis and New York all have strong mayor governments as well as consolidation

[jaxlongtimer]

I will suggest 4 significant things that have held Jax back over the decades...

(1) As the saying goes, "follow the money..." Jax leaders regularly act beholden to big money donors (taken to unprecedented levels by the Curry administration) whose interests generally prioritize what lines their pockets over all else.  Any alignment with the interests of the overall population is mostly coincidental or a mere token/bone thrown to the community.

This starts with the developers/builders/contractors/associated professions (e.g. engineers, consultants, architects, real estate attorneys, professional services, etc.) in this city.  If you look at campaign donor lists, by both numbers and dollars, they dominate.  This gives us "low taxes" to encourage growth on the cheap, urban sprawl, road building over mass transit, expedited building (feeds into demolitions over historic preservation and re-purposing), lousy zoning and land use decisions, destruction of green spaces and our unique environment and so much more while all the while draining resources from "quality of life" investments such as social services, education, public safety, parks and recreation, mass transit, upkeep of existing infrastructure and other concerns of the general citizenry.

(2) Layer on top of this the generally much more-conservative-than-average populace, often propelled by likewise conservative religious and political beliefs, and you get leadership that shies away from most things progressive or disruptive to the status quo.  This heritage has been ingrained at least back to the early 1900's when Jax leaders ran off the "scandalous" movie industry and lives on, to some degree, to this day as witnessed in the fight over a relatively toothless human rights ordinance.  (Another small example from over the years:  In the early 1980's, Jax leaders wanted to remove from the Times Union Center [then, the Civic Auditorium] marquee the word "whorehouse" in the hit Broadway show "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," finding it too offensive.  Only the threat of litigation forced them to back down.)

(3) Next, Jax leadership has fed off of, and maybe contributed to, a spirit of civic inferiority in showing a lack of confidence in, and putting at the forefront, the natural and man-made attributes of our City.  This has led to leadership chasing the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that mostly turns out to be one illusion after another.  This sucks resources, attention and energy from the pursuit of much more realistic projects that could cumulatively do much more to advance our City.  Failed, or yet to be proven, mega-project "saviors" of the City have included Offshore Power Systems, the Skyway, the Shipyards, Lot J, the Osborn Convention Center, La Villa redevelopment, the current county courthouse, Better Jacksonville/River City Renaissance Plans, the Jacksonville Landing, getting an NFL team, getting the return of nuclear aircraft carriers to Mayport, saving the Florida-Georgia game, recruiting to the extreme some "game-changing" company to the City, opening up new areas for development (e.g. the northside by building the Dames Point Bridge), building JIA and now dredging the port, etc.  While all of these, to varying degrees, may have had some positive effects, none of them have delivered in propelling us beyond, putting Jacksonville on par, or even preventing us from falling further behind, the likes of Charlotte, Nashville, Orlando, Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale or, possibly, some other up and coming communities such as Greenville, Savannah, Charleston, Columbia, West Palm Beach, Raleigh/Durham, Asheville, etc.

(4) Finally, Jax leadership has failed to consistently and properly support, invest and prioritize educational opportunities from K to college.  We had the unprecedented dis-accreditation of our entire school system in 1964.  We were the last major city in Florida to get a 4 year public university and didn't have a community college until 1968.  We still lack significant and heavy duty graduate schools in many major professions.  And, today, we continue to under-invest with the refusal to even put a referendum on the ballot supporting enhancing our schools.  Aside from making us less attractive to national corporate and individual prospects, we are driving our locals into the surrounding counties debasing our own.

All of the above is not to take away from the occasional Jacksonville success stories or sporadic well-meaning efforts of some over the years or currently, but it does summarize the prevailing winds over Jacksonville for most of the last many decades that have held us back.

This City has amazing natural assets (the beach, river, intracoastal waterway, climate, location, landscape, wildlife, etc.), good and talented people, a diversified economy, a decent quality of life and a favorable cost of living.  When one checks off these boxes, only a lack of great leadership could screw things up.  Case closed  .

[vicupstate]

^^^  Very well said Jaxlongtimer. Can't disagree with a word of it. 

I am in agreement with Tacachale with one small exception. Corruption and cronyism existed in spades before consolidation but it was a one party city at the time, so you can't say Party politics were the issue. 

The City Manager is a administrator that takes and implements the orders of the elected leadership. The vision comes from the from the mayor and council, the city manager makes sure the trains run on time. While Greenville has had the same mayor for 24 years there have been at least four or more city managers in that time, not including the interim ones during the transitions.  Some left by force and some by choice.   

[Kerry]

JaxLongTimer - I agree with your list, but it is my opinion that those issue are enabled by consolidation.  What if instead of consolidation, Duval County had 20 individual municipalities?  Khan would have a very hard time convincing the City of Mandarin to fund Lot J in Jacksonville.

[Peter Griffin]

JaxLongTimer - I agree with your list, but it is my opinion that those issue are enabled by consolidation.  What if instead of consolidation, Duval County had 20 individual municipalities?  Khan would have a very hard time convincing the City of Mandarin to fund Lot J in Jacksonville.

Yes, the city is less incentivised to consolidate its efforts to a strong urban core due to the consolidation of the city.

What do you propose, we deconsolidate the county/city? Great, then we have NO money from the developments sprawling around Jax (a problem not at all unique to Jax) and then the City of St Johns Town Center Inc. winds up with hella cash, and the majority of the community loses out on the sprawl dollars.

[Steve]

What if instead of consolidation, Duval County had 20 individual municipalities?  Khan would have a very hard time convincing the City of Mandarin to fund Lot J in Jacksonville.

Atlanta is doing it's best to do this now with cities like Sandy Springs, Brookhaven, etc. Not exactly the same because Atlanta is not consolidated and already has the political challenges of being a city that has to deal with two county governments.

Personally, I think consolidation is a good thing. But, I could listen to an argument about urban development suffering because of it.

Example Argument: Economic Development agency is selling Jacksonville to a company. Pre-Consolidation they'd take them everywhere in the City Limits to relocate, Post-Consolidation they take them everywhere in the county to relocate.

Counter Argument: Sometimes companies relocate to metro areas and don't relocate inside the city limits. An example of this is UPS, who moved in the early 1990's to Metro Atlanta and while they have an Atlanta Mailing Address for their HQ, the location is not in the Atlanta city limits (and is one of the most heinous-looking HQ buildings of any major company).

Counter Argument #2: Consolidation can help the city in cases where much of the money is outside of the city limits. For example, in the 1960's while most people worked in the city, most of the "money"/"power" did not live in the city.

The Point: We can use consolidation as an excuse but it's just that - an excuse. I truly believe that Downtown can be successful with consolidation and our current government structure.

[Kerry]

What if instead of consolidation, Duval County had 20 individual municipalities?  Khan would have a very hard time convincing the City of Mandarin to fund Lot J in Jacksonville.

Atlanta is doing it's best to do this now with cities like Sandy Springs, Brookhaven, etc. Not exactly the same because Atlanta is not consolidated and already has the political challenges of being a city that has to deal with two county governments.

Personally, I think consolidation is a good thing. But, I could listen to an argument about urban development suffering because of it.

Example Argument: Economic Development agency is selling Jacksonville to a company. Pre-Consolidation they'd take them everywhere in the City Limits to relocate, Post-Consolidation they take them everywhere in the county to relocate.

Counter Argument: Sometimes companies relocate to metro areas and don't relocate inside the city limits. An example of this is UPS, who moved in the early 1990's to Metro Atlanta and while they have an Atlanta Mailing Address for their HQ, the location is not in the Atlanta city limits (and is one of the most heinous-looking HQ buildings of any major company).

Counter Argument #2: Consolidation can help the city in cases where much of the money is outside of the city limits. For example, in the 1960's while most people worked in the city, most of the "money"/"power" did not live in the city.

The Point: We can use consolidation as an excuse but it's just that - an excuse. I truly believe that Downtown can be successful with consolidation and our current government structure.

The dilemma you described is solved through tax revenue sharing.  Several major cities do this and it prevents companies (usually retailers) from pitting suburbs against each other.  For sake of argument lets say there are 20 municipalities in Jax and Big Boy Retailer is looking for a Jax location.  They would go to each municipality and negotiate the best incentive package they could.  With a sales tax sharing agreements the local municipalities would have no incentive to bid against each other (aka - a race to the bottom).  Big Boy Retailer could locate in the City of Mandarin, the City of St Johns Town Center, the City of Durkeeville or the City of Jacksonville - it wouldn't matter to any of them from a tax revenue standpoint.

Where it would matter is quality of life.  Individual towns would compete with each at the local level to increase their quality of life.  They would all want their own business districts, unique attractions, quality parks, etc...  In fact, watching the New4Jax stories regarding Consolidation the parks were a major issue with many parts of town feeling like they got short changes - which they did.  Meanwhile, some parts of Jax seem to have benefited maybe more than they should have.

[Tacachale]

I will suggest 4 significant things that have held Jax back over the decades...

This is well stated, but I'm going to push back on a few of these things.

(1) As the saying goes, "follow the money..." Jax leaders regularly act beholden to big money donors (taken to unprecedented levels by the Curry administration) whose interests generally prioritize what lines their pockets over all else.  Any alignment with the interests of the overall population is mostly coincidental or a mere token/bone thrown to the community.

This starts with the developers/builders/contractors/associated professions (e.g. engineers, consultants, architects, real estate attorneys, professional services, etc.) in this city.  If you look at campaign donor lists, by both numbers and dollars, they dominate.  This gives us "low taxes" to encourage growth on the cheap, urban sprawl, road building over mass transit, expedited building (feeds into demolitions over historic preservation and re-purposing), lousy zoning and land use decisions, destruction of green spaces and our unique environment and so much more while all the while draining resources from "quality of life" investments such as social services, education, public safety, parks and recreation, mass transit, upkeep of existing infrastructure and other concerns of the general citizenry.

It's true that the donor class has a lot of influence, but I can't imagine this is a problem unique to Jax. The low tax economy and sprawl-driven development certainly aren't unique to Jax, as it's the status quo for all of Florida. It's also one of the main drivers of growth, for better or worse. That said, Jacksonville is more averse to raising taxes to get our heads above water than Florida's other big cities, and our developers largely haven't focused on urban development without incentives. But it's worth pointing out that last time taxes were raised, the donor class supported it and it was the mayor, who had fallen out of favor with them, who fought it.

(2) Layer on top of this the generally much more-conservative-than-average populace, often propelled by likewise conservative religious and political beliefs, and you get leadership that shies away from most things progressive or disruptive to the status quo.  This heritage has been ingrained at least back to the early 1900's when Jax leaders ran off the "scandalous" movie industry and lives on, to some degree, to this day as witnessed in the fight over a relatively toothless human rights ordinance.  (Another small example from over the years:  In the early 1980's, Jax leaders wanted to remove from the Times Union Center [then, the Civic Auditorium] marquee the word "whorehouse" in the hit Broadway show "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," finding it too offensive.  Only the threat of litigation forced them to back down.)

This is a stereotype that was likely more true in the past than it is now, or will be in the future. The demographics and political leanings of the population are shifting as large chunks of the older, white populace move to the surrounding counties and Duval gains and retains more ethnic minorities and young people.

Jax has had different "factions" for as long as the city has been here. There's a highly conservative "faction", but the business community is much more moderate and has been for decades. There's also the African-American community which makes up a third of the city. Overall the city has been far more purple than it's given credit for years now.

(3) Next, Jax leadership has fed off of, and maybe contributed to, a spirit of civic inferiority in showing a lack of confidence in, and putting at the forefront, the natural and man-made attributes of our City.  This has led to leadership chasing the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that mostly turns out to be one illusion after another.  This sucks resources, attention and energy from the pursuit of much more realistic projects that could cumulatively do much more to advance our City.  Failed, or yet to be proven, mega-project "saviors" of the City have included Offshore Power Systems, the Skyway, the Shipyards, Lot J, the Osborn Convention Center, La Villa redevelopment, the current county courthouse, Better Jacksonville/River City Renaissance Plans, the Jacksonville Landing, getting an NFL team, getting the return of nuclear aircraft carriers to Mayport, saving the Florida-Georgia game, recruiting to the extreme some "game-changing" company to the City, opening up new areas for development (e.g. the northside by building the Dames Point Bridge), building JIA and now dredging the port, etc.  While all of these, to varying degrees, may have had some positive effects, none of them have delivered in propelling us beyond, putting Jacksonville on par, or even preventing us from falling further behind, the likes of Charlotte, Nashville, Orlando, Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale or, possibly, some other up and coming communities such as Greenville, Savannah, Charleston, Columbia, West Palm Beach, Raleigh/Durham, Asheville, etc.

I don't think this all follows. It's also not true that the city is doing as poorly as is sometimes presented by critics. The city and metro area have experienced consistent growth for, well, ever, and there are a lot of successes all over town. Downtown still struggles but it's not like the city overall is stagnant or moving backward in any real sense.

As you say, however, we put a lot of stake in one-trick ponies promised to take us to the "next level". But not everything you list is an example of that - some were never promised to be "saviors" and others really were "game changing". What we do have is a lack of consistency and followthrough after we have a successful project or plan. That's certainly the biggest reason Downtown struggles.

(4) Finally, Jax leadership has failed to consistently and properly support, invest and prioritize educational opportunities from K to college.  We had the unprecedented dis-accreditation of our entire school system in 1964.  We were the last major city in Florida to get a 4 year public university and didn't have a community college until 1968.  We still lack significant and heavy duty graduate schools in many major professions.  And, today, we continue to under-invest with the refusal to even put a referendum on the ballot supporting enhancing our schools.  Aside from making us less attractive to national corporate and individual prospects, we are driving our locals into the surrounding counties debasing our own.

This is patently true. Though most urban school districts in Florida (and elsewhere) underperform the suburban counties. This is also a major driver of Jacksonville's demographic changes.

All of the above is not to take away from the occasional Jacksonville success stories or sporadic well-meaning efforts of some over the years or currently, but it does summarize the prevailing winds over Jacksonville for most of the last many decades that have held us back.

This City has amazing natural assets (the beach, river, intracoastal waterway, climate, location, landscape, wildlife, etc.), good and talented people, a diversified economy, a decent quality of life and a favorable cost of living.  When one checks off these boxes, only a lack of great leadership could screw things up.  Case closed  .

Again, I wouldn't say we've been "held back". We're a much more vibrant, diverse and happening city than we were when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s. What I would say is that this has often had to happen in spite of what the city government is doing, and the lack of consistency and good leadership has kept Downtown in the doldrums and prevented us from reaching the potential we might otherwise have reached.

[Tacachale]

What if instead of consolidation, Duval County had 20 individual municipalities?  Khan would have a very hard time convincing the City of Mandarin to fund Lot J in Jacksonville.

Atlanta is doing it's best to do this now with cities like Sandy Springs, Brookhaven, etc. Not exactly the same because Atlanta is not consolidated and already has the political challenges of being a city that has to deal with two county governments.

Personally, I think consolidation is a good thing. But, I could listen to an argument about urban development suffering because of it.

Example Argument: Economic Development agency is selling Jacksonville to a company. Pre-Consolidation they'd take them everywhere in the City Limits to relocate, Post-Consolidation they take them everywhere in the county to relocate.

Counter Argument: Sometimes companies relocate to metro areas and don't relocate inside the city limits. An example of this is UPS, who moved in the early 1990's to Metro Atlanta and while they have an Atlanta Mailing Address for their HQ, the location is not in the Atlanta city limits (and is one of the most heinous-looking HQ buildings of any major company).

Counter Argument #2: Consolidation can help the city in cases where much of the money is outside of the city limits. For example, in the 1960's while most people worked in the city, most of the "money"/"power" did not live in the city.

The Point: We can use consolidation as an excuse but it's just that - an excuse. I truly believe that Downtown can be successful with consolidation and our current government structure.

Perhaps the biggest weaknesses of Consolidation are diluting the identity of the Urban Core. It's made it difficult to tell how much population the "old city" continued to lose, and made it much harder to implement projects that benefit the Urban Core as a unit. That plays some role in making progress slow in Downtown, but as has been pointed out repeatedly there are many consolidated cities with thriving downtowns, and non-consolidated cities with struggling downtowns.

[Steve]

What if instead of consolidation, Duval County had 20 individual municipalities?  Khan would have a very hard time convincing the City of Mandarin to fund Lot J in Jacksonville.

Atlanta is doing it's best to do this now with cities like Sandy Springs, Brookhaven, etc. Not exactly the same because Atlanta is not consolidated and already has the political challenges of being a city that has to deal with two county governments.

Personally, I think consolidation is a good thing. But, I could listen to an argument about urban development suffering because of it.

Example Argument: Economic Development agency is selling Jacksonville to a company. Pre-Consolidation they'd take them everywhere in the City Limits to relocate, Post-Consolidation they take them everywhere in the county to relocate.

Counter Argument: Sometimes companies relocate to metro areas and don't relocate inside the city limits. An example of this is UPS, who moved in the early 1990's to Metro Atlanta and while they have an Atlanta Mailing Address for their HQ, the location is not in the Atlanta city limits (and is one of the most heinous-looking HQ buildings of any major company).

Counter Argument #2: Consolidation can help the city in cases where much of the money is outside of the city limits. For example, in the 1960's while most people worked in the city, most of the "money"/"power" did not live in the city.

The Point: We can use consolidation as an excuse but it's just that - an excuse. I truly believe that Downtown can be successful with consolidation and our current government structure.

The dilemma you described is solved through tax revenue sharing.  Several major cities do this and it prevents companies (usually retailers) from pitting suburbs against each other.  For sake of argument lets say there are 20 municipalities in Jax and Big Boy Retailer is looking for a Jax location.  They would go to each municipality and negotiate the best incentive package they could.  With a sales tax sharing agreements the local municipalities would have no incentive to bid against each other (aka - a race to the bottom).  Big Boy Retailer could locate in the City of Mandarin, the City of St Johns Town Center, the City of Durkeeville or the City of Jacksonville - it wouldn't matter to any of them from a tax revenue standpoint.

Where it would matter is quality of life.  Individual towns would compete with each at the local level to increase their quality of life.  They would all want their own business districts, unique attractions, quality parks, etc...  In fact, watching the New4Jax stories regarding Consolidation the parks were a major issue with many parts of town feeling like they got short changes - which they did.  Meanwhile, some parts of Jax seem to have benefited maybe more than they should have.

I realize that the issue is solvable. That was really my point: "I truly believe that Downtown can be successful with consolidation and our current government structure."

[jaxlongtimer]

I will suggest 4 significant things that have held Jax back over the decades...

This is well stated, but I'm going to push back on a few of these things.

(1) As the saying goes, "follow the money..." Jax leaders regularly act beholden to big money donors (taken to unprecedented levels by the Curry administration) whose interests generally prioritize what lines their pockets over all else.  Any alignment with the interests of the overall population is mostly coincidental or a mere token/bone thrown to the community.

This starts with the developers/builders/contractors/associated professions (e.g. engineers, consultants, architects, real estate attorneys, professional services, etc.) in this city.  If you look at campaign donor lists, by both numbers and dollars, they dominate.  This gives us "low taxes" to encourage growth on the cheap, urban sprawl, road building over mass transit, expedited building (feeds into demolitions over historic preservation and re-purposing), lousy zoning and land use decisions, destruction of green spaces and our unique environment and so much more while all the while draining resources from "quality of life" investments such as social services, education, public safety, parks and recreation, mass transit, upkeep of existing infrastructure and other concerns of the general citizenry.

It's true that the donor class has a lot of influence, but I can't imagine this is a problem unique to Jax. The low tax economy and sprawl-driven development certainly aren't unique to Jax, as it's the status quo for all of Florida. It's also one of the main drivers of growth, for better or worse. That said, Jacksonville is more averse to raising taxes to get our heads above water than Florida's other big cities, and our developers largely haven't focused on urban development without incentives. But it's worth pointing out that last time taxes were raised, the donor class supported it and it was the mayor, who had fallen out of favor with them, who fought it.

Tacachale, appreciate your measured response.  I will respond accordingly  .

It's not about the donor class being unique to Jax.  It's about the compounding of decades of undue influence, the degree of influence and the consequences of same. 

If the donor class supported raising taxes, we would not have had recent mayors refusing to do so, Curry being the most steadfast of all of them (i.e. the trend has been worsening).  There were actually years when taxes were cut.  Where was the donor class you speak of then?  Do you see the Civic Council publicly pushing Curry to raise taxes as our City's infrastructure is literally crumbling (e.g. poorly maintained parks, road potholes proliferating, resiliency and drainage projects sidelined) right before our eyes?  Did the donor class push Curry to approve the School Board referendum or push for a small increase in today's real estate taxes to avoid kicking the pension can down the road at a multi-billion cost?  The silence of the donor class translates into support for keeping taxes low in my book.

Regarding developers, don't forget to include Khan and Rummell among them given their current projects.  You can bet Curry jumps when they tell him too.  One already got a bucket load of concessions and the other is about to get over $230 million more.  Imagine what those dollars could do if spread across all the needs of the greater citizenry (e.g northwest quadrant).  And, while developers have sway in other communities, I haven't found many communities that lay down as much as Jax does for their road building, wetlands and tree removal, destruction of historic buildings/neighborhoods and zoning requests.  Jax's foot-dragging on dealing with rising seas is another example of protecting developers by not hindering their development in vulnerable areas and/or making them incur even mildly higher costs for built-in resiliency.

(2) Layer on top of this the generally much more-conservative-than-average populace, often propelled by likewise conservative religious and political beliefs, and you get leadership that shies away from most things progressive or disruptive to the status quo.  This heritage has been ingrained at least back to the early 1900's when Jax leaders ran off the "scandalous" movie industry and lives on, to some degree, to this day as witnessed in the fight over a relatively toothless human rights ordinance.  (Another small example from over the years:  In the early 1980's, Jax leaders wanted to remove from the Times Union Center [then, the Civic Auditorium] marquee the word "whorehouse" in the hit Broadway show "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," finding it too offensive.  Only the threat of litigation forced them to back down.)

This is a stereotype that was likely more true in the past than it is now, or will be in the future. The demographics and political leanings of the population are shifting as large chunks of the older, white populace move to the surrounding counties and Duval gains and retains more ethnic minorities and young people.

Jax has had different "factions" for as long as the city has been here. There's a highly conservative "faction", but the business community is much more moderate and has been for decades. There's also the African-American community which makes up a third of the city. Overall the city has been far more purple than it's given credit for years now.

While I agree that the long term trend in Duval may be toward moderation, we are talking here only about the past leading up to the present (i.e how we got to where we are - or are not - today).  And, our past has definitely skewed conservative, including much of the business community.  There are also substantial elements of the African American community that skew conservative on certain social issues that touch on their religious values.  If the City was currently as moderate as you would suggest, we would not have seen such a knockdown drag out fight over the HRO or the City still voting overwhelmingly for conservative "red" candidates at the local level who regularly champion conservative issues.

I would also add that much of the donor class for Duval elections actually resides in those very red surrounding counties of St. Johns, Clay, Nassau and Baker.  Most who live in those counties make their living in Duval and are at the ready to assert their values on it.  Their interest can also be attributed to "investing" in Duval officials that may ultimately become State or Federal ones and/or surrounding interests wanting to load State and Federal legislative bodies with wide-area representatives aligned with their interests.

(3) Next, Jax leadership has fed off of, and maybe contributed to, a spirit of civic inferiority in showing a lack of confidence in, and putting at the forefront, the natural and man-made attributes of our City.  This has led to leadership chasing the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that mostly turns out to be one illusion after another.  This sucks resources, attention and energy from the pursuit of much more realistic projects that could cumulatively do much more to advance our City.  Failed, or yet to be proven, mega-project "saviors" of the City have included Offshore Power Systems, the Skyway, the Shipyards, Lot J, the Osborn Convention Center, La Villa redevelopment, the current county courthouse, Better Jacksonville/River City Renaissance Plans, the Jacksonville Landing, getting an NFL team, getting the return of nuclear aircraft carriers to Mayport, saving the Florida-Georgia game, recruiting to the extreme some "game-changing" company to the City, opening up new areas for development (e.g. the northside by building the Dames Point Bridge), building JIA and now dredging the port, etc.  While all of these, to varying degrees, may have had some positive effects, none of them have delivered in propelling us beyond, putting Jacksonville on par, or even preventing us from falling further behind, the likes of Charlotte, Nashville, Orlando, Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale or, possibly, some other up and coming communities such as Greenville, Savannah, Charleston, Columbia, West Palm Beach, Raleigh/Durham, Asheville, etc.

I don't think this all follows. It's also not true that the city is doing as poorly as is sometimes presented by critics. The city and metro area have experienced consistent growth for, well, ever, and there are a lot of successes all over town. Downtown still struggles but it's not like the city overall is stagnant or moving backward in any real sense.

As you say, however, we put a lot of stake in one-trick ponies promised to take us to the "next level". But not everything you list is an example of that - some were never promised to be "saviors" and others really were "game changing". What we do have is a lack of consistency and follow-through after we have a successful project or plan. That's certainly the biggest reason Downtown struggles.

I am not saying the City is going backwards or doing "poorly."  I am saying the City is falling behind like-cities that we traditionally consider our peers.  Our country's population has more than doubled over the last 60 to 70 years so every place is almost assured of some level of growth without doing much of anything.  The question isn't just about growth, but "smart" growth and quality of life.  Do we benchmark ourselves against the best or settle for falling to a lower tier due to mismanagement?

If you ask me, the biggest game changer in modern times was probably getting Mayo Clinic and that was almost entirely due to the actions of the Davis family, not some grand plan of leadership.  Mayo literally gave us a "world class" imprint that has rarely been achieved here.  The next closest such game changer in my book has been the Fidelity National move to Jax and the three current local Fortune 500 companies it has led too.  The catalyst for this move was an acquisition of a local company.  It's also interesting that, like Mayo, all of the Fidelity companies are mostly run by transplants, not homegrown managers.  Along with these companies, one home grown player that I believe has been a game changer in modern times is Florida Blue.  The have become a well run, leading edge player in their industry and a progressive contributor to the Jax community.  None of these "game changers" involved a city-wide cheerleading campaign to get them off the ground but were more organic in nature.

By the way, coincidentally, Nate Monroe just posted this column reviewing Jax's chase of Offshore Power Systems showing little has changed with "savior" projects:

Power, money and influence have more than once nearly plunged JEA and the city of Jacksonville into crisis over hare-brained ideas.

COMMENTARY | The proposal was staggering: A powerhouse corporate partnership would pump $250 million into a big-ticket project in Jacksonville, where it would employ as many as 10,000 people — 90 percent of whom, the companies claimed, would be local. The economic impact would be a transformative $1.5 billion, touching the lives of not only the well-coiffed business class but also the working poor, who would receive specialized job training if they needed it to fill the glut of openings that were surely to come.

It was 1971, and Jacksonville was fresh off a civic triumph it would tout for decades to come: The city-county consolidation voters approved a few years earlier had in one fell swoop created the largest city by landmass in the continental United States, and one of the most populous. The business leaders who helped make this happen were ready to showcase this rejuvenated River City on a national stage — and to make money. This project, they believed, would accomplish both.

Those business leaders were wrong.

What that 1971 proposal would turn out to be instead was a phenomenal debacle and an embarrassment — a hare-brained idea to construct two nuclear power plants and float them in the middle of the St. Johns River near Blount Island, then to sell both plants to JEA, the city-owned electric authority, for $2.2 billion ($13.9 billion in today's dollars). It wasn't the city's first high-profile success. It would be its first major failure — etching the contours of what would become the all-too-familiar Jacksonville story arc...

...Much about the way Jacksonville operated in the 1970s is recognizable today: "The entire political establishment in Jacksonville consists of a small group of businessmen who have grown rich together since World War II," Rolling Stone writer Joe Klein wrote of the city in a 1976 story on the nuclear debacle.

https://www.jacksonville.com/news/20191023/nate-monroe-hucksters-came-after-jea---and-city---once-before-their-last-great-idea-was-floating-nuclear-power-plants

(4) Finally, Jax leadership has failed to consistently and properly support, invest and prioritize educational opportunities from K to college.  We had the unprecedented dis-accreditation of our entire school system in 1964.  We were the last major city in Florida to get a 4 year public university and didn't have a community college until 1968.  We still lack significant and heavy duty graduate schools in many major professions.  And, today, we continue to under-invest with the refusal to even put a referendum on the ballot supporting enhancing our schools.  Aside from making us less attractive to national corporate and individual prospects, we are driving our locals into the surrounding counties debasing our own.

This is patently true. Though most urban school districts in Florida (and elsewhere) under-perform the suburban counties. This is also a major driver of Jacksonville's demographic changes.

I was not focused on under performance but rather under investment and lack of attention and prioritization so demographics are not really relevant to my point.  For what its worth, again, we are looking at the past, not the future, and in the past, most of our suburbs were in Duval County so the comparison to surrounding counties means little. 

In case you are wondering, one reason often given for us being late to the party of state institutions of higher learning (i.e. getting FSCJ and UNF), was that civic leaders believed having those institutions in Jax would harm the interests of JU.  That's clearly not the case today, but it is an example of our historical failure to realize the value of public education that has rippled to the present.

All of the above is not to take away from the occasional Jacksonville success stories or sporadic well-meaning efforts of some over the years or currently, but it does summarize the prevailing winds over Jacksonville for most of the last many decades that have held us back.

This City has amazing natural assets (the beach, river, intracoastal waterway, climate, location, landscape, wildlife, etc.), good and talented people, a diversified economy, a decent quality of life and a favorable cost of living.  When one checks off these boxes, only a lack of great leadership could screw things up.  Case closed  .

Again, I wouldn't say we've been "held back". We're a much more vibrant, diverse and happening city than we were when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s. What I would say is that this has often had to happen in spite of what the city government is doing, and the lack of consistency and good leadership has kept Downtown in the doldrums and prevented us from reaching the potential we might otherwise have reached.

Your final comment here, that our successes are more in spite of local leadership, not because of it, echoes my conclusion.  Some "advancement" is inevitable as a result of national and global societal trends that rub off on our community given we are not living in a totally isolated bubble and have been heavily (and, to some of us, favorably) impacted by transplants from around the country and the world.  Are we at the tipping point that you suggest?  Time will tell.