Scenic Jacksonville's Great Cities Symposium

[thelakelander]

Scenic Jacksonville's Great Cities Symposium will highlight the transformation of Chattanooga's urban riverfront.

Read More: https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/scenic-jacksonvilles-great-cities-symposium/

[jaxlongtimer]

Great to see these presentations.  It's the reverse of a Chamber trip - bringing the visionaries here instead of going to see them.  I just hope it is more impactful.  Do we ask these speakers to tour Jax while here and share their ideas for us?  How many movers and shakers, starting with the Mayor and the City Council, attend these presentations?

In the end, the real issue is are our City leaders listening AND acting?  I don't see much of that.  We seem mainly motivated to turn over our civic lands to developers.  Friendship Park, Metro Park, the Shipyards, Lenny's Lawn, the City Hall/courthouse site, the former JEA power plant site... all public lands available to developers to consume much to all of.  There is no such thing here as public ownership perpetually - no land is sacred.

[Captain Zissou]

We seem mainly motivated to turn over our civic lands to developers.  Friendship Park, Metro Park, the Shipyards, Lenny's Lawn, the City Hall/courthouse site, the former JEA power plant site... all public lands available to developers to consume much to all of.  There is no such thing here as public ownership perpetually - no land is sacred.

I think that the bigger issue here is that our city owns so much vacant land downtown.  Why?  They have no plans to put civic buildings on them.  We have more park space than we can take care of at present.  I think we can all agree that these parcels are far from "sacred" in their current state.  I say preserve 15% of them as park space and use the remainder to develop smart urban projects with funding mechanisms in place to cover maintenance for the added park space. 

[vicupstate]

The city owns a huge amount of land city-wide, albeit more so in the urban core. IIRC, the city doesn't even have an inventory of all the land it owns. The city should surplus and sell a lot of these properties.

[thelakelander]

The city should surplus and sell a lot of these properties.

Amen.