America's Favorite Cities
(http://www.metrojacksonville.com/images/san_antonio/SanAntonioRiverwalk.jpg)
Earlier this year, Travelandleisure.com and CNN Headline News polled travelers and residents on what they like (and don't like) about 25 top urban destinations in the U.S. Turns out that people have some pretty strong feelings about New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, and other hot spots.
Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/627
That's an interesting study. I really like how there were so many different catagories for participants to give input on. It really helps to better outline the pros and cons of these cities versus giving an overall ranking.
We have a Pizza Restaurant...
Ocklawaha
So what are we known for? What's that special thing about Jax, that we do it our own way and it can't be duplicated elsewhere? What will it take to take that unique (ex. is it the Camel Rider, Lubi, hybrid prairie school architectural style, etc.) feature and spin it in a way that will help our economy?
How is BBQ in Austin any better than what you can get right here in Jacksonville??
I don't know about titles, but to me seems like home town Jacksonville is sort of:
NEO-Strip Plaza and Paper Mill-Hoboken Wharf-Classical Old South Splatter
Ocklawaha
Quote from: fsujax on November 09, 2007, 10:33:24 AM
How is BBQ in Austin any better than what you can get right here in Jacksonville??
I guess they specialize in Texas style BBQ. Is there a unique Jacksonville way of cooking BBQ or making sauce that's different from places like Georgia, Memphis, North Carolina, Texas or St. Louis?
Quote from: Ocklawaha on November 09, 2007, 10:36:07 AM
I don't know about titles, but to me seems like home town Jacksonville is sort of:
NEO-Strip Plaza and Paper Mill-Hoboken Wharf-Classical Old South Splatter
Ocklawaha
Interesting. So let's say I'm looking for a spot to go on vacation and spend my hard earned money. Strip plazas come a dime a dozen, paper mills are littered across the country, we tore down the wharfs and Hoboken's a lot more liberal/vibrant, so that leaves us with classical old south. Since Savannah, Charleston and a host of other cities can lay claim to that as well, what's our hook?
Before people get on this Jax bashfest, there are alotta cities that aren't mentioned on those lists like Charlotte, Tampa, and on, and on...I think that the cities that are known for a certain food are so overrated; Like a person from Brooklyn or Chi-Town can't relocate to Jax and open a New York, or Chicago Style pizza joint; They're out there. IMO Jax have a nice mix of alotta things; It's not top-heavy; Can it work on some things?... Yes, but it's not nearly the "barren desert of entertainment" that peeps wanna make it out to be.
Bashfest? Just trying to figure out if Jax has something unique to it (ex. perhaps Mayport Shrimp?) that can be promoted in a better light for the good of the community. For example, instead of hoping someone relocates from Chicago to open a "Chicago Style" pizza joint, why can't we have a "JACKSONVILLE" style. We're an old community so there has to be something out there that's specific to our community that we can take advantage of.
Quote from: thelakelander on November 09, 2007, 11:23:08 AM
Quote from: fsujax on November 09, 2007, 10:33:24 AM
I guess they specialize in Texas style BBQ. Is there a unique Jacksonville way of cooking BBQ or making sauce that's different from places like Georgia, Memphis, North Carolina, Texas or St. Louis?
I don't know what Jenkins uses, but it is good, I know its a mustard based sauce. Don't know how popular that is anywhere else.
Yes, Jenkins' sauce is mustard based and pretty good. Most will say this sauce is based out of South Carolina, however the "Low Country" is a region that stretches from Southern South Carolina to Jacksonville.
QuoteThe U.S. has a wide variety of differing barbecue sauce tastes:
Memphis - The center of Southern pork barbecue, Memphis sauces occupy the middle ground between other styles. Based on tomatoes, vinegar, brown sugar and spices, but not too thick, these blends provide moderate amounts of sweet, heat, and tang, with a lot of flavor.[8][9]
Kansas City â€" thick, reddish-brown, tomato-based with molasses[10]
St. Louis â€" generally tomato-based, thinned with vinegar, sweet and spicy; it is not as sweet and thick as Kansas City-style barbecue sauce, nor as spicy-hot and thin as Texas-style
North Carolina â€" three major types corresponding to region: Eastern (vinegar with pepper flakes), Piedmont (tomato-based with vinegar), and Western (tomato-based and thicker)
South Carolina â€" mustard-based (central, Low Country regions of state), vinegar and black pepper (Pee Dee region), light or thick tomato (Upstate region)[11]
Alabama â€" vinegar and pepper base in the northern counties; tomato/ketchup base with Mediterranean influences in the Birmingham area; sharper, unsweetened tomato/vinegar blend in the western counties around Tuscaloosa; mustard-based in the Chattahoochee River valley in the eastern part of the state; a special white mayonnaise and black pepper-based sauce is used on chicken in the area around Decatur
Georgia â€" much of the state favors a ketchup base flavored with the likes of garlic, onion, black pepper, brown sugar, and occasionally bourbon; South Carolina-like mustard sauce found in areas around Savannah and Columbus
Arkansas â€" thin vinegar and tomato base, spiced with pepper and slightly sweetened by molasses
Texas â€" tomato-based with hot chiles, cumin, less sweet.
Barbados sugar â€" muscovado sugar - brown sugar â€" castor/caster sugar â€" coarse sugar â€" confectioners’ sugar â€" date sugar â€" demerara sugar â€" granulated sugar â€" sugar cubes â€" invert sugar - Honey - corn syrup - golden syrup - glucose - Muscovado sugar â€" powdered sugar â€" raw sugar â€" superfine sugar â€" Turbinado sugar
Jacksonville DOES have a taste!
Ocklawaha
You forgot SweetBreath. You can smell it outside of any store where some homeless person comes up and asks you for money.......
I think there should be an index of bail bondsmen, pawn shops, used car dealers, check cashers, and blood banks to determine quality of life for an area.
Let's add that to the demographic indexes and see where Jax falls in!
I still can't find a kinish, decent sub, or a kaiser worth a damn......
but I am comforted by the wide range of toothless crack whores, interesting assortment of goods seen being pushed around in shopping carts, and the soothing sound of gunfire and sirens at night...
Maybe I can make my nose brown, befriend the mayor and the Harden style crew, take some graft and live in a gated community, and stay in the "safe zones" they made for themselves, just like South Africa did under aparthide?
Then I can eat at corporate "knock-off" of good cusine....
That was a very funny post Skot. Flash backs of my wild days in the Colombian Civil War back in the 1980's. I had only been "Married into Colombia" for a short time, till we headed South to meet the family. Good wife always said her family was, shall we say, well placed. When we got there, my eye's were open to a whole new World. Even though we had traveled throughout South America, I was in for CULTURE SHOCK! The shock? We don't have "culture" in the USA! OMG!!
Sadly at that time, Cuban and their drug buddies were still trying to toss out the oldest democracy in the hemisphere. We had to park at the curb in Bogota and got evacuated by the military, telling us to bug out because the Communista's were coming! (They didn't need to beg us) They were launching heavy artillery off the nearby mountains and mounted a bloody attack on the Supreme Court. "Safely" back in Medellin, we entered the lower floor of the high-rise condo. The lower floors are parking and the only windowless entry at street level is into a guarded security cubical. We entered to see the police at the desk were reading the funny pages of the local paper. As the door closed behind us, we heard a car tires squeal on the pavement outside, then the sound of AK-47 gun fire. That distinct AKK AKK sound! Then finally one of the police got up disgusted and tossed his paper down. He leaned out the door, took one look and sat back down with his paper. My wife asked him "Que pasa?"
He just shrugs and says: "Un arepa menos!"
For us Gringos, it translates "One biscuit less" (to worry about...implied)
But that wasn't even the biggest shock, then I came home to JACKSONVILLE after 27 years! Do we even have the biscuit???
Ocklawaha
I don't know about biscuts, but there sure are a lot of Gringos sucking up gravy!
I recently had family come to visit and they wanted to go to the beach (shore) and St. Augustine. Maybe Jacksonville could expand to include Jax Beaches and St. Augustine......then it would have some character!!
And lets face it if Jax is trying to sell its southern style to people that is bullshit! Savannah, Charleston, etc. already have it....they do it better. And why would I go on vacation to experience southern hospitality anyways??? Jacksonville can only sell its weather, proximity to the ocean, and it could sell the river too! If downtown had some businesses open past 330 pm, people might actually come for a vacation as well. Lets forget about the strip malls all over the southside for a while and focus on a true vacation in Jax.....in the downtown!!
Lets picture this for a vacation day in Jax:
Stay overnight in a waterfront hotel with a view of the lit up skyline and the river. Wake up and have brunch at a downtown cafe. Then maybe visit a downtown art or history museum. After that, around mid afternoon, walk down to the riverfront to board a river/ocean dinner cruise boat. Cruise down the St. John's on the deck of a cruise boat sipping cocktails while dinner is being prepared on the ship. The cruise continues out to the Atlantic where dinner is served on board (locally caught seafood with locally grown fruits and vegetables). Then just before sunset, the cruise makes its way back up the St. John's for viewing of the sunset in the west over the skyline and for dolphins jumping out of the waters of the St. John's. Once docked back downtown, the day can continue late into the evening at a wine bar/raw bar/cocktail bar in the downtown area within walking distance of the hotel.
Ok now that the dream is over...back to reality and ask the real question.
Would this work for Jax......as a vacation draw? I think the water/weather is its most feasible vacation draw. Southern culture and college football will not put Jax on the map.....taking advantage of the water around here might.
Jacksonville: "The Coffee Scented-Aluminum Carport-Vinyl Siding-Strip Plaza-FUBAR with a Southern Accent, Capital of the Nation?"
How's this one Lake? It really begs the question, how do we get out of this!
Ocklawaha
Quote from: NJ to JAX WHAT DID I DO? on November 10, 2007, 11:54:21 AM
Maybe Jacksonville could expand to include Jax Beaches and St. Augustine......then it would have some character!!
You say Jax Beaches, and St Augie like they're so damn far from Jax; THEY'RE IN THE DAMN METRO AREA FOR GOODNESS SAKES!! I can catch a city bus to Jax Beach if I wanna! Why Jax is the only city that act like if something as if a hair follicle outta the city limits, that "It doesn't count"? St Augie, Orange Park, Middleburg, Callahan, Baldwin and Jax Beaches, are JAX, and anyone acting like they aren't are fooling themselves.
I-10, what can we do to make the inner city more attractive?
Come To Jacksonville!
Experience The Worst of Human Behavior Yourself!
You, too, can get that "just arrested" feeling you witness on such shows as C.O.P.S. and Tales of the Highway Patrol!
Witness crack whores selling their wares!
See the street people pushing all their worldly belongings in shopping carts!
Be accousted for money by drunks outside of convenience stores!
Stay in an actual hotel where displaced families are living, six to a room, and watch as the police visit on a domestic call!
Sleep in the very rooms where crack dealers hide out from the police!
Hear the gunshots!
Watch as police evidence vans run more yellow tape around another senseless killing!
Try to have a conversation with one of our many high school drop outs! You have a 4 out of 10 chance of meeting one!
For an enhanced experience, visit the mayor's office, where corruption occurs on almost a daily basis, and no one does anything about it....
Visit our new CourtHouse....coming soon, as soon as hell freezes over!
For environmentalists, come see token efforts to go green as the St Johns river turns green from a bloom... be careful not to breathe too deeply!
Take home a sample of the St Johns.... It makes a wonderful chemical solvent!
See a historic structure, but hurry while supplies last, they are "selling out" quickly... or being sold out, take your pick!
You can visit the Busch and Bacardi plants for free tours and samples... you'd have to be drunk to deal with the shock of the visit.
You will consider it your best trip ever, because anywhere you go back to will seem much better than when you left!
It will make you appreciate home!
You will experience the best feeling of your life, as you hit the city limits on the way home and say to yourself
"I'm Glad That's Over!"
Okay, this doesn't give us the win all, and save all, for downtown. But it would bounce off the Temple on the Northbank and reflect it onto the Southbank. Maybe the JEA site? How about a Hard Rock Hotel - Casino? Another type of Casino - Hotel or entertainment complex. So one has to close your eyes and use your head to really "see" this picture... Maybe 20-30 floors high? Gold? Lush tropical landscape look? A hotel to stop hearts?
Behold:
(http://www.buriedmirror.com/images/maya-glory-ruin.jpg)
...and yes, I'm seldom very serious...but I'm VERY SERIOUS NOW. Could we think outside of the BOX?
Ocklawaha
don't forget the dat'l dew hot sauce from st. augustine. i don't think it's that hot, though.
I love Datil Pepper hot sauce. Not too mild and not too hot.
well if more people vist us then more might like us
What Jacksonville has is a unique combination of attractions. The beach, the river, fantastic golf, historic St. Augustine and a downtown with some a new concert venue, the NFL, new high rise residences, a growing night life surrounded by a few cool urban neighborhoods. I wish we had not turned our nose up at Bush Gardens. I also wish we had a better way to shuttle tourists around this spread out city. Anyone at this website ever give any thought to that?