Metro Jacksonville

Jacksonville used to be a leader of business, culture, and wealth.  Now it is a shell of it's former self.  It is now a bottom feeder hunting for scraps that other cities have left behind. 

Yes, we know the city government has failed and we have discussed that many times before.  But Jacksonville is a conservative city, a city which doesn't trust government and to allow it's private citizens more personal control over their lives.  Citizens, it says, that could make better decisions than the government.  What happened to them?  What happened to that private leadership? 

To an outsider looking in, it might look like both the citizens and the city government failed.  We can find many threads here in MJ talking about where and when the city government failed but where and when did the people who live here fail?  What mistakes did they make?  When did they make it?  When did it all go wrong?

Good ol boy politics not interested in attracting the young & educated was probably a big one, much more than most people realize. The environment is usually going to reflect the type of people who live in it.

Being overdeveloped for no reason, gigantic sprawl, making horrible decisions regarding transit & leveling half of downtown, very little sense of community left, sporting blunders, etc contributed too.

That's ridiculous, cityimprov. Jacksonville has not declined from some glorious past. We were always just another mid-sized Sunbelt city that happened to have some incredible features. We've still got incredible features, and we've seen continued growth for decades.

The real question is why, as we continue to grow and progress, have we not done so on the level we'd like. There's a lot of inferiority complex at play there as well as a lack of vision and inadequate leadership. The same things we've gone over and over here.

"What if this really is as good as it gets..."

I think the answer to your question is complacency.

 Man, Im having a GREAT time in J(action)ville!!!!
If youre asking "when did it go wrong" It was when Guliani was elected Mayor followed by Bloomberg! Talk about conservatism!
4 bands tonite at Burro Bar!!!!! Then Chomp! Chomp! there was a place like that in NYC called CBGBs, Its now a $$$$$ condo. 
Wasnt that a great show at CoRK last nite? Erics pieces rocked!
Oh, New York sux!

Quote from: stephendare on June 10, 2012, 04:14:43 PM
Im with City Imrov on this one, tacachale.

As am I .   +1

All you have to do is look at new development.  An indicator you're lagging is when Charleston is building 3,500 new apartments right now, much of that infill - and there are maybe 800 units in Jax UC right now in the burbs?.  Greenville is building more than you, and as we have seen in the Garage Thread much of that is creative infill.  Charlotte is doubling their light rail and new investment money keeps pouring in for apartments and infill (despite economic uncertainties).  Raleigh is exploding with new apartment mid-rise infill along the Glenwood Ave corridor and north of downtown (~5,500 units).  Nashville already feels like a big city, and is continuing with major new projects, including 2 high rise hotels, a new CC, new ballpark, new office and loft office, and new apartment infill.

Birmingham seems to be on the rise again, too.  That city has more examples of infill than Jacksonville and has wonderful new parks and amenities much better connected than anything done in Jax in the past 12 years.  Salt Lake City is exploding.  Austin is already now a big city, despite having "only" 1.8 million people.  It is certainly no peer of Jacksonville's anymore, but was smaller a decade ago.

I think Jacksonville has wonderful features and potential, a better climate, and it is still growing, but it is falling far behind its peers and even cities smaller than it (Greenville, Charleston, Chattanooga, Birmingham, Savannah).  Usually ~10% privately placed investment cash goes to Real Estate, so multiply outside investment by 10x real estate investment to get to what's flowing to/through your city.  In Jacksonville's case that has shrunk inexcusably much, despite the influx of people continuing to flock to the city to live (and work).  There's some sort of disconnect.

Must be something in the water. Or maybe too much inbreeding among the good old boys stunting growth. It's showing up in even the small venues such as the RAM. Another thread showcases the dissatisfaction with a wonderful idea going to seed due to stunted vision and more inbreeding.

To paraphrase a parody of JFK and the football games on the Whitehouse lawn years ago - He was asked why everybody had to play by his rules. The answer? "Because it's my ball."

Too many in leadership roles are claiming to own the ball and the rules that govern the game. No room for development, expansion or any ideas from anyone else. Inbreeding at its finest.

Quote from: c on June 10, 2012, 04:04:10 PM
That's ridiculous, cityimprov. Jacksonville has not declined from some glorious past. We were always just another mid-sized Sunbelt city that happened to have some incredible features. We've still got incredible features, and we've seen continued growth for decades.

The real question is why, as we continue to grow and progress, have we not done so on the level we'd like. There's a lot of inferiority complex at play there as well as a lack of vision and inadequate leadership. The same things we've gone over and over here.

On the mark. And the real question to ponder.

I have lived in the Jacksonville area on and off for the last 20 years and I have ALWAYS discribed it as the biggest small town I have ever lived in... It has some of the attractions of a major Metropolitan but I have LIVED in Major Metropolitans (Los Angeles, Norfolk and Orlando and visited many others) Jacksonville just doesn't have the FEEL of those. It is not RUN like those cities. It is still run like a small town. 

If we are to accept the fact that we “are” different than other cities of similar size, the difference being that we find it difficult to achieve the kind of stature we might imagine desirable; a stature which “they” are said to have achieved or are achieving, then we might wonder if there is “one” ingredient in our soup responsible for the difference.  Although one might be tempted to assign only one ingredient responsible for our alleged deficiency in stature, I suspect there are two, perhaps even three, tied together and acting in concert to affect the degree to which we can climb or descend in stature.

But one of those aspects or ingredients might be the ascendant one, and the other two or three a consequence of this first and most significant one.  So….what might be the first and most significant ingredient in our soup of influences affecting our stature? 

What are the candidates?  Perhaps the fact of our primarily conservative political base?  Perhaps the company kept by this conservative base and the various churches in the area?  Perhaps the good old boy habit of doing things?   

Being out of touch with the details of our local political dynamics, and some other conditions hidden from view, I must admit that I don’t know the answer.  I do sense however that the problem, if it is one of stature, is indeed the result of one or two significant factors acting together to shape the stature of our city.

If it is true that the fundamental causes can be limited to one or two significant factors, then there is hope for the stature of our city, for the solution lies in identifying the one or two culprits. 

What are the clues?  Some of you who are more familiar than me might suggest some.  For example, how important is it for a political candidate for city council, for mayor, for sheriff, or for various other political offices to be a member of the First Baptist Church, or a member of any church?  We almost voted into the mayor’s office a solid member of the FBC.  What is the shape and significance of the good old boy syndrome some talk about? 

Are conservative mentalities entrenched and invulnerable to ouster to the point of being essentially dictators in our city?  I don’t know.  Conservatives, if they are entrenched, are comfortable being so, and happy, and therefore the stature of our city and the actions required to improve it might not be essential to their outlook and objectives.  In other words, there is not enough motivation for these good old boys to take the actions necessary to enrich the city, to bring up its stature, or to prepare the groundwork necessary for city core vibrancy.

But again, what are the one or two significant aspects in our city which might delay or obstruct the achievement of a greater stature, assuming of course that we are actually in need of a greater stature.     
   

If this is truly to become a great city, it will need a great education system. It can be done, Newsweek rated Douglas Anderson and Paxon as the #8 and #23 best public high schools in the entire country. We have a great roadmap on what and how to create great schools. Question is, will we?

One of the biggest issues this town has is the pull that the churches have.  That is not something that you find as prevalent in your major Metropolitans, certainly not as in your face as it is here.  I don’t care what church someone goes to.   If this town really wants to GROW it needs to look more at what is good for the town not the church coffers.  While church goers may be voters I think that it might be found that there are more people who do not go to church than do, and they also may vote. 
There are more people who claim Christianity than not.  Those of us that are not are in the minority, I am aware of that.  BUT all Christians do not go to church and all Christians are not the same denomination going to the same church.  I think that perhaps one denomination having as strong an influence as it does on local politics is a major issue for Jacksonville.  I don’t see that changing any time soon.  The city’s masses just seem too happy the retardation of its maturation.

Quote from: cityimrov on June 10, 2012, 03:23:51 PM
Jacksonville used to be a leader of business, culture, and wealth.  Now it is a shell of it's former self.  It is now a bottom feeder hunting for scraps that other cities have left behind. 

Yes, we know the city government has failed and we have discussed that many times before.  But Jacksonville is a conservative city, a city which doesn't trust government and to allow it's private citizens more personal control over their lives.  Citizens, it says, that could make better decisions than the government.  What happened to them?  What happened to that private leadership? 

To an outsider looking in, it might look like both the citizens and the city government failed.  We can find many threads here in MJ talking about where and when the city government failed but where and when did the people who live here fail?  What mistakes did they make?  When did they make it?  When did it all go wrong?

What a question...the answer lies in the history of the city...our elected city council has for many years defunded our infrastructure by lowering this tax and illiminating that fee...this is a right wing conservative republican city and that group is anti anything public...welcome to Jax...

Quote from: officerk on June 11, 2012, 01:19:17 AM
One of the biggest issues this town has is the pull that the churches have.  That is not something that you find as prevalent in your major Metropolitans, certainly not as in your face as it is here.  I don’t care what church someone goes to.   If this town really wants to GROW it needs to look more at what is good for the town not the church coffers.  While church goers may be voters I think that it might be found that there are more people who do not go to church than do, and they also may vote. 
There are more people who claim Christianity than not.  Those of us that are not are in the minority, I am aware of that.  BUT all Christians do not go to church and all Christians are not the same denomination going to the same church.  I think that perhaps one denomination having as strong an influence as it does on local politics is a major issue for Jacksonville.  I don’t see that changing any time soon.  The city’s masses just seem too happy the retardation of its maturation.

For the most part, churches and religious centers have proven to be a boom to some part of mankind.  Churches are usually strong producers of culture and business.  Yes, they can have some very bad sides but at the same time, they've produce amazing things.  Look at Rome, Salt Lake City, or even Tel Aviv as strong examples of this. 

Now Jacksonville churches, I'm not really sure what they have produced over the years.  The biggest one in Jacksonville are the Baptists.  The large one in downtown have ok buildings.  The Florida Baptist Convention Headquarters is Jacksonville so they must have some strong influence here.  I'm not sure but I think Baptist Medical Center may have been created by them.  The Southern Baptist Convention is not located in Jacksonville but in Augusta, GA (which coincidentally looks like a smaller clone of Jacksonville).   I don't know the history of the churches here.  Can anyone fill in the blanks? 

We have a high school in Jacksonville called "Nathan Bedford Forrest".  Did Jacksonville's decline happen sometime around the naming of this school or was it before then? 

I think MetroJacksonville has explicitly proven and pointed to the decline as happening in 1948 when Haydon Burns was elected mayor of Jacksonville.

It was around that time that bridges to nowhere were built, expressways were built through stable minority neighborhoods and even a few white neighborhoods, the tollway authority was created and built tolls to get to downtown on the bridges, the waterfront was destroyed and filled in for surface parking, elevated sidewalks/skyways were built, "master plans" were created, etc etc etc.

Jacksonville as we know it today began its start then.

I do think we had a hold on the finance/insurance industry through the early 1990s and of course Charter was pretty big time until it crashed - literally.  The only thing the city has really held onto has been its logistics network and companies, but that could always be better than it is (CSX relocating here was a positive move, but in terms of employment had a net neutral effect).

If only the city had a dominating industry or theme that could give it some sort of identity that would shield it from the negative press that associates the city with Baptists and intolerance and rednecks and lack of nightlife, etc.

^I wouldn't regard that as "proven". (Downtown) Jacksonville experienced a decline under Burns (who was elected in 1949, not 1948), but his election and many of his policies coincided with national trends that saw mass suburbanization and decentralization. Not to mention the booming growth across Florida that led other areas to surpass Jacksonville. It can't all be pinned on him.

Where Jacksonville, and all other postwar growth cities, differ from older cities is that we had a lot less infrastructure in place at the time we began to take our current form. In 1948 there was no Arlington or Southside as we know it; Orange Park, Mandarin, and the Beaches were all independent, isolated communities, not bedroom suburbs. As a result, proportionately much more of Jacksonville, as well as cities like Miami, Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, and Phoenix, exists in autocentric suburbs than in the "city part of the city". This separates us from cities as diverse as Boston, Charleston, and St. Louis who experienced their largest growth while other forms of living were still prevalent.

At the same time, in 1948 Jacksonville also had no University, no symphony, no real art museum, etc., so the city progressed on other fronts even as downtown declined.

Quote from: officerk on June 11, 2012, 01:19:17 AM
One of the biggest issues this town has is the pull that the churches have.  That is not something that you find as prevalent in your major Metropolitans, certainly not as in your face as it is here.  I don’t care what church someone goes to.   If this town really wants to GROW it needs to look more at what is good for the town not the church coffers.  While church goers may be voters I think that it might be found that there are more people who do not go to church than do, and they also may vote. 
There are more people who claim Christianity than not.  Those of us that are not are in the minority, I am aware of that.  BUT all Christians do not go to church and all Christians are not the same denomination going to the same church.  I think that perhaps one denomination having as strong an influence as it does on local politics is a major issue for Jacksonville.  I don’t see that changing any time soon.  The city’s masses just seem too happy the retardation of its maturation.

One might likewise say that our city suffers from too many Masonic lodges, Garden or Lion's Clubs. Churches are simply a body of believers which are as diverse as the city itself. Churches of many different faiths make up part of a rich fabric of our society. To think that churches, or religion, or too many telephone booths hold the city back is a bogus argument.

The collection of churches, like service clubs everywhere, are meeting places for singles, and families looking for anything from a cultural experience to an elevating spiritual journey. In the process the churches more then any other group in our society, feed the poor, doctor the sick, and assist in hundreds of ways not generally advertised to the public.

An institution like the local Baptist and Catholic faiths spend MILLIONS locally on everything from pots and pans, to furniture, food, and accouterments of study and hospitality. Churches also have a huge effect on tourism, believe it or not hardly a week goes by that a dozen or so groups or individuals are not at a hotel somewhere in North Florida because of one of our churches.

One of the most progressive modern places of similar size is Salt Lake City. They hosted the Olympics, built a light-rail system, built a commuter rail system, and are now engaged in adding streetcar to their urban mix. Salt Lake City is nothing if not 100 x more conservative and churched then Jacksonville and they are leaving us in their dust.

Perhaps we should be asking how SLC got the most far right religious group in the country to support the most progressive liberal ideas?

BTW, The SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION is not HQ in Augusta, it's in Nashville, and believe it or not, if you order a Bible from the 800 number posted by the Mormons in SLC, chances are it will printed on the Southern Baptist press. It's something known as commerce!

Here are some of the worst decisions we've made.

If you REALLY want to get at the root of our city's fall from the top, look no further then our history. In 1917, conservative Democrat John W. Martin was elected mayor on the platform of taming the city's movie industry. By that time, southern California was emerging as the major movie production center, thanks in large part to the move of film pioneers like William Selig and D.W. Griffith to the area. These factors quickly sealed the demise of Jacksonville as a major film destination. By the end of the 1920's we had chased the studio's away, studios that have convinced the entire world that Los Angeles is the center of the universe... it could have been us. The huge urban errors were then compounded when we junked a true urban fixed rail transit system for a fleet of tiny, hot, buses. Nobody seemed to notice that new businesses didn't spring up along bus routes, as the city had little infrastructure investment in them. Top that off with chasing not only Walt Disney away, but running over a Busch Gardens opportunity in the same manner. Another huge hit was Peyton's refusing to allow the Navy back in Cecil Field. 30,000 guaranteed jobs were thrown away in the hope that a battery plant and tire warehouse will figure out how to launch their products into space... Um? Amazing!

Um.... Sickening :(

Ock, you've mentioned several times recently that the city somehow chased Walt Disney away from building Disney World here. That didn't happen. I doubt it happened with Busch Gardens either.

Not that Disney World is really something to envy to begin with.

Quote from: ronchamblin on June 10, 2012, 11:45:50 PM
If we are to accept the fact that we “are” different than other cities of similar size, the difference being that we find it difficult to achieve the kind of stature we might imagine desirable; a stature which “they” are said to have achieved or are achieving, then we might wonder if there is “one” ingredient in our soup responsible for the difference.

My best guess would be lack of a clearly defined long-term vision for the city, carried over from one administration to the next.

Despite constant political chatter about Jacksonville's unfulfilled potential, I'm still not quite sure I've ever seen a truly great master plan detailing a) what the city's long term goals are and b) how to get there.

Quote from: stephendare on June 12, 2012, 09:48:40 AM

Quote from: Tacachale on June 12, 2012, 06:55:36 AM
Ock, you've mentioned several times recently that the city somehow chased Walt Disney away from building Disney World here. That didn't happen. I doubt it happened with Busch Gardens either.

Not that Disney World is really something to envy to begin with.

According to Ball's long time secretary it did happen.  According to Raymond Mason, his biographical apologist and booster, it didn't.

I'd go with the secretary.

PS.  It wasn't "The City" per se, but rather Ed Ball, who ran the city.

Disney wanted to purchase significant acreage from Ball that had been laid waste by the St. Joe's Paper Company.  Ball refused in such a way that Disney went south.

Actually, it's not clear that Ball's secretary really did say that. She isn't mentioned in most of the versions that have circulated since the the 1990s. A 2007 Times-Union article (http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/042407/bum_165125931.shtml) that mentions her doesn't quote her directly.

At any rate, the story doesn't claim that Disney was looking in Jacksonville or that Bell spoke for Jacksonville. According to the various versions, for instance this one (http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/12/business/a-land-giant-is-stirring-will-florida-ever-be-the-same.html?pagewanted=2), Disney tried to meet Ball to look into Panhandle, where St. Joe had most of their land. Supposedly Ball told him "I don't do business with carnival people" and refused to see him, so the Panhandle missed a chance (or dodged a bullet) to have Disney World built there.

Regardless of this little story, it's likely that Disney did check out both the Panhandle and the Jacksonville area, but if he did they would have been only some of the very many locations around the state (and the country) he investigated and rejected before deciding on the Reedy Creek site.

Perhaps this should be its own thread.

Read Married to the Mouse, that will give a nice historical overview of Disney and the Central Florida decision.

Quote from: stephendare on June 12, 2012, 11:30:59 AM

Quote from: Tacachale on June 12, 2012, 10:42:11 AM

Quote from: stephendare on June 12, 2012, 09:48:40 AM

Quote from: Tacachale on June 12, 2012, 06:55:36 AM
Ock, you've mentioned several times recently that the city somehow chased Walt Disney away from building Disney World here. That didn't happen. I doubt it happened with Busch Gardens either.

Not that Disney World is really something to envy to begin with.

According to Ball's long time secretary it did happen.  According to Raymond Mason, his biographical apologist and booster, it didn't.

I'd go with the secretary.

PS.  It wasn't "The City" per se, but rather Ed Ball, who ran the city.

Disney wanted to purchase significant acreage from Ball that had been laid waste by the St. Joe's Paper Company.  Ball refused in such a way that Disney went south.

Actually, it's not clear that Ball's secretary really did say that. She isn't mentioned in most of the versions that have circulated since the the 1990s. A 2007 Times-Union article (http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/042407/bum_165125931.shtml) that mentions her doesn't quote her directly.

At any rate, the story doesn't claim that Disney was looking in Jacksonville or that Bell spoke for Jacksonville. According to the various versions, for instance this one (http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/12/business/a-land-giant-is-stirring-will-florida-ever-be-the-same.html?pagewanted=2), Disney tried to meet Ball to look into Panhandle, where St. Joe had most of their land. Supposedly Ball told him "I don't do business with carnival people" and refused to see him, so the Panhandle missed a chance (or dodged a bullet) to have Disney World built there.

Regardless of this little story, it's likely that Disney did check out both the Panhandle and the Jacksonville area, but if he did they would have been only some of the very many locations around the state (and the country) he investigated and rejected before deciding on the Reedy Creek site.

Perhaps this should be its own thread.

Orlando was a tiny citrus town before disney opened up miles away from the city.  Im not sure anyone would challenge the idea that Orlando became a city based on the economic growth of Disney.

The land was a bit more towards the west and north of Jacksonville, but with the rail connections of the time, and the highway array, Jacksonville would have been the beneficiary of the establishment of Disney in North Florida.

According to the book Green Empire: The St. Joe Company and the Remaking of Florida's Panhandle by Kathryn Ziewitz and June Wiaz, the land in question may have been Wakulla Springs, which is near Tallahassee. That wouldn't have done much for Jacksonville. And that's assuming the Ball story is true (the authors call it simply "company lore") and that Disney wouldn't have ultimately rejected it for some other reason, as he did with several much more serious sites before he settled on Reedy Creek.

Quote from: stephendare on June 12, 2012, 11:30:59 AM

Quote from: Tacachale on June 12, 2012, 10:42:11 AM

Quote from: stephendare on June 12, 2012, 09:48:40 AM

Quote from: Tacachale on June 12, 2012, 06:55:36 AM
Ock, you've mentioned several times recently that the city somehow chased Walt Disney away from building Disney World here. That didn't happen. I doubt it happened with Busch Gardens either.

Not that Disney World is really something to envy to begin with.

According to Ball's long time secretary it did happen.  According to Raymond Mason, his biographical apologist and booster, it didn't.

I'd go with the secretary.

PS.  It wasn't "The City" per se, but rather Ed Ball, who ran the city.

Disney wanted to purchase significant acreage from Ball that had been laid waste by the St. Joe's Paper Company.  Ball refused in such a way that Disney went south.

Actually, it's not clear that Ball's secretary really did say that. She isn't mentioned in most of the versions that have circulated since the the 1990s. A 2007 Times-Union article (http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/042407/bum_165125931.shtml) that mentions her doesn't quote her directly.

At any rate, the story doesn't claim that Disney was looking in Jacksonville or that Bell spoke for Jacksonville. According to the various versions, for instance this one (http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/12/business/a-land-giant-is-stirring-will-florida-ever-be-the-same.html?pagewanted=2), Disney tried to meet Ball to look into Panhandle, where St. Joe had most of their land. Supposedly Ball told him "I don't do business with carnival people" and refused to see him, so the Panhandle missed a chance (or dodged a bullet) to have Disney World built there.

Regardless of this little story, it's likely that Disney did check out both the Panhandle and the Jacksonville area, but if he did they would have been only some of the very many locations around the state (and the country) he investigated and rejected before deciding on the Reedy Creek site.

Perhaps this should be its own thread.

Orlando was a tiny citrus town before disney opened up miles away from the city.  Im not sure anyone would challenge the idea that Orlando became a city based on the economic growth of Disney.

The land was a bit more towards the west and north of Jacksonville, but with the rail connections of the time, and the highway array, Jacksonville would have been the beneficiary of the establishment of Disney in North Florida.

How much power did this Ed Ball guy have back then?  This looks like strike one in terms of our private leadership failing.  While Disney may or may have not chosen the Jacksonville area to build Disney World, Jacksonville could have had a much better relationship that Disney wanted to build something here.  Even a small Disney exhibit on I-95 to prep everyone before they reach Disney World.   It would have been a boom to Jacksonville's non-existent tourist industry. 

Quote from: KenFSU on June 12, 2012, 08:35:29 AM
Despite constant political chatter about Jacksonville's unfulfilled potential, I'm still not quite sure I've ever seen a truly great master plan detailing a) what the city's long term goals are and b) how to get there.

Giant master plans are usually a bad idea.  It causes people  to stick with them even when they become obsolete.  Orlando didn't know what Disney was.  I'm betting half of the most successful areas in our world had no master plan to go on.  It just requires some risk and a lot of uncertainty. 

Master plans are actually a good idea, the problem is when people stick to them and fail to adapt them as the criteria they were originally based on changes.  Any master plan should be reviewed regularly and modified to accommodate current conditions or even new goals. 
Failing to plan is planning to fail.   

QuoteOrlando didn't know what Disney was.  I'm betting half of the most successful areas in our world had no master plan to go on.  It just requires some risk and a lot of uncertainty. 

They knew what they were getting into - One of the most sucessful & recognizable brands in history & a 15 year head start / test environment in Disneyland, CA.

Master plans tied to goals and direction are usually a good thing.  All the best universities have master plans that are updated every 5-10 years.  Many if not most of the best neighborhoods in the country have master plans updated on a similar basis.  Cities do, too.  I think the key is to tie a plan to goals rather than have an isolated floating plan based on disconnected ideas...and then obviously the next step would be implementation.  I think where Jacksonville has failed is both in tying plans to specific short and long term goals that transcend time periods and very clearly the city has failed to implement anything practical in a very long time.

In my opinion the best planning in NE FL takes place at UNF.  I suggest going over its master plans and seeing what they have done over the decades to get to where they are.

Quote from: cityimrov on June 12, 2012, 02:43:37 PM

Quote from: stephendare on June 12, 2012, 11:30:59 AM

Quote from: Tacachale on June 12, 2012, 10:42:11 AM

Quote from: stephendare on June 12, 2012, 09:48:40 AM

Quote from: Tacachale on June 12, 2012, 06:55:36 AM
Ock, you've mentioned several times recently that the city somehow chased Walt Disney away from building Disney World here. That didn't happen. I doubt it happened with Busch Gardens either.

Not that Disney World is really something to envy to begin with.

According to Ball's long time secretary it did happen.  According to Raymond Mason, his biographical apologist and booster, it didn't.

I'd go with the secretary.

PS.  It wasn't "The City" per se, but rather Ed Ball, who ran the city.

Disney wanted to purchase significant acreage from Ball that had been laid waste by the St. Joe's Paper Company.  Ball refused in such a way that Disney went south.

Actually, it's not clear that Ball's secretary really did say that. She isn't mentioned in most of the versions that have circulated since the the 1990s. A 2007 Times-Union article (http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/042407/bum_165125931.shtml) that mentions her doesn't quote her directly.

At any rate, the story doesn't claim that Disney was looking in Jacksonville or that Bell spoke for Jacksonville. According to the various versions, for instance this one (http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/12/business/a-land-giant-is-stirring-will-florida-ever-be-the-same.html?pagewanted=2), Disney tried to meet Ball to look into Panhandle, where St. Joe had most of their land. Supposedly Ball told him "I don't do business with carnival people" and refused to see him, so the Panhandle missed a chance (or dodged a bullet) to have Disney World built there.

Regardless of this little story, it's likely that Disney did check out both the Panhandle and the Jacksonville area, but if he did they would have been only some of the very many locations around the state (and the country) he investigated and rejected before deciding on the Reedy Creek site.

Perhaps this should be its own thread.

Orlando was a tiny citrus town before disney opened up miles away from the city.  Im not sure anyone would challenge the idea that Orlando became a city based on the economic growth of Disney.

The land was a bit more towards the west and north of Jacksonville, but with the rail connections of the time, and the highway array, Jacksonville would have been the beneficiary of the establishment of Disney in North Florida.

How much power did this Ed Ball guy have back then?  This looks like strike one in terms of our private leadership failing.  While Disney may or may have not chosen the Jacksonville area to build Disney World, Jacksonville could have had a much better relationship that Disney wanted to build something here.  Even a small Disney exhibit on I-95 to prep everyone before they reach Disney World.   It would have been a boom to Jacksonville's non-existent tourist industry. 

"This Ed Ball guy" was very powerful. The St. Joe company was (and is) one of the largest and most influential landholders in the state.

You're assuming that a development like Disney World is inherently positive. I would argue that it's not.

Quote from: cityimrov on June 12, 2012, 02:43:37 PM

Quote from: KenFSU on June 12, 2012, 08:35:29 AM
Despite constant political chatter about Jacksonville's unfulfilled potential, I'm still not quite sure I've ever seen a truly great master plan detailing a) what the city's long term goals are and b) how to get there.

Giant master plans are usually a bad idea.  It causes people  to stick with them even when they become obsolete.  Orlando didn't know what Disney was.  I'm betting half of the most successful areas in our world had no master plan to go on.  It just requires some risk and a lot of uncertainty.

Orlando certainly did know what Disney was, and moreover, Disney chose their current site specifically because local leaders had built up an environment that was attractive to them.

For over 10 years beforehand, Central Florida businessmen and politicians lobbied hard to get highways built through their area to stimulate growth, and they pushed the state to deregulate, particularly on environmental concerns. Disney was very interested in those things, so they chose Reedy Creek over other sites. It's a classic case of master planning in action.

Quote from: simms3 on June 12, 2012, 03:02:55 PM
Master plans tied to goals and direction are usually a good thing.  All the best universities have master plans that are updated every 5-10 years.  Many if not most of the best neighborhoods in the country have master plans updated on a similar basis.  Cities do, too.  I think the key is to tie a plan to goals rather than have an isolated floating plan based on disconnected ideas...and then obviously the next step would be implementation.  I think where Jacksonville has failed is both in tying plans to specific short and long term goals that transcend time periods and very clearly the city has failed to implement anything practical in a very long time.

In my opinion the best planning in NE FL takes place at UNF.  I suggest going over its master plans and seeing what they have done over the decades to get to where they are.

For doing things which have been done for centuries, master plans are a good thing.  University building construction is a very predictable thing since most of them just try to copy each other.  All universities know they are going to add a bigger library.  Master planning works for predictable status quo projects.  Master planning fails badly on unpredictable projects. 

Disney World was not a status quo project.  Things that propel an area into world leadership were never status quo until they got there.  The people in the area just learn to adapt to new things more quickly.  Orlando is faster than Jacksonville to adapt to new things but even Orlando is slow compared to some cities around the world which is changing every day. 

Disney helped Orlando but I would say NASA helped Orlando even more.  That is something Jacksonville never paid attention too (unless someone uncovers an article showing me how much Jacksonville fought for NASA work).

Quote from: stephendare
PS.  It wasn't "The City" per se, but rather Ed Ball, who ran the city.

What was Ed Ball's "master plan" for the city?  Let's say the Disney story was true.  If it was, that must means mean he had some other scheme in mind for Jacksonville (I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt) that was a better opportunity than Disney.  What was that?  Did the people in the city follow him around like a pied piper?  The artists who were in town.  The businessmen.  What did they do during that time? 

I guess from here the question ( Or perhaps a new thread topic ) should be:


How do we turn this mess around? 


We can lay blame on past administrations till all of us are in our graves. 


How do we undo WHAT CAN BE undone?

Exactly. The focus shouldn't be to continue to compile lists of all the things we as a city have done wrong, or who we can blame. What's done is done. Learn from those mistakes, yes. But, there are way too many intelligent, focused people on this site, and in the city in general to make "excuses". Jacksonville can be everything we want and more.

Some of the backwardness continues ( I think most of us realize this ) .


How do we change this way of thinking and make progress ?  Find a happy medium for all ?. Is it possible?

Quote from: cityimrov on June 12, 2012, 04:23:17 PM

Quote from: simms3 on June 12, 2012, 03:02:55 PM
Master plans tied to goals and direction are usually a good thing.  All the best universities have master plans that are updated every 5-10 years.  Many if not most of the best neighborhoods in the country have master plans updated on a similar basis.  Cities do, too.  I think the key is to tie a plan to goals rather than have an isolated floating plan based on disconnected ideas...and then obviously the next step would be implementation.  I think where Jacksonville has failed is both in tying plans to specific short and long term goals that transcend time periods and very clearly the city has failed to implement anything practical in a very long time.

In my opinion the best planning in NE FL takes place at UNF.  I suggest going over its master plans and seeing what they have done over the decades to get to where they are.

For doing things which have been done for centuries, master plans are a good thing.  University building construction is a very predictable thing since most of them just try to copy each other.  All universities know they are going to add a bigger library.  Master planning works for predictable status quo projects.  Master planning fails badly on unpredictable projects. 

Disney World was not a status quo project.  Things that propel an area into world leadership were never status quo until they got there.  The people in the area just learn to adapt to new things more quickly.  Orlando is faster than Jacksonville to adapt to new things but even Orlando is slow compared to some cities around the world which is changing every day. 

Disney helped Orlando but I would say NASA helped Orlando even more.  That is something Jacksonville never paid attention too (unless someone uncovers an article showing me how much Jacksonville fought for NASA work).

LOL, Orlando has very little to do with NASA, whose Florida operations are an hour away on the coast. You clearly don't know much about master plans.

Quote from: Tacachale on June 12, 2012, 08:02:02 PM
LOL, Orlando has very little to do with NASA, whose Florida operations are an hour away on the coast. You clearly don't know much about master plans.

I disagree.

Quote from: Elwood on June 12, 2012, 07:38:24 PM
Exactly. The focus shouldn't be to continue to compile lists of all the things we as a city have done wrong,

It's impossible to learn from the past if you don't know what mistakes were made.  We have to know what mistakes were made so we can not do it again or do the mistake with some good reason to repeat that mistake.

Quoteor who we can blame.

You can learn from mistakes without blaming anyone.  Everyone makes mistakes.  The blame game is a waste of time.  Yes, there are areas out there who spend all day talking about there mistakes but don't blame each other.  The learn from it and become leaders in their field. 

Quote from: cityimrov on June 12, 2012, 10:07:48 PM

Quote from: Tacachale on June 12, 2012, 08:02:02 PM
LOL, Orlando has very little to do with NASA, whose Florida operations are an hour away on the coast. You clearly don't know much about master plans.

I disagree.

...And I agree to your disagreement CityImprov! Few seem to know that the NASA/USAF/DEFENSE DEPT footprint in Orlando,'s private sector is HUGE. in fact only 3 theme parks and 2 regional hospitals have more employees.
Lockheed Martin's Business Line: Combat Systems
Number of Employees..................................................... 7,200
These are located in a massive campus just south of Sand Lake Road and immediately off the 'Beach Line Turnpike'.

On another note, there were rumors recently that the new 'airship' the P-791 or a 'sister ship' otherwise unknown was seen off the coast at Cape Canaveral AFB/NASA. Interesting stuff. Meanwhile over at the Cape Canaveral 'plant' the first Lockheed Martin built Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) geosynchronous (GEO-1) satellite, launched on May 7, 2011, is exceeding performance expectations and is on schedule to achieve operational certification later this year.

That new railroad between Orlando and the coast? Your kidding yourself if you think it's about passengers and passenger train profits. Something big is in the wind and Port Canaveral, NASA, Lockheed-Martin, Cape Canaveral AFB, Orlando - Cocoa, Flagler/FECI, are all in it up to their boxcar doors! The Beach Line is in fact Florida's version of Silicon Valley or Research Triangle.

Quote from: Tacachale on June 12, 2012, 10:42:11 AM
Actually, it's not clear that Ball's secretary really did say that. She isn't mentioned in most of the versions that have circulated since the the 1990s. A 2007 Times-Union article (http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/042407/bum_165125931.shtml) that mentions her doesn't quote her directly.

At any rate, the story doesn't claim that Disney was looking in Jacksonville or that Bell spoke for Jacksonville. According to the various versions, for instance this one (http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/12/business/a-land-giant-is-stirring-will-florida-ever-be-the-same.html?pagewanted=2), Disney tried to meet Ball to look into Panhandle, where St. Joe had most of their land. Supposedly Ball told him "I don't do business with carnival people" and refused to see him, so the Panhandle missed a chance (or dodged a bullet) to have Disney World built there.

Regardless of this little story, it's likely that Disney did check out both the Panhandle and the Jacksonville area, but if he did they would have been only some of the very many locations around the state (and the country) he investigated and rejected before deciding on the Reedy Creek site.

Perhaps this should be its own thread.

Not that memory generally accounts for much, but I WAS HERE, when Walt Disney came to town. I can remember it being the buzz conversation of every civic minded adult I came into contact with, including teachers over at Ortega and JNC Stockton schools. The city was giddy but Ball wasn't, in fact I understand he refused to even meet Disney, passing him a note instead that read simply, 'Mr. Disney, Jacksonville doesn't deal with carnival people.'

Now one can appeal to the books and the biographers if one desires, but we lost and our role has quickly faded from the public memory. Maybe it is better that in time, our children's, children won't have a clue how stupid leaders of Jacksonville have been, past, present and... oh God No!

As for the usual story of his interest being only in land around the Panhandle, that is well publicized but his correspondence and apparent conversations with massive land owners in Clay and St. Johns seem to be lost. I ran into another old timer the other day in Green Cove Springs and we were talking about this when she popped up with the guys name and damn if I can remember it now, but if I do, I'll post it.

OCKLAWAHA

Quote from: Ocklawaha on June 12, 2012, 11:38:46 PM

Quote from: Tacachale on June 12, 2012, 10:42:11 AM
Actually, it's not clear that Ball's secretary really did say that. She isn't mentioned in most of the versions that have circulated since the the 1990s. A 2007 Times-Union article (http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/042407/bum_165125931.shtml) that mentions her doesn't quote her directly.

At any rate, the story doesn't claim that Disney was looking in Jacksonville or that Bell spoke for Jacksonville. According to the various versions, for instance this one (http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/12/business/a-land-giant-is-stirring-will-florida-ever-be-the-same.html?pagewanted=2), Disney tried to meet Ball to look into Panhandle, where St. Joe had most of their land. Supposedly Ball told him "I don't do business with carnival people" and refused to see him, so the Panhandle missed a chance (or dodged a bullet) to have Disney World built there.

Regardless of this little story, it's likely that Disney did check out both the Panhandle and the Jacksonville area, but if he did they would have been only some of the very many locations around the state (and the country) he investigated and rejected before deciding on the Reedy Creek site.

Perhaps this should be its own thread.

Not that memory generally accounts for much, but I WAS HERE, when Walt Disney came to town. I can remember it being the buzz conversation of every civic minded adult I came into contact with, including teachers over at Ortega and JNC Stockton schools. The city was giddy but Ball wasn't, in fact I understand he refused to even meet Disney, passing him a note instead that read simply, 'Mr. Disney, Jacksonville doesn't deal with carnival people.'

Now one can appeal to the books and the biographers if one desires, but we lost and our role has quickly faded from the public memory. Maybe it is better that in time, our children's, children won't have a clue how stupid leaders of Jacksonville have been, past, present and... oh God No!

As for the usual story of his interest being only in land around the Panhandle, that is well publicized but his correspondence and apparent conversations with massive land owners in Clay and St. Johns seem to be lost. I ran into another old timer the other day in Green Cove Springs and we were talking about this when she popped up with the guys name and damn if I can remember it now, but if I do, I'll post it.

OCKLAWAHA

Please do. I'm very interested in the topic (clearly).

Every version I've heard or read, and they are legion, claims that ol' Uncle Walt was after St. Joe land in the Panhandle. The basic story's the same: supposedly Disney's first choice was a stretch out there, perhaps Ed Ball's personal stomping grounds at Wakulla Springs, and he personally came to the St. Joe headquarters in Jacksonville discuss it with Ball. Unimpressed, Ball kept him waiting, then dismissed him with a curt note that said, "I don't deal with carnival people".

The Jacksonville version sounds like some home cooking. At any rate I can assure you that folks in the Panhandle were equally all abuzz about the prospect of the Disney project being in their neck of the woods, and stories about it ran in several Panhandle papers in 1959. Indeed, folks were abuzz all over the state, including Ocala (one of Disney's personal favorite choices) Palm Beach (where they developed a fairly serious plan), and Orlando-Kissimmee, where they ended up building.

We'll know more about where exactly Disney looked later this year, when the Buzz Price papers at UCF become available to researchers. I think it's very likely that Disney did indeed investigate areas near Jacksonville, but only as one of the dozens of locations he looked at and rejected. If so, he had certainly rejected it by 1960, when he dropped the Palm Beach project and moved on to Central Florida.

I need to know something.  Was Ed Ball feared or was loved by the general public? 

Quote from: stephendare on June 14, 2012, 07:31:14 PM

Quote from: cityimrov on June 14, 2012, 07:28:39 PM
I need to know something.  Was Ed Ball feared or was loved by the general public?

Both actually.  He was widely feared, and he drove many many groups of people out of town, but the group of business men with whom he  travelled were fiercely loyal

Was he hated by any of the public? 

If Ed Ball was as powerful as the history books say he was, I'm starting to see why Jacksonville's local government was so weak.  A strong local government would have gotten in the way of his agenda.  The local businessmen who were loyal to him wouldn't have liked that either.  He was their personal piggy bank.  A private man, not the government, was giving them money.  If it was the government that was giving them money, it was a government they controlled. 

For all the reverence this city has given him, he wasn't really a self-made millionaire.  It would be like if Bill Gates died and gave all his money to one of Jacksonville's highly controversial city council members (pick one, there's quite a few).  Someone who was just smart enough to not waste it but not great enough to make it on his own.  Not only that but this was a time when other places were growing.  If you had artistic talent, what would you do?  Fight Ed Ball and be miserable or move to California's growing creative industry and be welcomed with open arms?

Ed Ball is a major piece to the puzzle but with him comes another question.  Who were the ones willing to do his bidding? 

To add to that, what happened to the city when Ed Ball retired from power?  Logic suggests that the people who stayed behind would be desperate to find an Ed Ball replacement.

I actually met and talked with him along with Winn Thornton, when the two of them were Chairman and President respectively of the Florida East Coast Railway. Ball struck me as a modern day maverick or perhaps the last of the great robber barons of Americana.

'Confusion to the enemy...'

The title of the biography of Ed Ball is taken, we are told by the authors, from a toast that Mr. Ball would propose "each night," and we are further assured that although it was directed to an un-named enemy, it meant anyone that opposed Ed Ball.

Have you seen the well-to-do, Up and down Park Avenue, On that famous thoroughfare, With their noses in the air, High hats, and arrow collars, White spats, and lots of dollars, Spending every dime, For a wonderful time.

If you're blue and you don't know
where to go to why don't you go
where fashion sits
Puttin' on the Ritz
Different types who wear a day
coat pants with stripes and cutaway
coat perfect fits
Puttin' on the Ritz
Dressed up like a million-dollar trooper
Tryin' hard to look like Gary Cooper (super duper)
Come let's mix where Rockefellers
walk with sticks or um-ber-ellas
in their mitts
Puttin' on the Ritz

Such was Jacksonville's Ed Ball.

OCKLAWAHA

Quote from: simms3 on June 12, 2012, 03:02:55 PM
In my opinion the best planning in NE FL takes place at UNF.  I suggest going over its master plans and seeing what they have done over the decades to get to where they are.

I agree -- UNF has been growing and could be a huge shaper of Jacksonville in the future. I visited Richmond, VA recently and noticed that VCU has swallowed downtown Richmond the same way that NYU has swallowed Grenwich Village. It made me think that UNF could do the same thing here. They already acquired the MOCA and I've already seen UNF art students walking and biking around downtown. Can you imagine a downtown campus that reused old buildings for classes, offices, and student housing?

We are missing that university-government-industry synergy that Silicon Valley, Washington D.C., and Wall Street have; the kind of vortex that sucks in money and talented people.

Quote from: stephendare on June 14, 2012, 10:44:04 PM
When he died, few mourned him, and no one wanted a replacement.

When was the building downtown named after him (Ed Ball)?  The one that currently serves as the City Hall Annex?

Jacksonville had plenty of powerful leaders during the time Ed Ball was active. Haydon Burns, Hans Tanzler, Jake Godbold; Ed Austin investigated Ball's DuPont trust when he was state attorney, and eventually won. That's a story in and of itself.

Quote from: BrooklynSouth on June 14, 2012, 11:44:41 PM

Quote from: simms3 on June 12, 2012, 03:02:55 PM
In my opinion the best planning in NE FL takes place at UNF.  I suggest going over its master plans and seeing what they have done over the decades to get to where they are.

I agree -- UNF has been growing and could be a huge shaper of Jacksonville in the future. I visited Richmond, VA recently and noticed that VCU has swallowed downtown Richmond the same way that NYU has swallowed Grenwich Village. It made me think that UNF could do the same thing here. They already acquired the MOCA and I've already seen UNF art students walking and biking around downtown. Can you imagine a downtown campus that reused old buildings for classes, offices, and student housing?

We are missing that university-government-industry synergy that Silicon Valley, Washington D.C., and Wall Street have; the kind of vortex that sucks in money and talented people.

I agree. Unfortunately higher education in Florida is pretty lacking in diversity. There are bright spots and I really believe UNF is one of them.

Quote from: stephendare on June 14, 2012, 10:44:04 PM

Quote from: cityimrov on June 14, 2012, 07:55:31 PM

Quote from: stephendare on June 14, 2012, 07:31:14 PM

Quote from: cityimrov on June 14, 2012, 07:28:39 PM
I need to know something.  Was Ed Ball feared or was loved by the general public?

Both actually.  He was widely feared, and he drove many many groups of people out of town, but the group of business men with whom he  travelled were fiercely loyal

Was he hated by any of the public? 

If Ed Ball was as powerful as the history books say he was, I'm starting to see why Jacksonville's local government was so weak.  A strong local government would have gotten in the way of his agenda.  The local businessmen who were loyal to him wouldn't have liked that either.  He was their personal piggy bank.  A private man, not the government, was giving them money.  If it was the government that was giving them money, it was a government they controlled. 

For all the reverence this city has given him, he wasn't really a self-made millionaire.  It would be like if Bill Gates died and gave all his money to one of Jacksonville's highly controversial city council members (pick one, there's quite a few).  Someone who was just smart enough to not waste it but not great enough to make it on his own.  Not only that but this was a time when other places were growing.  If you had artistic talent, what would you do?  Fight Ed Ball and be miserable or move to California's growing creative industry and be welcomed with open arms?

Ed Ball is a major piece to the puzzle but with him comes another question.  Who were the ones willing to do his bidding? 

To add to that, what happened to the city when Ed Ball retired from power?  Logic suggests that the people who stayed behind would be desperate to find an Ed Ball replacement.

It's kind of a tricky anomaly.  He was a once off.  The DuPont fortune was literally vast, and it was sufficiently well placed that it made him nearly all powerful.  Luckily for all of us, DuPont never trusted Ball, and so Ball never inherited the money, when he died, by a provision in DuPonts will the bulk of the fortune was given outright to the memoirs children's hospital.  Ball never really did it for the money anyways.  He was solely in it for the power, by all accounts.

When he died, few mourned him, and no one wanted a replacement.

Wasn't Ball in charge of those funds to Nemours?  Didn't he get to pick where to invest that money at?  I think one of those articles mentioned Delaware sued the Fund due to misappropriation.  The articles seem to infer that Ball used the Fund to gain power. 

When Ball died, the entire system that he had control over still existed.  How fast was it disassembled?

^Yes, that's what I was alluding to. After Alfred duPont's death Ball and several other trustees controlled the DuPont trust, which they used to start the St. Joe Company. In the early 70s, following the death of Jessie Ball duPont, Ball's sister and Alfred duPont's wife, the DuPont assets were supposed to go help children.

However, Ball and co. shirked a state law that said 3% minimum of the dividends must make it to the charity. For over ten years the trustees payed only a fraction of a percent, keeping the rest. They were literally stealing money from crippled children.

And they would've gotten away with it too, if not for some meddling state attorneys. Two attorneys general (Robert Shevin, and then Jim Smith) and Ed Austin, then Jacksonville state attorney, investigated the trust to make them pay up. Finally in 1980 they agreed to cough up the 3%. Ultimately this led to the creation of the Jacksonville Nemours Children's Hospital.

Quote from: stephendare on June 15, 2012, 04:05:46 PM
Nominally.  What he did was he parlayed an unclear estate instruction into a lifetime control of the money.  Had he died earlier the money would have reverted over to the foundation.

The empire slowly disassembled and each of the entities found their own voices.

Was this an orderly breakup or did it produce a gigantic mess?

Quote
Of course the st loe's paper company continued his racist policies for a good while and featured a floor of all black employees until fairly recently

http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/st-joe-paper-company-history/
Is this a charity or a hidden corporation?   

Quote from: Tacachale on June 15, 2012, 04:26:49 PM
^Yes, that's what I was alluding to. After Alfred duPont's death Ball and several other trustees controlled the DuPont trust, which they used to start the St. Joe Company. In the early 70s, following the death of Jessie Ball duPont, Ball's sister and Alfred duPont's wife, the DuPont assets were supposed to go help children.

However, Ball and co. shirked a state law that said 3% minimum of the dividends must make it to the charity. For over ten years the trustees payed only a fraction of a percent, keeping the rest. They were literally stealing money from crippled children.

And they would've gotten away with it too, if not for some meddling state attorneys. Two attorneys general (Robert Shevin, and then Jim Smith) and Ed Austin, then Jacksonville state attorney, investigated the trust to make them pay up. Finally in 1980 they agreed to cough up the 3%. Ultimately this led to the creation of the Jacksonville Nemours Children's Hospital.

1980?  That's too late.  By that time, the rest of the world are starting to pass by Jacksonville or the seeds they planted early on are beginning to sprout. 

Was there any major private force at the time who was in Jacksonville but wasn't close to Ball?   

Whatever Ball was, Jacksonville had stumbled badly long before his empire came into being then continued the errors.

The original question was how did the city get so backward? WTF happened? Who was responsible... or irresponsible as the case may be. Laying this on Ed Ball might be correct in some sense but it's a WAY over simplification of the compound errors made by our city's mis-leaders.

Today we have a new leader at city hall, one swept in by a deep desire for CHANGE. But as we roll past the second year and into the third, it's starting to appear that absolutely NOTHING is being done. Again we have sputtered and stalled on some apparently insurmountable mountain.




Driving away the film industry in the 1920's was suicidal. The worlds greatest PR machine in our pocket and we spat it out due to a pissing contest over filming without permits... 

Another stupid stunt was shredding our large fixed rail transit system in exchange for empty promises and well publicized bribes.

Letting National Airlines escape to 'greener pastures' in Miami, at a time when we could have been 'MIA' may have been an act of conceited laziness.

Shooting ourselves in the ass with the Disney/Busch Garden's courtship may have been our single greatest opportunity and undoubtedly most notable failure. And the blame for this colossal blunder does indeed land at Ed Ball's tombstone.

Failure of the then Duval County government to restore the boardwalk, midway and theme park rides at Jacksonville Beach after hurricane Donna, took us from the last vestiges of 'The Queen of the Winter Resorts' to 'Ho Hum' decay.

Carving up our urban neighborhoods in order to be, temporarily at least, the city with the most FREEway lanes per capita in the USA, has come back to bite us in the butt.

Trashing a colorful, albeit somewhat decayed and rotting waterfront and converting it into parking spaces for automobiles has to rank as one of the all time stupid urban decisions. Why would ANY CITY take it's most picturesque and valuable real estate and turn it into a parking lot... Hum, the Parador project anyone? Duh!

Bridging our ports main channel with high tension power lines and a multimillion dollar bridge, BOTH TOO LOW, was just plain stupid and a major job killer. Likewise the Shand's bridge in Green Cove Springs, cost Palatka a shipyard and it's sundry jobs was equally scandalous, while not our fault, we certainly could have made a difference.

Selling our soul for 'Off Shore Nuke Plant's' was another fantasyland adventure that ended up holding up development of the port for a decade or more.

Building a nationally renowned urban monorail, but failing to follow the recommended starter route (Shand's-Hogan-Bay-Old Courthouse/City Hall) or finishing a single route left us with a national disgrace. A Skyway that runs from nowhere to nothing and doesn't pass through a damn thing in the process was a badly flawed scheme from the get go, but we managed to amplify the insanity.

Allowing Amtrak to withdraw to the distant burb's leaving us with the largest EMPTY railroad station south of Washington DC, has to rank is a shazam moment. The empty train station was almost as bad as an incredibly dysfunctional convention center named for 'Prime Osborn,' an important railroad official, more appropriately, it should have been named for 'Forrest Gump.'

Thinking we can 'improve' the transit assets by returning to the post-streetcar era and build a system of 'new and improved' buses isn't going to gain any traction either.

No folks, Jacksonville with all of the natural assets of a veritable 'Garden of Eden,' has not only chosen 'stupid' as our Modus operandi we've excelled in it, expanding the horizons of what it means to be clinically brain dead.

OCKLAWAHA

Quote from: stephendare on June 15, 2012, 11:04:38 PM
In intensely studying the era, I don't think it is an oversimplification at all to credit Ball with the lions share of the responsibility with what went wrong in Jacksonville.

He destroyed the old growth forests, drained the aquifer, launched wars against his own unions, promoted outright bigotry against women, gay people and African Americans, drove the liberals and intellectuals out of town, persecuted anyone different from him, stole money meant for crippled children, and used his vast wealth to promote his credo of greed and hatred.

Ed Ball was the Sith LOrd of Jacksonville.

"Ed Ball was the Sith LOrd of Jacksonville." He isn't the only one?

Quote from: stephendare on June 15, 2012, 11:04:38 PM
In intensely studying the era, I don't think it is an oversimplification at all to credit Ball with the lions share of the responsibility with what went wrong in Jacksonville.

He destroyed the old growth forests, drained the aquifer, launched wars against his own unions, promoted outright bigotry against women, gay people and African Americans, drove the liberals and intellectuals out of town, persecuted anyone different from him, stole money meant for crippled children, and used his vast wealth to promote his credo of greed and hatred.

Ed Ball was the Sith LOrd of Jacksonville.

In a way, it was DuPoint that empowered Ball to do all this.  I can really only see two lessons to learn from this.  First one is if your rich and wealthy, make sure you know exactly what will happen to that wealth after you die.  There will be people out there more than willing to use it for their own agenda. 

The second one is harder.  The community as a whole needs to learn to not sell it's soul for money.  The community itself could have taken a strong chance and said NO to building a paper plant.  It could have said NO to the disasters Ock pointed out but it didn't.  Of course, it's hard to say NO when your in the middle of the Great Depression but if it did, Jacksonville could have excelled at being one of the most environmentally friendly cities in the planet. 

Imagine, if the community in Jacksonville held large scale protests against building the paper plant.  Imagine if every politician it elected received thousands of letters every day from concerned citizens, who, while poor, choose to wait out instead of accepting the immediate jobs a paper plant would have produced.  The power that Ball had would have dissipated no matter how much money he had.  Think of cities like San Francisco and what things they gave up to get where they are today.  I might be wrong in this but it looks like the community sold it's soul for short term money at the tremendous cost of long term gains.

^Sadly, I believe that attitude overwhelmingly exists today.  I see it regularly on an individual level.  People are willing to do what they know is wrong for the community for personal financial gain.

Quote from: stephendare on June 15, 2012, 10:56:57 PM
Ock all of the early stuff you mentioned was Ball led, including the film industry hostility.  In fact it was railroad politics that led to  Ball lighting a gas bomb in the general direction of the film studios.

Stephen Lynch, the business partner of D W Griffith made a damned serious attempt to wrest away the control of the FEC away from Ball.  He lost, naturally, and that was when Ball turned his antipathies toward 'carny folk'.

Maybe so Stephen, but it was John W. Martin, who was elected mayor (Democrat) in 1917, on the campaign promise of cleaning out the film industry. At that time Ed Ball was 29 years old, fact is he didn't start working for his brother-in-law until 1923, and that job was in Delaware.

When the DuPont's, Jessie and Alfred moved to Florida in 1926, the film industry was already trashed and a franchise 'war' was already raging between the Jacksonville Traction Company (streetcars) and the city. The streetcar franchise likewise, already trashed, when the company sold to 'Motor Transit Company,' which was a part of 'National City Lines,' part of General Motors, Firestone, Standard Oil, Phillips Petroleum, Twin-Coach, Greyhound and Mack. They didn't need a young Ed Ball to show them how to kill the urban railways. The die was cast for the streetcars to be exterminated by 1936. Ball didn't become the 'acting' trustee of the family fortune until 1935, by which time the streetcars were a done deal.

Ball might have been involved in the 'mopping up' operation's of these fiasco's but the real damage was done before he arrived on the stage.

My point being that with, or without Ed Ball, the City of Jacksonville has shown itself quite capable of completely screwing the pooch at any given opportunity. This city has a track record of making bad decisions not seen since the days of Isis and Osiris and the Pharaoh Memeptah...

OCKLAWAHA

^^^That's interesting.  I was always under the impression the track record started in the late 40s, but was totally unaware that we had a track record the entire time.

Recently I listened to a pitch by a historian speaking at our office on the need to vote yes on a transportation referendum this summer, and he equated this moment with the Olympics, and other various major milestones (he's not the only one).  His take on the history of Atlanta is an interesting one.  There SHOULD NOT be a city here, let alone a 5 million person one.  The soil is bad, there's no water, and it's in a hard to reach place.  3 entities worked to extend railroads from Savannah to Chattanooga in the 1850s, and somehow a city formed, and ever since the city has exceeded itself (Civil Rights, federal air mail route to Delta hub, MARTA, Olympics, etc etc).  The details are a lot more interesting.

I feel like in Jacksonville's case there was always so much more potential.  There should be a 5 million person city where Jacksonville is given the resources and location and history.  Unfortunately the city didn't take on any opportunities, but squashed every single last one of them.  Sad.

Jacksonville should be the seat of the state government when you think about it.
It should be the hub of the film industry.
It should have a thriving tourism industry.
It should have a massive port to the tune of Long Beach, Houston, NY/NJ, Norfolk or Savannah.
It should have Busch Gardens.
It should have a much larger naval base.
It should have a much more developed Jax Beach that resembles South Beach with a NE FL flair.
Jax should be a banking and insurance hub, still.
Mayo Clinic should have its largest operations here.

Tons of shoulds.

During the Great Depression the duPont trust bought a majority ownership of the bankrupt FEC Railway, the company had been incredibly unprofitable since the death of Flagler and the artificial injections of cash he lavished on it.  The FEC Railway's bonds were held by a group of people led by one S. A. Lynch, Lynch was financially tied to the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, (part of today's CSX) and they had their own 'designs' on reorganization of the FEC. The ACL RR had been stopped by the lack of venture capital from entering Miami over a joint FEC - ACL route around the south end of Lake Okeechobee. This forced all of ACL's Miami bound traffic to divert over the FEC from Jacksonville southward. Had Ball not stuck his foot in the door and prevented the Lynch group from taking charge, today we'd spell 'FEC.' with the letters 'C - S - X.'

Because FEC RY remained independent, freight from the midwest coming down the Norfolk Southern Railway interchanges at Jacksonville for points south along the east coast. This means that Jacksonville is one of the few railroad gateway cities, with active interchange yards on a map where hundreds of other gateways have closed.

I'm sure Ball didn't do this to 'help' Jacksonville, but in the long term, what he did saved the railway and our status as a railroad gateway.

Quote from: Ocklawaha on June 15, 2012, 09:48:41 PM

Shooting ourselves in the ass with the Disney/Busch Garden's courtship may have been our single greatest opportunity and undoubtedly most notable failure. And the blame for this colossal blunder does indeed land at Ed Ball's tombstone.

Other than the fact that it didn't happen, you may be on to something.

Quote from: stephendare on June 17, 2012, 11:08:11 AM

Quote from: Tacachale on June 17, 2012, 10:59:56 AM

Quote from: Ocklawaha on June 15, 2012, 09:48:41 PM

Shooting ourselves in the ass with the Disney/Busch Garden's courtship may have been our single greatest opportunity and undoubtedly most notable failure. And the blame for this colossal blunder does indeed land at Ed Ball's tombstone.

Other than the fact that it didn't happen, you may be on to something.

Past.  Neither did the San Francisco Earthquake.......

In contrast, there's plenty of evidence that the San Francisco Earthquake happened.

Was this true?  How popular was this argument?

Quote"THE SMELL OF MONEY" -- Until the late 1980s, Jacksonville was ridiculed as "The City that Stinks."  But we're not going to complain, retorted some of the River City's residents, "It's the smell of money."

Airborne odors had long plagued Jacksonville.  On windy days, the city made its presence known up to thirty miles away.  Various factories, particularly the paper processing plants, emitted odors that provoked these types of comparisons: "burnt milk," "cooked cabbage," "rotten eggs," and just plain "fishy." One native Jacksonville resident recalled the stench as being like "rotten baked potatoes with tabasco sauce."

The River City reeked like a foul kitchen.  In 1988, Mayor Tommy Hazouri announced that he wouldn't accept the "smell of money" argument.  Local government began to put teeth into stench fighting ordinances.  Over time, these laws have freshened up the situation considerably.  In addition, Jacksonville proved one of the first cities to establish a patrol unit specifically for odor pollution.  The "odor police" tested air at various locations.

http://www.jaxhistory.com/Jacksonville%20Story/Picture%20of%20Black%20Smoke.htm

If the city, a large city no less, was willing to accept this until 1988, it's no wonder why Jax keeps going after bottom feeder industries today.  It's the status quo. 

Quote from: cityimrov on June 17, 2012, 02:00:40 PM
Was this true?  How popular was this argument?

Quote"THE SMELL OF MONEY" -- Until the late 1980s, Jacksonville was ridiculed as "The City that Stinks."  But we're not going to complain, retorted some of the River City's residents, "It's the smell of money."

Airborne odors had long plagued Jacksonville.  On windy days, the city made its presence known up to thirty miles away.  Various factories, particularly the paper processing plants, emitted odors that provoked these types of comparisons: "burnt milk," "cooked cabbage," "rotten eggs," and just plain "fishy." One native Jacksonville resident recalled the stench as being like "rotten baked potatoes with tabasco sauce."

The River City reeked like a foul kitchen.  In 1988, Mayor Tommy Hazouri announced that he wouldn't accept the "smell of money" argument.  Local government began to put teeth into stench fighting ordinances.  Over time, these laws have freshened up the situation considerably.  In addition, Jacksonville proved one of the first cities to establish a patrol unit specifically for odor pollution.  The "odor police" tested air at various locations.

http://www.jaxhistory.com/Jacksonville%20Story/Picture%20of%20Black%20Smoke.htm

If the city, a major city no less, was willing to keep this until 1988, it's no wonder why Jax keeps going after bottom feeder industries.

I remember sitting in class in the 6th grade at Susie Tolbert 6th grade center (on W 13th street) and almost vomiting because the smell was so bad. It was making me gag and there was no way to get away from it. We didn't have AC and had to have the windows open in the spring and summer. That was in '83. My first couple of years at Stanton were bad, too - we didn't get AC there until I was in 9th grade and it was more of the same.

Quote from: Adam W on June 17, 2012, 02:10:27 PM
I remember sitting in class in the 6th grade at Susie Tolbert 6th grade center (on W 13th street) and almost vomiting because the smell was so bad. It was making me gag and there was no way to get away from it. We didn't have AC and had to have the windows open in the spring and summer. That was in '83. My first couple of years at Stanton were bad, too - we didn't get AC there until I was in 9th grade and it was more of the same.

1988, 1988!  I almost can't believe what I'm reading.  Yes, the city got it's money but at the cost of everything else.  Look at what was happening to the rest of the county from 1930 to 1988!! 

There's no way any smart, creative, well doing person would stay in a place that would make them gag.  They would be more worried about breathing than creating new things.  How did Jacksonville get Mayo Clinic to come here?  If I was a researcher and smelled this stench, I would be looking for fights to the other cities immediately! 

Quote from: stephendare on June 17, 2012, 03:00:51 PM

Quote from: cityimrov on June 17, 2012, 02:00:40 PM
Was this true?  How popular was this argument?

Quote"THE SMELL OF MONEY" -- Until the late 1980s, Jacksonville was ridiculed as "The City that Stinks."  But we're not going to complain, retorted some of the River City's residents, "It's the smell of money."

Airborne odors had long plagued Jacksonville.  On windy days, the city made its presence known up to thirty miles away.  Various factories, particularly the paper processing plants, emitted odors that provoked these types of comparisons: "burnt milk," "cooked cabbage," "rotten eggs," and just plain "fishy." One native Jacksonville resident recalled the stench as being like "rotten baked potatoes with tabasco sauce."

The River City reeked like a foul kitchen.  In 1988, Mayor Tommy Hazouri announced that he wouldn't accept the "smell of money" argument.  Local government began to put teeth into stench fighting ordinances.  Over time, these laws have freshened up the situation considerably.  In addition, Jacksonville proved one of the first cities to establish a patrol unit specifically for odor pollution.  The "odor police" tested air at various locations.

http://www.jaxhistory.com/Jacksonville%20Story/Picture%20of%20Black%20Smoke.htm

If the city, a large city no less, was willing to accept this until 1988, it's no wonder why Jax keeps going after bottom feeder industries today.  It's the status quo.

Who owned the paper company?

Darth Ball.

Ball, of course, had a big hand it.  What I don't get is why didn't the general public do anything about it. 

Before 1950s: I could have accepted the Great Depression excuse.  It was a mistake but an understandable one. 
1950s: General Protests from the Public
1960s: Large Scale Protests
1970s: Pitchforks, Torches, and Bulldozers ready to tear down the place down!

That's what any sane city would have done.  Instead, it took Jacksonville until it was almost 1990 to do anything about it.  What was the general public doing at the time?   

Disney and Bush Gardens were lucky they didn't build in Jacksonville.  It would have been a disaster for Florida's theme park industry if they built here. 

Quote from: stephendare on June 17, 2012, 12:14:21 PM
John Martin promised to fight the film industry just as Hayden Burns promised to fight corruption and restore proper bus service.  I know exactly what the Wikipedia listing says as well as you do, and it is sadly in need of massive corrections.

It is based on the presumptions of several extremely mistaken local historians, for example.

No doubt Stephen, we've proved that with the 'Cowford' and 'Harlem' myths. Martin and Burns might not have been villains or idiots, based on the times they lived in anymore then such notable figures as Andrew Jackson or Robert E. Lee. In the end however, both did irreparable harm to the city in the name of 'progress.'

As for Wikipedia, I don't trust it any more then you do, but any newbies reading this should know we're on the same team.

QuoteRemember that John Martin (who campaigned in 1917 but did not take office until 1918, the Year that world war one ended, and the military ship building industry took off.

The men coming home from that war were traumatized and celebrated in their hometown-----a subject not nearly discussed enough considering  the lovely monument in memorial park.

Funny that we're having this discussion now, June 21, 1884, was John Martin's birthday. John Martin was a Jacksonville lawyer beginning in 1914 and was elected Mayor of Jacksonville in 1917. He was Mayor until 1923. He went on to become Governor of Florida and a United States Senator. For whatever it's worth, Martin was just 4 years older then ED Ball.

Note to ourselves, WHY don't we have a genuine Spanish American War museum, memorial and national historic site?

QuoteThis is two years after Jacksonville's mayor during the great fire won a resounding re election on the campaign promise to re legalize and re open the bordellos of Ward Street ---- a promise which he kept, and which lasted until prostitution was criminalizes again many years later in 1953.

Duncan Fletcher was our mayor from 1901-03, the great fire was May 3, 1901, meaning that J.E.T. Bowden was still in office when the fire devastated the city in 1901, Bowden was then reelected in 1915-17, serving until Martin took office.



Thankfully, Ball won the fight with the bond holders, had Lynch prevailed the Atlantic Coast Line trains would have ran straight through Jacksonville barely slowing through the old Terminal or the south side. Bowden Yard, Moncrief Yard, and most of Simpson Yard and the old West Jax Yard would have been small scale operations. Virtually no transfer trains would be stretching themselves over that bridge downtown and holding up traffic in San Marco, the trains would have originated in distant Rocky Mount, Hamlet or Waycross and Jacksonville's role would have been small potatoes. The CSX octopus would have swallowed it all and had an ABSOLUTE MONOPOLY on railroading in Florida.

Quote from: cityimrov on June 17, 2012, 04:44:49 PM
Disney and Bush Gardens were lucky they didn't build in Jacksonville.  It would have been a disaster for Florida's theme park industry if they built here.

Not really, had the crew from California really invaded Jacksonville rather then Orlando and started throwing money into the city like they have down there, ED Ball, nor any combination of paint or toilet paper could have deterred them from their task. Jacksonville would have liberalized and sent the old school NIMBY'S up the river toward some little citrus town like 'Orlando' or maybe a cattle trading outpost like 'Kissimmee.' Disney and Busch would have rewritten the ENTIRE history of this city almost from the time their first plane landed.

But before everyone throws up their hands in despair, consider that not everyone wants to live with the mouse, and that the mouse himself is actually a rat! Jacksonville-Fernandina-St.Augustine form a historic triangle every bit as significant in world affairs as the conquistador's, the nation's and the navies that fought over it. With more state and national parks and monuments within a 45 minute drive from downtown then any other city in the United States, we must seem to many, not unlike the poor tribal people in Africa, walking barefoot over diamonds. It just doesn't have to be the way it is...



OCKLAWAHA

Who are these Nifty Fifty?

When I first read about the offshore nuclear power plant, it sounded like a good idea.  The offshore power part, not the nuclear part.  That was until I thought about it more and realized none of the guys who invested in it had a clue on how to pull it off correctly.  This looked like a disaster from the get go.   The guys who had a small chance to pull it off probably left Jax ages ago!

It also shows how Jacksonville blew its chance in becoming a major oil platform supplier.   

So basically, the general public was kept in line with smoke and mirrors?  Basically, they promised them good things will happen if all they just kept in line and live with this stench? 

Also, what was National Airlines?  What did they do in Jacksonville? 

This thread has surprised me.  Things have taken so many twists and turns.

Quite a few are still around, btw.  At least one family is still involved in a piece of business involving oil refineries that is a relic from that era.  I believe the head of this family, as well as a few other Fifty are now in the Civic Council.

Now back to my earlier point...how does a city like Atlanta, with bad soil, no water, difficult geography, and basically everything working against it, turn into the most thriving metropolis in the South and a city like Jacksonville, with waterways, hundreds of years of history, access to tons of resources, and an excellent location on the Eastern Seaboard (virtually protected from hurricanes, too) fall behind nearly all of its peers?

That to me is an interesting question.

god Sims what a great question indeed!  Corruption, Stupidity, Then What?

Quote from: simms3 on June 17, 2012, 07:39:41 PM
Quite a few are still around, btw.  At least one family is still involved in a piece of business involving oil refineries that is a relic from that era.  I believe the head of this family, as well as a few other Fifty are now in the Civic Council.

Now back to my earlier point...how does a city like Atlanta, with bad soil, no water, difficult geography, and basically everything working against it, turn into the most thriving metropolis in the South and a city like Jacksonville, with waterways, hundreds of years of history, access to tons of resources, and an excellent location on the Eastern Seaboard (virtually protected from hurricanes, too) fall behind nearly all of its peers?

That to me is an interesting question.

It's hard to say without diving deep into Atlanta's history.  Anyone up for some reading?

It's pretty obvious the makeup of the people was an asset to Atlanta.

Here's are some interesting notes from the History of Atlanta Wikipedia page.

QuoteIn 1914, Asa Griggs Candler, the founder of The Coca-Cola Company and brother to former Emory President Warren Candler, persuaded the Methodist Episcopal Church South to build the new campus of Emory University in the emerging affluent suburb of Druid Hills, which borders northeastern Atlanta.

Here's another point of interest:

QuoteIn the 1930s, the Great Depression hit Atlanta. With the city government nearing bankruptcy, the Coca-Cola Company had to help bail out the city's deficit.

This is interesting too www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_freeway_revolts  Did Jacksonville ever have a freeway revolt?  Do areas which have a history of freeway revolts build better mass transit lines?

Quote from: simms3 on June 17, 2012, 07:39:41 PM
...a city like Jacksonville, with waterways, hundreds of years of history, access to tons of resources, and an excellent location on the Eastern Seaboard (virtually protected from hurricanes)...

WE ARE NOT IMMUNE!

HURRICANES:

Sorry Simms3, but I've got to jump in on this as many of our readers might not realize that the 'hurricane resistant' nature of Jacksonville is a myth. In fact Jacksonville isn't immune to Hurricanes, Tornadoes or Earthquakes, and we have a history with all of them. Look at this record and think about the weather set-up we are seeing this year as tropical waves one after another roll across from the Gulf or the Atlantic. Like any coastal location on the east coast, gulf coast or lower west coast, we are sitting ducks if one takes aim and the steering currents are right.

"There is a 1.9% probability of a major hurricane (111 mph or greater) passing within 75 miles of Jacksonville. That means in 100 years Jacksonville could see 2 major hurricanes. This is one of the lowest probabilities of any major coastal city in Florida. Compare this with 11.1% for Miami and 5.3% for Cape Hatteras, N.C. While Florida has a high occurrence of hurricanes, northeast Florida does not." So says the hurricane experts Jack Williams and Dr. Bob Sheets, so roll the dice if you care to and compare their statements to the historical records and ask yourself, 'Do you feel lucky?'

1890â€"1899

June 16, 1893 â€" Saint Marks is struck by a tropical storm. Moderate winds and rainfall occurs throughout the northeastern portion of the state,[58] including a total of 1.51 inches in Jacksonville.

August 27, 1893 â€" The Sea Islands Hurricane parallels the eastern coastline as a major hurricane, producing winds in excess of 75 mph (120 km/h) near the coast. The winds destroy nine cottages in Mayport.

October 12, 1893 â€" A major hurricane parallels the coastline about 60 miles (95 km) offshore. The storm tide was high enough that at low tide, it was at the position of the normal high tide mark. The tide caused street flooding in Saint Augustine, with heavy damage reported in Mayport.

September 25, 1894 â€" A hurricane makes landfall near Fort Myers. In Tampa, rainfall reached 13.78 inches (350 mm), causing coastal flooding in areas. Heavy damage was reported in several cities in northeastern Florida.

October 2, 1898 â€" A Category 4 hurricane hits southern Georgia, causing severe damage in the extreme northeastern portion of the state. A storm surge of 12 feet floods and damages several buildings along the Fernandina waterfront. A conservative estimate for total damage in the state is $500,000 (1898 USD, $13 million 2008 USD).

August 13, 1899 â€" The San Ciriaco Hurricane parallels the eastern coastline, producing moderate winds and light damage.

October 5, 1899 â€" A tropical storm hits near Tampa and sinks a schooner off Fernandina Beach.

October 30, 1899 â€" A hurricane parallels the eastern Florida coastline, with several locations near the coast recording strong winds in association with the storm. No cases of serious damage are reported.
[edit]Monthly statistics



EARTHQUAKES:

Let's look at the most active period which spanned from the early 1700's into the mid 1900's, things have been ominously still for several decades... While detractors will howl "Your crazy Ock!" this is ALL HISTORICAL FACT. Next time you feel the ground move under your feet it might not be the rumble of a passing train. And as-if we can't think of enough possible freak things that could happen, the St. Augustine quake reports spoke of geysers of sand and water sprouting from the ground. This is a phenomenon known as liquefaction and it is exactly the activity that suddenly sunk Port Royal, Jamaica.

At 11.42am on June 7 1692, a windless humid day, this riotous life ended abruptly. An earthquake and tidal wave swept two thirds of the city into the sea, killing 2,000 people.

Today, the first sight you see in Port Royal is the neat white church of St Peter which replaced the original destroyed in the earthquake. The inscription on the tomb of Lewis Galdy, a French Huguenot who settled in Jamaica, relates an astonishing tale of survival: "He was swallowed up in the great earthquake . . . and by the providence of God was by another shock thrown into the sea and miraculously saved by swimming until a boat took him up." Galdy lived to the age of 80, apparently leading a much reformed life in thanks for his salvation.

1727 October 12. "Severe" tremors were reported and mentioned by Campbell (1943) and Lane (1976). However, the original record of these quakes has been lost. A severe shock was reported in New England on this date at 10:40. Reports of another shock came from Martinique on the same day. The relationship of either of these to the St. Augustine tremor was not established.

1780 February 6. A mild tremor was reported from Pensacola on this date (Lane, 1976). No damage was reported.

1781 May 8. A severe earthquake was reported at a military installation near Pensacola. While no fatalities were reported, shocks tore ammunition racks from barracks walls and leveled a house in the area (Lane, 1976).

1842 May 7. This tremor was felt from Florida to Louisiana. It may have been associated with a severe earthquake that struck Santo Domingo at about the same time. Sources report the disappearance of some Florida lakes on the day of this earthquake (Niles National Register, 1842).

1879 January 12. Two severe shocks of about 30 sec each occurred from an area from Ft. Myers to Daytona and from Tallahassee to Jacksonville, and from all areas in between. The epicenter was located at 29°30'N, 82°00'W (U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1938). The shock was reported by hundreds of residents over a 25,000 square mile area of the Florida peninsula, and ranged from MMVIII to MMIX.

At St. Augustine, articles were thrown from shelves. In other locations, windows rattled violently and walls cracked. Rockwood (1880) indicated that the tremor progressed from the NW toward the SE between Gulf Hammock and Okahumpa. In the Tampa Bay area, Campbell (1943) states that the shock seemed to move from the SW to NE and was preceded by a rumbling sound ". . . as of a distant railroad train." MMVI was reported near Gainesville (Lane, 1976).

1886 January 8 (a). Reid (1886) reported a shock in Jacksonville with no damage or injuries.

1886 August 31 (b). There were a series of strong shocks in Charleston, South Carolina on this date. The tremors in Charleston began at 21:51. In Tampa, residents reported 2 shocks, the first at 21:51, the second at 22:00. The first appeared to move NE to SW, while the second seemed to travel SW to NE.

In St. Augustine, church bells tolled as the tremor passed, while near Tallahassee, the water in Lake Jackson disappeared. A well near Graceville began to flow (Campbell, 1943).

1886 September 1-9 (c). Many reports of shocks were from throughout the area, with most coming from Jacksonville. These tremors were probably associated with aftershocks from the Charleston, South Carolina earthquake (Reid, 1886).

1886 September 29 (e). Slight shock reported. No injuries, no damage (Reid, 1886).

1886 October 22 (f). A single tremor passed through Jacksonville causing windows and dishes to rattle. On this date, similar shocks were felt in Charleston, South Carolina, as well as in Atlanta and Augusta, Georgia (Campbell, 1943).

1893 June 20. A shock of at least 10 sec duration was felt in Jacksonville, MMIV (Reid, 1907).

1900 October 10 (Stover et al., 1979). Reid (1907) estimates the epicenter of this tremor to have been at 30°20'N, 81°40'W. It was felt at Jacksonville at 11:15 and afterward. Eight distinct shocks were reported without damage and injuries. The intensity of this tremor was MMV. A tremor was also felt in Lake City about this time.

1902 May 20-21. Residents reported hearing a noise like heavy cannon fire at a distance. The noises preceded the actual tremor by about 3 min. Tremors were slight and without damage (Reid, 1907).

1903 January 23. A shock wave of MMVI was felt in north Florida and in Savannah, Georgia. No damage (Lane, 1976).

1905 September 4. MMIII shock was accompanied by slight rumbling noises. Duration was 10 sec without damage (Reid, 1907).

1924 October 20. A tremor of intensity MMIV shook the area. Windows and doors rattled, but there was no damage (U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1924). An earthquake was felt throughout Virginia, Tennessee and South Carolina at about the same time (Bollinger, 1977).



TORNADOES:

This subject gets swept under the rug almost with the regularity that the 'Florida Earthquake Myth' crap appears. Tornadoes can KILL YOU. How many of you realize the absolute danger everyone in Arlington and St. Johns (Hastings-Spuds, south of my house) last Monday at nightfall? Two monster 'wall clouds' rolled across both locations while Stephen and I were on the way to Regency. I told Stephen that they were dangerous, and to keep an eye on them... Before the evening was over, we had tornadoes on the ground.

Back in May of 1999, I was a City Councilman in Oklahoma, when the monster tornado swarm swept across Oklahoma City and the surrounding area's. No less then one F-3 and one F-4 lifted and passed right over my house while we huddled in the storm cellar. They didn't touch a thing, but for over 40 miles to the northeast and southwest, they left twin tracks of utter destruction. After the rescue efforts in the neighboring town of Mulhall, the National Weather Service and FEMA held a symposium for information exchange in OKC that we were 'required' to attend. At that meeting we were told we would all go through the NWS tornado spotter training course. Let's just say it was a REAL eye opener.

Jacksonville has been lucky, if ranked by tornadoes per square mile, Florida LEADS all other states including 'Tornado Alley'. Granted the tornadoes are not usually as powerful here, but that isn't a rule and we certainly have recorded exceptions. In 1998, a similar swarm of tornadoes swept across Central and North Central Florida killing 42 and injuring 250, destroying 3,000 buildings.

Here is a sampling of an active decade in our area:

            
Date/State/Fujita /Deaths /Injuries/Affected Counties

1950-03-16    Florida   2   0   0    St. Johns

1951-12-18    Florida   1   0   0    Duval

1953-12-13    Florida   1   0   0    Duval

1957-06-08    Florida   2   0   0    Clay, Duval

1957-06-08    Florida   2   0   0    Duval

1957-06-08    Florida   2   0   0    Duval

1957-07-02    Florida   ?   0   0    Duval

1957-07-09    Florida   ?   0   0    Duval

1958-04-15    Florida   3   0   9    St. Johns

1958-07-25    Florida   0   0   0    Duval

1959-06-06    Florida   1   0   0    St. Johns


THE MESSAGE FOR EVERYONE ON THESE BOARDS IS, 'WE ARE NOT IMMUNE!'

Quote from: cityimrov on June 17, 2012, 09:54:43 PM
This is interesting too www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_freeway_revolts  Did Jacksonville ever have a freeway revolt?  Do areas which have a history of freeway revolts build better mass transit lines?

Freeway revolt? In the city that manufacturers most of the concrete that goes into Florida's highways? ARE YOU KIDDING! Jacksonville has never seen a rubber tire that it didn't love.

Cities with the most FREEway lane miles per 1,000 citizens:


1. Kansas City â€" 1.262
2. St Louis â€" 1.070
3. Houston â€" .822
4. Cleveland â€" .816
5. Columbus â€" .779
6. San Antonio â€" .759
7. Jacksonville â€" .745
8. Providence â€" .742
9. Pittsburgh â€" .731
10. Baltimore â€" .724
11. DFW â€" .719

But then Atlanta is far from utopian itself, hell, my great uncle Pierre Beauregard Mann was in charge of keeping Yankee's out of Atlanta during the War of Yankee Aggression... Atlanta's gone to hell since uncle Beauregard died...   ;)

WHO ARE THEY? Well they haven't changed much...

Quote
Herb Peyton has been a Trustee of the Alfred I. duPont Testamentary Trust since January 18, 1995. He also serves on the Nemours Foundation Board of Directors. Peyton was elected as a director of Florida East Coast Industries and St. Joe Company in December, 2000 and provided the benefit of his experience through 2004, when he retired from both boards

OCKLAWAHA

Quote from: simms3 on June 17, 2012, 07:39:41 PM
Quite a few are still around, btw.  At least one family is still involved in a piece of business involving oil refineries that is a relic from that era.  I believe the head of this family, as well as a few other Fifty are now in the Civic Council.

Now back to my earlier point...how does a city like Atlanta, with bad soil, no water, difficult geography, and basically everything working against it, turn into the most thriving metropolis in the South and a city like Jacksonville, with waterways, hundreds of years of history, access to tons of resources, and an excellent location on the Eastern Seaboard (virtually protected from hurricanes, too) fall behind nearly all of its peers?

That to me is an interesting question.

Simms..... you are pretty intuitive ....and make great points. And ask good questions.

Quote from: Ocklawaha on June 17, 2012, 10:49:05 PM

Quote from: simms3 on June 17, 2012, 07:39:41 PM
...a city like Jacksonville, with waterways, hundreds of years of history, access to tons of resources, and an excellent location on the Eastern Seaboard (virtually protected from hurricanes)...

WE ARE NOT IMMUNE!

HURRICANES:




THE MESSAGE FOR EVERYONE ON THESE BOARDS IS, 'WE ARE NOT IMMUNE!'

Ock...  Besides the close-enough-to-Hurricane Beryl a few weeks, ago, was Jacksonville's last direct-hit fairly sizable Hurricane, Dora in 1964?

Ock...lol.

Having lived in a very active Dixie Alley the last few years I laugh when you Floridians play the most tornadoes card.  You're right...but the largest tornado in FL history was an EF3, and those are very rare there.  Twice now in my 6 years in Atlanta I have been within 2 blocks of a tornado (living).  One in 2008 that was a strong EF2, almost EF3 that went through downtown, and one last year that was an EF1 that went just north of me (though the wind was enough to take out some windows in the building next to me...that was pretty damn scary).  Within 50-60 miles of Atl are 4 tracks from last year's outbreak between 880 yards wide and 1,056 yards wide, including a track from the same EF4 that went through Tuscaloosa and Birmingham...see pic below.  That was 880 yards wide, EF3 damage at that point along the highway.  The 1,056 yard wide track is equally blatant at about mile marker 211 if I remember on 75 (my exit is 250).

(http://i916.photobucket.com/albums/ad1/jsimms3/IMG_0322.jpg)

An exit in GA where 14 people died last year in an EF4.  I went and investigated the damage this year...too astonishing for pictures.  You can see EF2-EF3 damage from the highway, and the EF4 damage is further in.
(http://i916.photobucket.com/albums/ad1/jsimms3/IMG_6601.jpg)

Certainly we haven't generally seen the size tornadoes that occur in Oklahoma, Kansas or even Georgia. My point being that many people on the streets of Jacksonville have bought into the rumor that we don't get killer storms, and that Duval is immune to hurricanes and earthquakes. That notion is completely false and could get people killed. I met several people in the westside of town that were talking about 'Florida's tornadoes,' a lady told us, "I'm not worried, I just open the windows so it won't blow my house down." I told her that she didn't have to worry about that and that a tornado would take care of opening any windows it wants, all by itself.

This one in 1966 was an EF-4:

4/4/1966   EF-4, killed-11, injured-530   A tornado began near Clearwater, moved across North Tampa Bay, through Carrollwood, and Temple Terrace,and then headed east-northeast to Gibsonia, Loughman, Campbell City, and Merritt Island. There is strong evidence that this tornado was on the ground from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean. The greatest damage was reported from Carrollwood to Gibsonia, where numerous houses and businesses were either damaged or destroyed.

I don't know about that - I lived in Jax for 28 years and never heard anyone claim it was immune to tornadoes or earthquakes. Or tsunami, though no one mentioned those yet.

We've all seen tornadoes in Jax, maybe not massive ones, but scary ones nonetheless. As far as earthquakes go, no one anywhere is totally safe from them. But I think it's fair to say that the amount of seismic activity if Florida is relatively low compared to other parts of the Country.

People do seem to think we won't get hurricanes. And that's probably the result of the fact that we don't generally tend to get hit by hurricanes. It doesn't mean it won't happen at some point, but I think a lot of people have panicked and prepared in the past, only to have the storm miss entirely. I remember 2004, when we were sent home from work a number of times for different storms that never hit Jax (Frances being the closest call).

Anyone who thinks anywhere is immune to natural disasters is an idiot. But, aside from the widely held belief that Jax won't get hit by a hurricane, I don't think Jax residents are any different than people anywhere else.

Hurricanes and tornadoes are very real risks for Floridians. Other natural disasters are as well, but the likelihood of encountering those is lower. People can't spend their time worrying about everything that could possibly happen. They'd go mental.

We have to trust our elected officials and governments to ensure that we can effectively deal with natural disasters, should they occur.

Quote from: stephendare on June 18, 2012, 12:39:13 AM

Quote from: Ocklawaha on June 17, 2012, 11:44:32 PM
WHO ARE THEY? Well they haven't changed much...

Quote
Herb Peyton has been a Trustee of the Alfred I. duPont Testamentary Trust since January 18, 1995. He also serves on the Nemours Foundation Board of Directors. Peyton was elected as a director of Florida East Coast Industries and St. Joe Company in December, 2000 and provided the benefit of his experience through 2004, when he retired from both boards

OCKLAWAHA

Revenge certainly is a dish best served cold innit?

“'Tis more noble to forgive, and more manly to despise, than to revenge an Injury.”
Benjamin Franklin

Comparing Jacksonville and Atlanta is harder than Jacksonville and Orlando.  One major difference I can see is that whoever was in Atlanta at the time supported building a higher education institution much sooner than Jacksonville. 

Atlanta
Georgia Institute of Technology
Established 1885  Endowment of $1.438 billion
Emory University   
Established 1836  Endowment of $5.4 billion

Jacksonville
Edward Waters College
Established 1866  Endowment $1.8 million
Jacksonville University
Established 1934 Endowment $23.3 million
University of North Florida 
Established 1969  Endowment $66.4 million

Emory was founded somewhere else but Atlanta's Asa Candler did everything he could to bring it to Atlanta.  Jacksonville's first major place of higher education didn't start until 1934 and even then, it was only a two year college until 1958.  Surprisingly, Jacksonville's oldest university was created by the black community.  Unfortunately, it looks like it wasn't enthusiastically supported by the whole community.  This probably lead it to it's stagnation.

So one major reason that Atlanta became stronger than Jacksonville is that Jacksonville has a long history of not supporting higher education.  The influential people in Jacksonville at the time didn't seem to fight for a university like Asa Candler did for Emory and Atlanta.

Another point of interest is that the State of Florida wasn't enthusiastic about higher education either trying their very best to ignore it until the 1900s.  That was much longer than many other states.  With this, it looks like Florida has a very long history of underfunding it's higher education system. 

QuoteFlorida's 1868 constitution required the establishment of a state-sponsored university. The state's first attempts to establish a multi-college university were in Tallahassee, where the West Florida Seminary was located. In 1883, a charter passed which merged the West Florida Seminary and the Tallahassee College of Medicine and Surgery into the Florida University, the first such institution in the state.[9] The West Florida Seminary became the university's Literary College, containing several "schools" or departments; however its "separate Charter and special organization" were maintained.[10] The university charter also recognized three further colleges to be established at a later time: a Law College, a Theological Institute, and a Polytechnic and Normal Institute.[10]

The Florida Legislature recognized the institution in 1885 under the name "University of Florida", but it refused to supply any additional funding.[11] Without state financial support the university venture struggled, and the medical college relocated to Jacksonville later that year.[9] The Tallahassee institution never actually adopted the "university" title.[11] Florida Agricultural College attempted to revive the idea, announcing its desire to merge with the University of Florida in 1886 and 1887, however, nothing came of this at the time.[11] Then, in 1903, the legislature repealed the act designating the Tallahassee institution as the "University of Florida," and transferring the title to Florida Agricultural College.[11] This institution operated as the University of Florida until 1905, when Florida's higher education system was entirely reorganized by the Buckman Act.[12]

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Florida_Seminary

All this information came from Wikipedia so I'll you guys vet it.   

The higher education problem is a statewide issue. Our state university "system" was totally backward until its reorganization in 1905, and after that point there was wide resistance to expansion even as the state continued to grow. The private front was not any better. Schools found it difficult to find financing and maintaining enrollment, and even the larger cities rarely had more than one or two colleges.

The private colleges strongly resisted expanding public junior colleges, and later, creating new state universities. Jacksonville was no stranger to this when we were trying to establish what are now FSCJ and UNF.

Today Florida has some great institutions, but we have limited options and little diversity in specialties and campus environments. However, though I'm biased, I argue that Jax has one of the state's most dynamic and interesting universities in UNF.

Quote from: Tacachale on June 18, 2012, 04:20:44 PM
The private colleges strongly resisted expanding public junior colleges, and later, creating new state universities. Jacksonville was no stranger to this when we were trying to establish what are now FSCJ and UNF.

These private colleges were pretty small.  Even if they resisted, their small size meant their opinion shouldn't matter that much.  Is there more to this story? 

QuoteToday Florida has some great institutions, but we have limited options and little diversity in specialties and campus environments. However, though I'm biased, I argue that Jax has one of the state's most dynamic and interesting universities in UNF.

I can't call any universities in Florida great.  Some are good but none seem to be great.

Quote from: cityimrov on June 18, 2012, 05:48:19 PM

Quote from: Tacachale on June 18, 2012, 04:20:44 PM
The private colleges strongly resisted expanding public junior colleges, and later, creating new state universities. Jacksonville was no stranger to this when we were trying to establish what are now FSCJ and UNF.

These private colleges were pretty small.  Even if they resisted, their small size meant their opinion shouldn't matter that much.  Is there more to this story? 

QuoteToday Florida has some great institutions, but we have limited options and little diversity in specialties and campus environments. However, though I'm biased, I argue that Jax has one of the state's most dynamic and interesting universities in UNF.

I can't call any universities in Florida great.  Some are good but none seem to be great.

I think both the University of Florida and the University of Miami could be considered close to "great" especially when it comes to some of their constituent colleges.

UNF is easily the best school in Jacksonville. But it's not really fair to compare Jacksonville and Atlanta when it comes to universities. The cities are just so different, in different leagues.

Atlanta has at least one great university (Emory) and probably two if you count Georgia Tech. And then there's Georgia State, which is what it is - not a great school, but a state school that probably ranks higher than UNF. I have no idea how good Mercer and Oglethorpe are. But when you consider the sheer number of universities and colleges in Atlanta, it's clear that, no matter how 'great' they are, Atlanta is certainly much more of a 'college town' than Jacksonville.

But Atlanta is a lot larger and wealthier.

Quote from: cityimrov on June 18, 2012, 05:48:19 PM
I can't call any universities in Florida great.  Some are good but none seem to be great.

I heard a rumor that things are so bad in Gainesville, Tallahassee and Miami, that if you drive past one of the universities they'll throw a diploma in your car.

It's NOT TRUE, you gotta stop first.

;D

Quote from: cityimrov on June 18, 2012, 03:08:31 PM
Atlanta
Georgia Institute of Technology
Established 1885  Endowment of $1.438 billion
Emory University   
Established 1836  Endowment of $5.4 billion   

Haha I vetted it.  I helped manage Tech's Wiki page back in the day.  Tech Foundation endowments as of June 30, 2011 are at $1.627B, which is still well below the peak before the crash, but I happen to know that this year will see a large increase and by next year it may be over $2B.  Emory's figures are up to date (6-30-11) and that endowment saw a 15% increase this past year.  GA Tech also has the largest student run endowment in the US (separate from the Foundation).  It's just under $1M, so not very large hehe.

In the same time frame UF's endowment is at about $1.295B and FSU's is $0.525B, each containing tens of thousands more students than either Emory or Tech.  University of Miami, a private school with similar tuition as Emory regardless of state, has an endowment of $720M and about 2,000 more students.

In terms of rankings, both Tech and Emory are truly world class (and so are UF and FSU, but not quite to that level).  Tech has the 4th ranked graduate engineering program behind MIT, Stanford and Berkeley (ahead of Caltech), and usually trades places with those schools.  It has the 5th best undergrad program (the "lowest" ranked its been in a while).  It consistently has the #2 Biomedical Engineering program behind Johns Hopkins.

Emory has the #19 b-school in the country, and Tech comes in at 32, though as recently as 2009 Tech's was 22 while Emory's was 23.  Tech's school is also new and was just recently named the Scheller School of B 2 weeks ago thanks to a hefty contribution.  UF's b-school comes in at 42 and UGA's at 57.  University of Miami comes in at 70 and FSU's ranking wasn't published this year (though I have seen it up there before).  No school in the south makes it into top 11 in terms of Finance programs, which I think is the real meat of a b-school, though Georgia Tech is among the top 20 feeder schools for Wharton's program (1 of 3 schools in the south, the other 2 being UVA and Duke).  Tech also has the #14 Quant program in the country (all foreigners as you can imagine).

Overall law Emory is #24.  UGA is #34.  UF is #48.  FSU is #51 (maybe we'll see FSU take over one of UF's more prestigious rankings!), GA State is #58, University of Miami #69.

Emory's med school (research) is ranked 21st.  UF is #48.  University of Miami #53.  GA Health Sciences Univ in Augusta #69.  USF #75.  FSU rank not published.

Public Affairs UGA #4.  FSU #16!  GA State #23.  GA Tech #53.  UCF #59.

Computer Science GA Tech #10 (ahead of Caltech this year again I might add :)).  UF #39.  FSU #79.  UCF #91.  GA State #99.  USF #99.

Math GA Tech #30.  UF #59.  Emory #63.  FSU #76.

Physics GA Tech #30.  UF #36.  FSU #48.

Biological Sciences Emory #34.  UF #46.  UGA #46.  GA Tech #56.  University of Miami #82.  FSU #92.

Overall University rankings: Emory #20.  GA Tech #36.  University of Miami #38 (not sure how it ranks this high when it bombs its rankings otherwise).  UF #58.  UGA #62.  FSU #101.  FL Tech #164.  UCF #177.  USF #181.

And as a major job center, in addition to the 13,000 Emory students, the 20,000 Tech students, the 31,000 GA State students, the 33,000 UGA students, and the 6,000 Atlanta University Center students (3 black ivies Morehouse, Spelman and Clark), Atlanta pulls thousands of UF/FSU grads each year away from the state of FL (I'm friends with a good many :)).

On a per student basis, Spelman with an endowment of nearly $300M and only 2,355 students has a more powerful endowment than any FL school and even schools like GA Tech ($125K/student versus $80K/student at Tech and $26K/student at UF).


Anyway, long story short is that aside from Atlanta, just look at other successful cities with powerful 21st century economies and they all have major research universities at the helm and a hyper-educated population.  Having as many UF/FSU friends up here in GA as I do, I see firsthand the bleeding of talent FL is suffering from.  Not only that, the state is under-educated when compared relatively to the population.  No matter how large the schools are, there still aren't enough...especially considering grads leave for other states.


I'm interested in endowments coming from a finance background and seeing a little bit of the behind the scenes myself.  Most endowments invest anywhere from 3-10% in real estate, somehow or another, often near the school itself where some degree of control can be exercised.

BTW Florida Coastal has some pretty serious private equity backing it.  I was in the room when some people were having a conversation about the John Marshall School and FL Coastal came up...very interesting!  Totally lost opportunity for downtown Jax.

Speaking of which, GA State has invested billions of dollars in downtown Atlanta, transforming from a commuter school to a traditional university.  It has built dorms, new campus buildings, a Greek Row, rehabilitated sidewalks, and increased the vibrancy of downtown, where thousands of students now live in converted buildings.  According to Wiki its economic impact on Atl is $1.4B annually, and I don't doubt it.

Quote from: cityimrov on June 18, 2012, 05:48:19 PM

Quote from: Tacachale on June 18, 2012, 04:20:44 PM
The private colleges strongly resisted expanding public junior colleges, and later, creating new state universities. Jacksonville was no stranger to this when we were trying to establish what are now FSCJ and UNF.

These private colleges were pretty small.  Even if they resisted, their small size meant their opinion shouldn't matter that much.  Is there more to this story? 

Though the private schools were mostly small (except for Miami), they were very well connected, and for the most part were the only game in their respective towns. They argued that they were already meeting the cities' higher education demand and that another, publicly financed university would degrade their quality. And yes, there was more to the story than that. There was also the matter that Florida had very weak grade school education; some argued we should improve that first before worrying about colleges. And in Jacksonville especially, there was a conflict over where to put the school; local leaders wanted it downtown, but the state preferred a rural location (which is what they got). Still, resistance from the other schools was significant.

Quote from: cityimrov on June 18, 2012, 05:48:19 PM

Quote from: Tacachale on June 18, 2012, 04:20:44 PM
Today Florida has some great institutions, but we have limited options and little diversity in specialties and campus environments. However, though I'm biased, I argue that Jax has one of the state's most dynamic and interesting universities in UNF.

I can't call any universities in Florida great.  Some are good but none seem to be great.

"Great" means different things to different people. The University of Florida is well regarded nationally. FSU, and increasingly USF and UCF, also do a lot of research and have some terrific programs. We also have a few very strong small liberal arts colleges, like Flagler and Eckerd. And in terms of positive growth I'd rank UNF very highly. However, the best university systems like North Carolina and California aren't great simply because they have a few flagship schools that do a ton of research (though they do); they're great because they offer a wide array of schools with different specialties, focuses and environments. We simply don't have that.

Simms, you appear to put a lot of stock in those US News rankings. Those are fine as a general gauge, but they rely on subjective analysis and sometimes use incorrect and/or out-of-date data. In terms of the Florida State University System, their numbers are often so off that I have no idea where they're even getting their data from. Certainly not the state.

As far as endowments go, it's apples to oranges. Private schools almost always have higher endowments (and tuitions) than comparable public schools, for the obvious reason that they're not getting state support. In Florida, state universities receive a much higher contribution than nearly every other state, though the current government is making short work of that. In other words, the schools have a far deeper well than their endowment alone.

Quote from: simms3 on June 18, 2012, 10:39:00 PM
Anyway, long story short is that aside from Atlanta, just look at other successful cities with powerful 21st century economies and they all have major research universities at the helm and a hyper-educated population.  Having as many UF/FSU friends up here in GA as I do, I see firsthand the bleeding of talent FL is suffering from.  Not only that, the state is under-educated when compared relatively to the population.  No matter how large the schools are, there still aren't enough...especially considering grads leave for other states.

You're perception is incorrect. Georgia is actually bleeding Grads; Florida is gaining them. (http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_232.asp) In terms of Atlanta specifically, that often happens in a place with a nationally known schools; students move there from elsewhere for college, and then move on. In Florida, we are undereducated and continue to produce too few graduates per capita. We have more who are coming in from out of state.

USNWW is the gold standard, whether you agree or not and whether it's correct or not.

Also, the cities that attract the most college educated are typically big cities that have major universities and thriving diverse economies.  You can argue all you want that GA is bleeding grads (your link does not work), but I'll use my boots on the ground approach and contend that I have rarely heard of anyone leaving Atlanta for FL for work (can't speak to GA Southern or Valdosta State grads...they're closer to FL and may head down, I just don't know).  Many of my classmates, fraternity brothers and general friends from colleges closer to Atlanta have found jobs in Boston, Chicago, Richmond, Houston, Los Angeles, Charleston, Charlotte, DC and New York, and most of have stayed in Atlanta.  I know one girl who went to med school down at University of Miami afterward and she's the only one I know who went south.

Conversely, my firm has a Gator as an employee (out of the excellent building construction program down there), and her husband is also a Gator working in Atlanta.  I have several FSU friends who have moved up, including one in the past month out of the nursing program (now in the Mercer graduate nursing program).  My business network here is filled with UF grads.  Filled.  There are nearly as many UF car tags as UGA car tags in Atlanta.  It's like UGA stickers in Jacksonville (the difference being that the Gators up here actually went to UF).

Can you honestly say the same that you know a TON of Tech, Emory and UGA grads working in Jax?

Getting back to Jacksonville, my last points were regarding FL Coastal, which has been rehashed time and time again on this forum.  It was definitely a major lost opportunity for the city when they were not courted to come downtown.  Some sort of school presence downtown is needed to bring the creative class, or a class of fresh young lawyers or med students.  It could and would do wonders, but every opportunity seems to have been mishandled by the city.

Quote from: Tacachale on June 19, 2012, 10:37:17 AM
As far as endowments go, it's apples to oranges. Private schools almost always have higher endowments (and tuitions) than comparable public schools, for the obvious reason that they're not getting state support. In Florida, state universities receive a much higher contribution than nearly every other state, though the current government is making short work of that. In other words, the schools have a far deeper well than their endowment alone.

As a reminder Tech is a public school (though I think it's ~30% int'l and another 30% out of state, ~15-20% state funding).  Look at the endowments for UT, Indiana, Mich State, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Texas A&M (apparently $7B), Michigan (nearly $8B), UVA, Washington, and Wisconsin-Madison.  Both UF and FSU are 2 of the largest public universities in the country with high rankings, major programs, intense research and hefty scholarship programs.  You would think their endowments would be a tad bit larger.

Quote from: simms3 on June 19, 2012, 11:53:48 AM
USNWW is the gold standard, whether you agree or not and whether it's correct or not.

It's a nice gauge, and good for recruitment pamphlets, but its metrics are highly problematic. On top of the fact that they demonstrably use out-of-date or incorrect data, it's become pretty widespread at colleges to look at the metrics and tweak their practices to get a better ranking. Some schools just  cheat and blatantly lie about themselves. (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/17/law-schools-fudge-numbers-disregard-ethics-to-increase-their-ranking.html)

Quote from: simms3 on June 19, 2012, 11:53:48 AM
Also, the cities that attract the most college educated are typically big cities that have major universities and thriving diverse economies.  You can argue all you want that GA is bleeding grads (your link does not work), but I'll use my boots on the ground approach and contend that I have rarely heard of anyone leaving Atlanta for FL for work (can't speak to GA Southern or Valdosta State grads...they're closer to FL and may head down, I just don't know).  Many of my classmates, fraternity brothers and general friends from colleges closer to Atlanta have found jobs in Boston, Chicago, Richmond, Houston, Los Angeles, Charleston, Charlotte, DC and New York, and most of have stayed in Atlanta.  I know one girl who went to med school down at University of Miami afterward and she's the only one I know who went south.

Conversely, my firm has a Gator as an employee (out of the excellent building construction program down there), and her husband is also a Gator working in Atlanta.  I have several FSU friends who have moved up, including one in the past month out of the nursing program (now in the Mercer graduate nursing program).  My business network here is filled with UF grads.  Filled.  There are nearly as many UF car tags as UGA car tags in Atlanta.  It's like UGA stickers in Jacksonville (the difference being that the Gators up here actually went to UF).

Can you honestly say the same that you know a TON of Tech, Emory and UGA grads working in Jax?

Actually I know quite a few (I work at a college). However, I don't rely on anecdotal evidence or my filtered personal experience. I fixed the link, which is from the National Center for Education Statistics; I think we're talking past each other here. Georgia is losing high school grads to other states. In terms of Atlanta, this kind of thing often happens when you have a college that's a national draw - you draw more of your students from elsewhere (similarly, Athens and Gainesville presumably lose even more of their grads). It may be true that Atlanta is attracting recent college grads from elsewhere (I assume it is), but at the same time Georgia is exporting its own best and brightest. This is a well known problem for them, and one of the primary reasons for the reorganizations in the university system in the 1990s.

Florida's problem isn't that we're losing anyone, it's that proportionately we're not sending enough of them to college and that the state is undereducated in general.

Quote from: simms3 on June 19, 2012, 11:53:48 AM
Getting back to Jacksonville, my last points were regarding FL Coastal, which has been rehashed time and time again on this forum.  It was definitely a major lost opportunity for the city when they were not courted to come downtown.  Some sort of school presence downtown is needed to bring the creative class, or a class of fresh young lawyers or med students.  It could and would do wonders, but every opportunity seems to have been mishandled by the city.

You're definitely right that that was a real loss for downtown.

Quote from: simms3 on June 19, 2012, 11:58:38 AM

Quote from: Tacachale on June 19, 2012, 10:37:17 AM
As far as endowments go, it's apples to oranges. Private schools almost always have higher endowments (and tuitions) than comparable public schools, for the obvious reason that they're not getting state support. In Florida, state universities receive a much higher contribution than nearly every other state, though the current government is making short work of that. In other words, the schools have a far deeper well than their endowment alone.

As a reminder Tech is a public school (though I think it's ~30% int'l and another 30% out of state, ~15-20% state funding).  Look at the endowments for UT, Indiana, Mich State, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Texas A&M (apparently $7B), Michigan (nearly $8B), UVA, Washington, and Wisconsin-Madison.  Both UF and FSU are 2 of the largest public universities in the country with high rankings, major programs, intense research and hefty scholarship programs.  You would think their endowments would be a tad bit larger.

Yes, but UF and FSU are getting much more support from the state than most if not all of those other schools. Just look at the difference in tuition. Not to mention the fact that even if you have a huge endowment and just sit on it without spending anything doesn't do a damn bit of good besides generating even more money you don't spend (not saying that happens at Georgia Tech).

I personally like the AAWU (http://www.shanghairanking.com/) ranking better but it's limited to research.  It also doesn't count business, law, and other areas where paper research or Nobel prizes don't matter as much.  Ranking is one of those things which is more of an art than a science.  If any ranking put's UF on top and Harvard on 50 for law, it would be a obvious sign something is wrong with the ranking.  So most rankings put Harvard on the top and see how other schools compare to that gold standard.

As for UNF, I'm not quite as optimistic on it's success.  Will it be a positive impact to the Jacksonville area? Of course!  Can it be the best university it can be?  I doubt it.  UNF has a lot of holes it needs to fix before it can make it to that level. 

Before we start going into the problems of Atlanta and why the top 10 universities are in the top 10 and how cities can manage to keep their graduates like some areas have done very well, I think I can answer a few of simms questions about Jacksonville & Atlanta.

QuoteNow back to my earlier point...how does a city like Atlanta, with bad soil,

"No problem, we'll just find smart people to find ways to make bad soil into good."

Quoteno water,

"No problem, we'll get our top scientists and researchers to overcome it."

Quotedifficult geography,

"No problem, if we solved the water issue, we can figure this out."

Quoteand basically everything working against it, turn into the most thriving metropolis in the South

"There's no problem that we can't overcome if we work together!"

Quoteand a city like Jacksonville, with waterways, hundreds of years of history, access to tons of resources, and an excellent location on the Eastern Seaboard (virtually protected from hurricanes, too) fall behind nearly all of its peers?

"Why do we need to spend money on redundant stuff?  It's just waste." 

Eventually, the good water will run out, the nice river will be bad, and all the natural advantages will end.  The logical thing to do is to invest beforehand to figure out solution to problems before they become problems.  What Jacksonville did was wait till the end and run around like a headless chicken panicking the world was ending.  If it didn't do that, it pretended it was smarter than it actually was. 

Offshore Nuclear Power Plant.  I have more faith in land lock Atlanta successfully pulling that off than Jacksonville any day.  At least Atlanta built a nuclear reactor!  They have a history in solving problems like this.  In this bet, Jacksonville had no chance.

QuoteIf any ranking put's UF on top and Harvard on 50 for law, it would be a obvious sign something is wrong with the ranking.  So most rankings put Harvard on the top and see how other schools compare to that gold standard.

Yale is generally regarded as the #1 law school in the USA. Generally #2 switches between Harvard and Stanford.

Quote from: cityimrov on June 19, 2012, 03:15:03 PM
As for UNF, I'm not quite as optimistic on it's success.  Will it be a positive impact to the Jacksonville area? Of course!  Can it be the best university it can be?  I doubt it.  UNF has a lot of holes it needs to fix before it can make it to that level. 

Again, it depends on what you mean by "success". UNF will never be yet another enormous, research-heavy college that offers every major (and football). Florida has enough of those already - and that's part of the problem. What UNF does offer is a focus on teaching quality, smaller class sizes, and professor interaction. We've also targeted specific programs for growth, with emphasis on the significant industries in the community. These are things that are far too rare in the SUS and something that truly sets UNF apart, far more so than if we committed ourselves to the "grow real big and get football" model.

What distinguishes a great university system like North Carolina isn't just the flagship universities (though it has among the best), it's the diversity in the system. There, there's a real synergy between the schools and a comprehensive vision behind their growth. That's the key thing missing here.

^^^Well said.  UNF is definitely a tailored school and the students I know/talked to who have attended (several from South Florida) have really enjoyed it and have enjoyed the area for its convenience to everything.

It seems like UNF follows a precise plan that is updated every 5-10 years, and it seems to be on a growth track.  Lots of big local support.  The school I have always thought could do more for itself than it does (and I have been on the record with this thought before) is JU.  I know it wants to remain a small private school, but if I were choosing between JU and UNF, there would be no question I would choose the latter for too many reasons to list.  The JU campus itself is such a turnoff to me, and the area is horrid, the programs are only better because they are run in conjuction with other schools, and then you're paying private school tuition for what.

The UNF campus is seeming more and more like a college campus each year; I just wish it were closer to the city.  At least it has a presence at MOCA.

Again, I think it's going to take something like a well-funded university (FL Coastal for instance) to kick start the rebirth of downtown.  NYU moved from the Bronx to Manhattan not too long ago so a major university can make a move mid-career.

Quote from: Tacachale on June 19, 2012, 03:44:21 PM
Again, it depends on what you mean by "success". UNF will never be yet another enormous, research-heavy college that offers every major (and football).  Florida has enough of those already - and that's part of the problem.

Many problems in the world can be solved if you throw money at it.  However, to become a top 10, it requires more then that. 

Quote from: Tacachale on June 19, 2012, 03:44:21 PMWhat UNF does offer is a focus on teaching quality, smaller class sizes, and professor interaction. We've also targeted specific programs for growth, with emphasis on the significant industries in the community. These are things that are far too rare in the SUS and something that truly sets UNF apart, far more so than if we committed ourselves to the "grow real big and get football" model.

With that, I quote what I started this topic with

QuoteJacksonville used to be a leader of business, culture, and wealth.  Now it is a shell of it's former self.  It is now a bottom feeder hunting for scraps that other cities have left behind.

Has the community given up?  Having a university alone and one that teaches what other people have discovered will not save a community.  With only a few exceptions, neither will it propel a community into being a leader of business, culture, and wealth.  It needs to be more than that.  It needs to answer questions the community haven't asked yet. 

As I said before

QuoteEventually, the good water will run out, the nice river will be bad, and all the natural advantages will end.  The logical thing to do is to invest beforehand to figure out solution to problems before they become problems.

If Jacksonville keeps seeking solutions to the problems it will face in the future from outside sources, it will completely loose the chance of being a leader.  It will become nothing more than a former shell of it's self, copying other more successful cities while hoping to just bring one or two of it here so that the community can "feel" like it's a success.  It will become nothing more than a cookie-cutter city with only a few notable discoveries here and there. 

Remember, this place was called the "Jacksonville of the North" not the "Harlem of the South".

What city is "the Jacksonville of the North?"