Jacksonville was down to the last bracket in the Parking Madness Championship! Wish we would've won to shed some light on the sea of surface parking lots downtown. Such a pity all those amazing lots close to the river, restaurants, & transportation are just covered in asphalt.
http://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/04/08/its-rochester-vs-jacksonville-in-the-parking-madness-championship/
We lost to Rochester, NY which by the way is also going through a downtown revitalization effort.
http://www.rochesterdowntown.com/wp_rddc/ (http://www.rochesterdowntown.com/wp_rddc/)
Comments via Wikipedia.org
Following the Civil War, many post-war industrial companies were founded in Rochester including Kodak, Bausch & Lomb, Western Union and Gleason Works. The city hall opened downtown in 1875.
At the turn of the century, Rochester was a thriving city. Street cars operated throughout the area and a subway was opened in 1927 on the old Erie Canal bed that ran through downtown. The subway operated for 29 years until it closed in 1956. After the subway was shut down, a series of bus routes were opened and a new auxiliary Interstate Highway was opened that would become I-490.[3]
Downtown Rochester is currently entering a renaissance. For the first time in over 60 years, businesses are moving back into center city instead of fleeing it. Some of these businesses include ESL in 2010, Nothnagle in 2011, and Windstream Communications in 2013.
I was very surprised to see Chicago in the bracket. I guess that there's another side to the city than that iconic skyline.
Seems like an odd selection of cities, focusing mostly on single images to make their cases, and not that many votes. I don't think much change would come from this no matter what "won", which is just as well. This bracket thing seems inappropriate to base real world change off of, when all 14 cases and many more need attention, not just 1.
Not to say that the Northbank doesn't have any surface lots, but streetblogs literally focused in on the worst part of Jax for lots (the Southbank) that no one even considers the core. Northbank Jax would've been eliminated a long time ago. With One Spark, the attention on the Laura Trio, the Barnett and Hemming Plaza, I wouldn't say that Jax is 'stagnant' on downtown renaissance.
I took a city planning class in college that examined surface lots on the Northbank. Jax and a couple other cities were regarded as those with the highest percentage/concentration of surface lots in the country. The Northbank is actually worse than the Southbank because the Southbank was never a dense, lively, walkable place to begin with. The Northbank was, but was decimated for surface lots.
Can't we get extra credit for a parking lot built on pilings over the St. Johns River an American Heritage River a FEDERAL Initiative in our new super duper highly restricted (Food Truck, Kayak) CRA/DIA in the USA zone?