Exploring Chattanooga Vanguard Style
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Can Jacksonville learn anything from a smaller Sunbelt city? Metro Jacksonville's Ennis Davis answers this an more by sharing his experience at last week's Next City 2014 Vanguard Conference.
Read More: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2014-may-exploring-chattanooga-vanguard-style
Congratulations Ennis and Mike. Great work. Nice pic on the kayaking. Tides are looking real good for Downtown Jacksonville this week.
Looks like you guys had a productive and enjoyable trip! I was able to spend some time in Chattanooga a few years ago and fell in love. The city still has plenty of work to do but it certainly has come a long ways.
Sounds like a great conference....made even more awesome by the participation of you and Mike...congrats!
Great conference indeed. However, I can't stress enough about the little things that Chattanooga exceeds at that we don't. Everybody likes big, sexy, headline grabbing projects but the success Chattanooga has accomplished has a lot to do with finding a way to appeal to the pedestrian. A few things not really shown in the article:
1. Parking garages - you would not know these were garages unless you looked up
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2. Shade Trees - I know we love our palm trees but their use of shade trees makes it easier to walk past blocks of surface parking.
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3. Flex Green Space - Remember when the Peyton administration wanted flex space at Metropolitan Park? That was a good idea but a bad location. Jacksonville's urban waterfront could really benefit from a centralized green space designed for a variety of recreational uses.
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4. Design Guidelines - Jax has historically been a push over when it comes to standing up for good urban design guidelines. Chattanooga proves that the chains can even place suburban boxes into urban footprints when a community demands more than the least common dominator.
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^Their Hampton Inn is completely different from ours in the Southbank.
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Chili's Restaurant is the same one would find off an interchange highway but it at least comes up to the street.
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Same thing applies to their downtown Noodles.
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Same goes for Buffalo Wild Wings.
5. Bike Share - Chattanooga has bike share and they have less bike infrastructure in their urban core than we do.
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Chattanooga is one of my favorite little towns. The North Shore is pretty cool, too. Warehouse Row that you mentioned also attracts nationals...I know of a few that are in leases with that ownership, and the office space in that building commands the highest rents in the city.
At one point in my life I was exposed to their downtown development authority type groups and advocacy groups. A lot of what you see in Chattanooga is backed by a family trust controlled by a local billionaire. For the Dianes out there, Chattanooga has a Rummell on steroids, except if I recall it's an heiress or widower to a fortune and the head of the downtown group backed by this trust that essentially controls both real estate and non-profit groups there is also a woman (met her). I can't remember how it all works precisely because I'm so far removed from my time there, but it was interesting working there and of course visiting.
^Yes, they are bankrolled by a few local foundations. From what I understand, their bike share system didn't cost the taxpayers a dime.
Place was an absolute craphole in the mid-90s and when I went back in 2009, I was floored by what it had become.
Thanks for sharing your experience and photos! It's a beautiful city. I miss going through there on my drives back and forth between Missouri and Florida the first few years I lived here with a car. I never saw Nooga before its rejuvenation, but as it is, I would live there in a heartbeat. Imagine hearing people say that about Jax.