Buffalo: America’s Best Designed City (Video)
(http://www.metrojacksonville.com/photos/plog-content/images/learning-from/buffalo/p1130191.JPG)
The story of Buffalo, New York's world class urban design and how today's generation is rediscovering and restoring 'America's Best Designed City.'
Read More: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2015-jan-buffalo-americas-best-designed-city-video
Excellent!!
This video is awesome. No reason why Jax doesnt have as compelling a story to tell though...
Being that I moved here from Buffalo, I feel educated enough on this to have an opinion. Buffalo is years and years ahead of Jacksonville as far as being urban. Yes, Buffalo has urban wasteland and abandoned areas, but in Buffalo you can also find a true urban experience unlike anything in Jacksonville. Riverside, Avondale, ect. are absolutely beautiful, but they are not very urban in reality. I am not knocking these areas, I live in Riverside and LOVE it, but the truth is its not urban. In Buff there is a subway that will take you within walking distance to most places you need to go. While it is only one line that runs downtown out to the edge of the city, this subway is a great asset for any events downtown to avoid parking, drinking and driving, traffic, ect. These subway is also a huge asset for sporting events as it literally drops you off at the door to the Stadium.
Secondly, Buffalo has nightlife strips. I know Jax has nightlife, and some nice places at that, but everything is so spread out. You either drive spot to spot (then you cannot drink much), or are stuck at one place all night (the beach is an exception), or you can taxi all around town and go poor. In buffalo there was 3 distinct strips of nightlife, where you could head to one area and than jump bar to bar to restaurant to bar to pizza place all in a short few continuous blocks with out ever even thinking of using your car. With everything condensed there was people out literally everywhere and the feeling of a true city experience.
Jacksonville is a beautiful city, and has many assets (historical districts, beach) but is beyond poorly planned. I truly believe if Jacksonville actually invested in public transit besides buses, and cleaned up urban areas we could attract more people. The weather down here is amazing, you get a touch of the seasons with no harsh winters, but there is just no urban experience here. We need to make downtown desirable with nightlife, restaurants, ect. and not just a place people go to work M-F. I can tell you that every single weekend night young people from all over Buffalo and the surrounding suburbs literally flood the city to enjoy the nightlife and urban experience.
And yet the Buffalo metro has been shrinking and people are leaving steadily. Buffalo shrank again by .12% last year and has dropped to the 50th largest market in America. Only Detroit and Cleveland also shrank within the top 60 markets in America. I also think they forgot to show winter in this video ;D