The Great Reset: What Will It Mean for Jacksonville?

[Metro Jacksonville]

The Great Reset: What Will It Mean for Jacksonville?



A local planner reviews Urban theorist Richard Florida's explanation of why the recession is the mother of invention and ponders what it means for Jacksonville.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-jun-the-great-reset-what-will-it-mean-for-jacksonville-

[sheclown]

Excellent article. 

Things will never be the same. 

Once we grasp this simple fact, we can move forward.

[archiphreak]

Awesome article!  Lets all hope that while we're at a crossroads now, we can all help to push our city towards the right road leading to real change and prosperity.

[Captain Zissou]

[Standing up clapping] Great review and awesome insight into the problems our city will need to address over the next few years.  If we don't address these problems soon, we will be dealing with much more serious ones in the near future (think Detroit).

[tufsu1]

The concept of megaregions has been talked about quite extensively for several years....and while some see Tampa-Orlando-Miami, others see one Florida megaregion that includes Jax.

http://www.america2050.org/

All the more reason we should care about and support high speed rail, Sunrail, Amtrak/FEC, and TBARTA plans....even if there some don't seem to have a direct benefit for Jax.

[finehoe]

Jacksonville â€" which, curiously, is nowhere mentioned in the book

Why is that so surprising?

[Captain Zissou]

This map is interesting: http://www.america2050.org/images/2050_Map_Megaregions_Influence_150.png

Florida's region looks to have no influence beyond the borders of our mega-region.  Also, Tallahassee is not included in our mega-region.  Houston is a part of two regions, while california has two regions within the same state.  It will be interesting to see the dynamics between city and state governments against the powerful mega-regions.  

In the short term, Jacksonville should be strengthening its ties to the academic hub of Gainesville and encouraging more collaborations between our bio-tech industry and UF.  Also, we need to shore up our industry with the port and our opportunity as a transit hub.  We need to grow our finance and insurance sector.  We need to encourage the growth of all three industries to tie into the growth of our downtown core.  We need to develop our local Universities and improve our public school system.  All this while maintaining smart growth and developing our transit network to be less auto dependent.

[Fallen Buckeye]

I noticed he mentions Benton McKaye in the article talking about regionalism. Benton McKaye is actually the founder of the world famous Appalachian Trail. And his concept of what the AT should have been really gives you a clue to how he thought of things. In his vision, the AT would have actually been a foot path that linked up a series of self-sustaining mountain top communities. Basically in these communities workers from the cities could come to engage in some sort of forestry based work not so much tied to turning over a profit as a retreat from their usual jobs. As is implied here, McKaye was generally considered a failure in his time. He was let go from positions at Harvard and the US Forest Service, and even his baby the AT didn't turn out according his vision (which I'm personally glad it didn't because it's wonderful as is). Even so, a couple aspects of his world view are very useful: connectivity and community.

As someone else said, we live in close enough proximity to other major Florida cities that we could feasibly become a part of an important geographic region, but that would depend on our leadership taking action to foster that kind of relationship. I remember seeing a lot of discussion a while back about the absence of Jax leadership when there was a push to establish higher speed rail service up the Florida East Coast. We cannot afford to be MIA here.

We are at an advantage compared to some of these regions mentioned as be we could enact measures as a state that would support regional growth whereas as a region like Char-lanta doesn't have that. For instance that fact that there is no state income tax makes us attractive as a region for educated workers. We can take steps at the state level to innovate public education (such as modifying teacher licensure to make it more similar to a doctor's residency). We can work as a state to boost our technology infrastructure. Etc. We just need everyone present at the table and someone to get the ball rolling.

[Wacca Pilatka]

Jacksonville â€" which, curiously, is nowhere mentioned in the book

Why is that so surprising?

I presume because Jacksonville faces the specific problems at the central focus of the article.  Also, it's mentioned as an example in some other books about excessive disconnected suburbanization, such as "Crabgrass Frontier."

[downtownjag]

In the short term, Jacksonville should be strengthening its ties to the academic hub of Gainesville and encouraging more collaborations between our bio-tech industry and UF.  Also, we need to shore up our industry with the port and our opportunity as a transit hub.  We need to grow our finance and insurance sector.  We need to encourage the growth of all three industries to tie into the growth of our downtown core.  We need to develop our local Universities and improve our public school system.  All this while maintaining smart growth and developing our transit network to be less auto dependent.

Perfect!  Also, Jacksonville, by not being tied specifically to a mega-region, will retain it's independence in decision making, budget controls, incentives, etc, without having to get the OK from a neighbor.  These mega-regions aren't always going to agree on everything, it sounds like Florida (the author) is looking at Europe's demographic evolution and applying it to the States.

[downtownjag]

^^^^ *of course I mean no disrepect/discredit, nor do I necessarily disagree. 

[Fallen Buckeye]

I figure you could have it both ways here. Being part of a regional cluster of cities doesn't have to mean that cities lose their independence. But cities in a region can work cooperatively to benefit all. I think the article might exaggerating how revolutionary this idea is if anything. I'm proudly Appalachian and the cities around my hometown have strong ties for a long time in bringing in industries or drawing tourists or what so have you (albeit on a smaller scale). Really this article just describes ways to improve our city, and in doing so one of the questions we have to ask ourselves how can we work with other cities to achieve that end for everyone?

[ESHC]

Thanks for the interesting article. Just put the book on reserve at the library!

[stjr]

In the short term, Jacksonville should be strengthening its ties to the academic hub of Gainesville and encouraging more collaborations between our bio-tech industry and UF. ... We need to develop our local Universities and improve our public school system.  All this while maintaining smart growth and developing our transit network to be less auto dependent.

+1000 Captain, we agree fully on this point.

Instead of contributing to our problems of the past by building the worthless $1.8 billion urban sprawl creating Outer Beltway from one interstate to another, we should spend the same money to improve our connectivity to Gainesville (and, maybe, Tallahasse, both for FSU/Florida A & M and the direct political and economic ink to our state capital).  Imagine Jax as the hub of UF, FSU, A&M, UNF, JU, and EW.  See my prior thread along these lines at: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,4269.0.html  We could have a technology corridor stretching from Jax/St. Johns County, through Clay County to Gainesville with a quality connection.  Further, maybe UF would establish more extensions/departments/research facilities/divisions/schools (with or without FSCJ/UNF) in downtown Jax that would energize it as there is nothing like a university facility to light the development fires of an urban area.

And, instead of our community wasting $200 million on worthless do-nothing-to-make-things-better interchanges at I-295/Blanding and I-95/Butler, we could take that money and upgrade our public schools or invest in mass transit (so we won't ever need those interchanges or any others to be "upgraded") to reap far better economic dividends for decades to come.

[Captain Zissou]

stjr, we are in agreement!  I'm drinking a beer to that and giving you air fives over the internet.