A Case For Downtown Jacksonville

[Metro Jacksonville]

A Case For Downtown Jacksonville



During the past year, there have been numerous formal and informal civic conversations about the current plight of downtown Jacksonville. Last winter, the Times-Union wrote a major feature called the "Downtown Dilemma", and this spring Downtown Vision (DVI) published a White Paper called "Turning the Corner, rethinking and remaking downtown".

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2011-feb-a-case-for-downtown-jacksonville

[dougskiles]

Great article, Steve.  Do you have a link for the Bank of America study you referenced about the high cost of sprawl?

[Garden guy]

Let's all try clearing house with removing 80 % our conservative city council and replace them with people who are'nt trying to get some money and push thier church or thier own personal agenda...that's where things will change..it stands with them...if we all pick a bunch of conservative right wing people.....this is what we will have...a dying downtown and city..sorry but the truth hurts

[Jaxson]

Let's all try clearing house with removing 80 % our conservative city council and replace them with people who are'nt trying to get some money and push thier church or thier own personal agenda...that's where things will change..it stands with them...if we all pick a bunch of conservative right wing people.....this is what we will have...a dying downtown and city..sorry but the truth hurts

Downtown development does not quite square well with a conservative mindset.  Healthy urban environments depend on cultivating an atmosphere that is creative, diverse and engaging.  Unfortunately, most of our energies are being spent on bland, homogenous and sterile suburban development.  I place partial blame on our leadership that reflects an innate conservative aversion to urban centers - which typically lean left and rely on more government services (e.g. transit). 

[tufsu1]

Stephen....that works for the fiscal conservative mindset...it does not work for the neo-con (which isn't really an issue at the local level) or the religious conservative (which clearly is an issue for some) mindsets.

[fsujax]

nice article.

[jcjohnpaint]

Great article.  I will also have to agree with Stephen that we need to rid ourselves of the stupid and shortsighted and be in with the smart and forward thinking.  Having a faltering downtown is a complete detriment to the power structure and image of any city.  Any politician that disagrees with this is stupid and should and should reconsider their life role (sorry too much coffee).  I am sorry because I love Jacksonville and with a downtown like ours is pathetic not only on a regional level, but on the national and even international level.  I smell corruption and I say we get rid of these politicians that are for themselves and get some politicians that actually want to do some good for this city and its people.  Smart is going to start in the downtown. 

[Jaxson]

um guys, a healthy thriving downtown is neither a conservative or a liberal issue.

There are extremely liberal points to be made for a downtown and there are even stronger conservative points.

Having an entire district built and developed for the purposes of business, commerce and the management and creation of wealth is a pretty conservative thing.

Not socialistically subsidizing a handful of real estate developers and depending on government handouts to build roads and additional schools and parks in the suburbs is a pretty conservative point of view.

Not wasting money on public infrastructure all over the county is a conservative mantra.

I could go on, but the idea that a dense vibrant downtown is in any way partisan is shortsighted.

The problem with our current leadership isnt that they are liberal or conservative.  Its the fact that so many of them are just plain uninformed, and a handful of them are plain stupid.

God should grant that we were governed by a mixture of smart libs and conservative businessmen who actually knew what was happening in the city.

Right now the only partisanship you can accuse most of our elected officials of participating in is the party of Stupid.

I did not mean to paint all conservatives with a broad brush.  I agree that fiscal conservatism can be great for a city.  It is the social conservatives, however, who are major obstacles to making progress downtown.  A more libertarian approach would do wonders for our city... 
As for conservative mayors and city leadership...I not only supported Rudy Giuliani when was mayor of New York, I voted for him in the Florida GOP primary because he has the right kind of conservatism in my opinion.

[urbaknight]

I agree with kicking out the current leadership, But we also may have to embarrass them by criticizing our city leaders and let the rest of the country know how stupid, backward and self serving they really are. It's not the fault of the people of Jacksonville, infact, I say the city is on it's way up, as soon as we get those idiots country bumpkins out of our city council. I tell people to visit JAX and visit again in the future, and you'll see improvements. I'm basically trying to bring national attention and all its criticism to embarrass our leaders into doing something different.

I got this idea when I saw a documentary about the Civil Rights movement during the 50's and 60's. The way the south handled the situation and the way they treated black people and the riots that played out for the whole country to see. There was no choice for those evil assholes but to grant equal rights to all. If we can make our leaders feel worthless and inadequate, they may either go into hidind or maybe they'll start wising up. One can only hope.

[Bativac]

um guys, a healthy thriving downtown is neither a conservative or a liberal issue.

There are extremely liberal points to be made for a downtown and there are even stronger conservative points.

Having an entire district built and developed for the purposes of business, commerce and the management and creation of wealth is a pretty conservative thing.

Not socialistically subsidizing a handful of real estate developers and depending on government handouts to build roads and additional schools and parks in the suburbs is a pretty conservative point of view.

Not wasting money on public infrastructure all over the county is a conservative mantra.

I could go on, but the idea that a dense vibrant downtown is in any way partisan is shortsighted.

The problem with our current leadership isnt that they are liberal or conservative.  Its the fact that so many of them are just plain uninformed, and a handful of them are plain stupid.

God should grant that we were governed by a mixture of smart libs and conservative businessmen who actually knew what was happening in the city.

Right now the only partisanship you can accuse most of our elected officials of participating in is the party of Stupid.

Quoted for truth. Downtown being a success isn't a partisan issue. It's a matter of civic pride and a desire for the place you live to be vibrant and economically successful for the people who live there. I wish we could do away with all mention of political parties when it comes to local politics. It causes more problems than it solves.

Political labels seems to serve no other purpose than to give voters who don't want to do any research an easy way to pick a canditate to support.

[vicupstate]

um guys, a healthy thriving downtown is neither a conservative or a liberal issue.

There are extremely liberal points to be made for a downtown and there are even stronger conservative points.

Having an entire district built and developed for the purposes of business, commerce and the management and creation of wealth is a pretty conservative thing.

Not socialistically subsidizing a handful of real estate developers and depending on government handouts to build roads and additional schools and parks in the suburbs is a pretty conservative point of view.

Not wasting money on public infrastructure all over the county is a conservative mantra.

I could go on, but the idea that a dense vibrant downtown is in any way partisan is shortsighted.

The problem with our current leadership isnt that they are liberal or conservative.  Its the fact that so many of them are just plain uninformed, and a handful of them are plain stupid.

God should grant that we were governed by a mixture of smart libs and conservative businessmen who actually knew what was happening in the city.

Right now the only partisanship you can accuse most of our elected officials of participating in is the party of Stupid.

Quoted for truth. Downtown being a success isn't a partisan issue. It's a matter of civic pride and a desire for the place you live to be vibrant and economically successful for the people who live there. I wish we could do away with all mention of political parties when it comes to local politics. It causes more problems than it solves.

Political labels seems to serve no other purpose than to give voters who don't want to do any research an easy way to pick a canditate to support.

+100,000

[peestandingup]

Healthy urban environments depend on cultivating an atmosphere that is creative, diverse and engaging.  Unfortunately, most of our energies are being spent on bland, homogenous and sterile suburban development.  I place partial blame on our leadership that reflects an innate conservative aversion to urban centers - which typically lean left and rely on more government services (e.g. transit). 

The problem really began when the city of Jacksonville decided somewhere along the way that it wanted to be perceived bigger than what it really is. Meaning gobbling up & incorporating as much areas as possible. Our city limits are simply ridiculous. I mean, freakin' Baldwin to the west is technically a part of the "city of Jacksonville" for Christ sake. What purpose does that even serve?? The more land your city gobbles up, the harder & harder its going to be to manage all of this for transit & other issues. And it certainly has played a role in the decay of downtown. I think what we're really guilty of is having too much land at our disposal & not enough sense to leave it the hell alone. Especially when we had all of this great urban infrastructure already in place.

So I really don't know an answer to this. But in my experience, the smaller & more condensed your city stays, the better it is for urban growth because it sorta forces people to work with what they have. Most all of the great walkable, urban cities in the US have stayed relatively condensed. We don't have that here & I don't know if we ever will. The damage is done & they're still going strong, until what we're basically left with now is just a collection of suburbs & sub-divisions lumped together & calling themselves "a city".

It's like the article said. It's kind of disgusting knowing the history of Jacksonville & knowing what we used to have that we threw away for a bunch of fake crap & more land to build that crap on. This town & its leaders had a good head on it's shoulders, but have just gone completely overboard with sprawl probably more than any city in the US. Jacksonville is lost I'm afraid.

[Steve_Lovett]

Doug - Bank of America participated/co-sponsored a study in California titled: "Beyond Sprawl: New Patterns of Growth to fit California".  I don't have the link at-hand, but I have a copy of the study at home and I suspect it's available online somewhere.

[Jaxson]

um guys, a healthy thriving downtown is neither a conservative or a liberal issue.

There are extremely liberal points to be made for a downtown and there are even stronger conservative points.

Having an entire district built and developed for the purposes of business, commerce and the management and creation of wealth is a pretty conservative thing.

Not socialistically subsidizing a handful of real estate developers and depending on government handouts to build roads and additional schools and parks in the suburbs is a pretty conservative point of view.

Not wasting money on public infrastructure all over the county is a conservative mantra.

I could go on, but the idea that a dense vibrant downtown is in any way partisan is shortsighted.

The problem with our current leadership isnt that they are liberal or conservative.  Its the fact that so many of them are just plain uninformed, and a handful of them are plain stupid.

God should grant that we were governed by a mixture of smart libs and conservative businessmen who actually knew what was happening in the city.

Right now the only partisanship you can accuse most of our elected officials of participating in is the party of Stupid.

Quoted for truth. Downtown being a success isn't a partisan issue. It's a matter of civic pride and a desire for the place you live to be vibrant and economically successful for the people who live there. I wish we could do away with all mention of political parties when it comes to local politics. It causes more problems than it solves.

Political labels seems to serve no other purpose than to give voters who don't want to do any research an easy way to pick a canditate to support.

It is one thing to be non-partisan.  It is another thing to believe that partisan viewpoints have no bearing on the political scene.  Yes, it is true that there is a lot of 'gray' area on the traditional continuum of 'conservative' and 'liberal.'  It is also true that labels are a convenient and lazy way to make up our minds on issues.  I also believe that our city elections should be non-partisan. 
I beg to differ, though, if we believe that denying any partisan differences at all is going to somehow turn our city into a utopia.  There are some social conservative beliefs that will keep Jacksonville from having the kind of downtown that is present in cities like Tampa, Orlando or Atlanta.  This same social conservative mindset is what keeps our city woefully behind others when it comes to treating others (e.g. non-Christians, LGBT, etc.).  This is not to say that 'liberals' are somehow to be let off the hook, either.  Many are content to complain in the shadows rather than actually join forces to create a politically diverse city.

[fsujax]

Stephen you bring up some great points, sometimes I think jax is more diverse than people realize.