Downtown Jacksonville Ranks Last For Job Growth

[peestandingup]

I would like to point out that the two cities that actually GAINED jobs, Indianapolis and Louisville are BOTH consolidated.  [Omaha basically flat-lined]

How can that be??

Furthermore, the two cities with the MOST jobs in their Downtown, Inidianapolis and Nashville, are again, BOTH consolidated.


Pretty strong evidence that consolidation does NOT kill prosperity and job growth Downtown in favor of the suburbs.  Quite the opposite, in fact.

To a certain point perhaps. But I guarantee our sprawling land mass dwarfs theirs.

[thelakelander]

Are you keeping up with the state legislature?  See the Orlando Sentinel's article today: "Florida House Rolls Back Most Controls on Urban Sprawl."  

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/legislature/os-urban-sprawl-florida-house-20110421,0,1865936.story

I've got a copy of the bills on my desk.  Some of the things we do are completely insane.

[ChriswUfGator]

I see Tufsu's rose-colored claims have once again met with an ignominious demise...

[PeeJayEss]

Those graphs are, overall, not very encouraging. Also not very surprising.

If we could solve one problem in downtown in the next 4 years, top on my list to consider would be the number of homeless.  Time and time again, I hear from most people, the reason they don't go downtown is because of the homeless population.  We must be a mecca for homeless.  With all of the programs that we have for feeding them and providing shelter at night, is it doing anything to reduce the population?  I would guess those programs have had the exact opposite effect.  Time for a little tough love, IMO.

Put all the homeless shelters and kitchens out in the burbs. That might turn the tide of sprawl. Every subdivision gets a shelter!

Dude...it's quit obvious that you are completely out of touch with the real world...many many of these people us to be your neighbors and lost everything due to our countries downturn...you bettr hope that one day you  don't need help...you may get your return of your own pathetic attitude toward others.

I think there is more than nothing to Gonzo's point. There are those going to shelters and soup kitchens that are looking for a job the rest of the day. There are also those who are career homeless and spend the rest of the day doing otherwise (whether good or bad). These are a tremendous under-utilized resource.

First wrap all the homeless/impoverished programs together so you can address the problem holistically. Take someone on unemployment and make the work placement program simple and convenient enough that it does not take up all the person's day looking for a job, then put them to temporary work doing these Civilian Conservation Corps type activities - their pay is the temporary shelter and food that they need until they are successfully placed (throw in family healthcare too, what the hell). Also make unemployment stricter in regards to applying for jobs. If your job before unemployment paid close to the max on unemployment, you will be hard-pressed to find motivation to find a new job - the current setup requiring you to apply to 1 job a week (and you can do this by simply submitting your resume online) is absolutely out of hand. There are plenty of simple, no-brainer fixes to make our social programs leaner, meaner, and less exploited.

[wsansewjs]

http://www.youtube.com/v/zesiBbCBrj0

-Josh

[vicupstate]

I would like to point out that the two cities that actually GAINED jobs, Indianapolis and Louisville are BOTH consolidated.  [Omaha basically flat-lined]

How can that be??

Furthermore, the two cities with the MOST jobs in their Downtown, Inidianapolis and Nashville, are again, BOTH consolidated.


Pretty strong evidence that consolidation does NOT kill prosperity and job growth Downtown in favor of the suburbs.  Quite the opposite, in fact.

To a certain point perhaps. But I guarantee our sprawling land mass dwarfs theirs.

Considering that neither Indianapolis nor Louisville have a nearby ocean to limit sprawl on one side, I highly doubt that.  Same fro Nashville, Charlotte and most other cities listed in the report.  

It's all about Leadership, priorities and the lack thereof, Consolidation is irrelevant.

[ChriswUfGator]

I would like to point out that the two cities that actually GAINED jobs, Indianapolis and Louisville are BOTH consolidated.  [Omaha basically flat-lined]

How can that be??

Furthermore, the two cities with the MOST jobs in their Downtown, Inidianapolis and Nashville, are again, BOTH consolidated.


Pretty strong evidence that consolidation does NOT kill prosperity and job growth Downtown in favor of the suburbs.  Quite the opposite, in fact.

To a certain point perhaps. But I guarantee our sprawling land mass dwarfs theirs.

Considering that neither Indianapolis nor Louisville have a nearby ocean to limit sprawl on one side, I highly doubt that.  Same fro Nashville, Charlotte and most other cities listed in the report.  

It's all about Leadership, priorities and the lack thereof, Consolidation is irrelevant.

Except where consolidation joins together otherwise disparate parts whose interests are opposed to one another.

Peyton did a wonderful job of leading the Southside, Baymeadows, the corporate parks. They're having a real renaissance. Unsurprising, considering his family owns much of it. But the point is, which do you lead, when what is good for one is bad for the other? Jacksonville was a poor candidate for a city/county consolidation because of its sheer size, lack of connectivity, and disparate parts which have conflicting interests to one another. Under that setup, where component parts have conflicting interests and combined government, you're never really going to have effective leadership. It's a basic structural problem.

The other examples are nowhere near as large, land-wise, as Duval County, and so do not face the same hurdles. Here, it was so large we were in reality combining multiple different cities and a county, not just one city and a county. We were a poor candidate for consolidation from the beginning, the results are unsurprising.

[peestandingup]

I would like to point out that the two cities that actually GAINED jobs, Indianapolis and Louisville are BOTH consolidated.  [Omaha basically flat-lined]

How can that be??

Furthermore, the two cities with the MOST jobs in their Downtown, Inidianapolis and Nashville, are again, BOTH consolidated.


Pretty strong evidence that consolidation does NOT kill prosperity and job growth Downtown in favor of the suburbs.  Quite the opposite, in fact.

To a certain point perhaps. But I guarantee our sprawling land mass dwarfs theirs.

Considering that neither Indianapolis nor Louisville have a nearby ocean to limit sprawl on one side, I highly doubt that.  Same fro Nashville, Charlotte and most other cities listed in the report.  

It's all about Leadership, priorities and the lack thereof, Consolidation is irrelevant.

You'd be wrong then:

Indianapolis (their city limits are shaded red, we're the red outline)



Louisville (same thing)

[thelakelander]

I agree with Vic on the issue of consolidation.  The physical make up of Jacksonville was no different from that of a Louisville or Nashville when they consolidated.  We just have had leadership that has been beholden to the development community over the years moreso than doing what's best for the city as a whole.  Consolidation or not, the city would continue to suffer if we put the interest of certain individuals/groups over the good of the whole.

[tufsu1]

I see Tufsu's rose-colored claims have once again met with an ignominious demise...

I'd really like to stop this back-and-forth...but when called out, I must respond

1. I never said downtown wasn't losing jobs...as someone who lives there, it is quite obvious to me

2. This report says there are 27,000 jobs downtown...wonder what the boundaries are (note vicup's post)...nonetheless, that is a far cry from the 6,000-9,000 others have been spouting

3. Sometimes rose-colored glasses aren't so bad...I'll take optimism over negativity just about every time!

[thelakelander]

Also, when comparing the size of Duval County with other places, keep in mind the amount of undeveloped property and nondevelopable wetlands and marshes that fall within our borders.  Taking a look at the urban area statistical data from Census 2000, some of these places sprawl worse than Jax (at least 10 years ago they did).

Examples of a few consolidated cities:

City Name -- Urban Area Population -- Urban Area Size -- Urban Area Density (all 2000 numbers)

New Orleans -- 1,000,283 -- 197.8 sq. miles -- 5,101.6 people/sq. mile

Indianapolis -- 1,218,919 -- 552.9 sq. miles -- 2,204.5 people/sq. mile

Jacksonville -- 882,295 -- 410.5 sq. miles -- 2,149.2 people/sq. mile

Louisville -- 863,582 -- 391.3 sq. miles -- 2,207.0 people/sq. mile

Nashville -- 749,935 -- 430.8 sq. miles -- 1,740.9 people/sq. mile

Here are a few more cities for comparison's sake.

Richmond -- 818,836 -- 436.8 sq. miles -- 1,874.8 people/sq. mile

Charlotte -- 758,927 -- 434.9 sq. miles -- 1,745.0 people/sq. mile

Birmingham -- 663,615 -- 392.1 sq. miles -- 1,692.5 people/sq. mile

Entire list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_areas

[JaxByDefault]

Thank you Peestandingup...I was about to ask if anyone had consolidated metro overlay maps!

You and Chris hit the nail on the head. Jacksonville's consolidated area is so large that the vast majority of it lies outside the urban core. Not so in Nashville, Louisville, and Indianapolis. Of course this means that the majority of voters in Duval have little interest in the urban core as reflected in attitudes of most of our post-consolidation leadership.

[thelakelander]

2. This report says there are 27,000 jobs downtown...wonder what the boundaries are (note vicup's post)...nonetheless, that is a far cry from the 6,000-9,000 others have been spouting

It appears they are using the zip code data for the actual historic core, which would exclude the Southbank.

[vicupstate]

If you look at the Indy overlay and take the part of Indy that is actual overlaping into Clay County and move it into the Duval County outline, the DEVELOPED land area is almost identical in size.  The remaining parts of Duval (outside of the Indy overlay) are almost completely rural and very low density.

How are the suburbs of Indy or Nashville or Louisville more 'disparate' from the urban core than Jacksonville's?  Were they not designed auto-centric as well?  

It's totally bogus. Those communities understand that the core is important, vital even, to the whole. That case hasn't been made often enough or well enough in Jacksonville, because the leadership (mayor, council, Chamber, etc.) of the community has not made doing so a priority or a focus.


   

[dougskiles]

Dude...it's quit obvious that you are completely out of touch with the real world...many many of these people us to be your neighbors and lost everything due to our countries downturn...you bettr hope that one day you  don't need help...you may get your return of your own pathetic attitude toward others.

The people you are talking about are not the problem that I was referring to.  Those people are out looking for work and are not sitting around Hemming Plaza wandering what to do with themselves until the next free meal.