Historic Savannah: A Destination, Not A Pass-Through

[CG7]

I went to Savannah today just because of this thread. I really had a good time, and think it is a nice LITTLE place. My two observations are that it in NO way compares to Jacksonville, and it smells like urine...seriously.

[AaroniusLives]

You should report on several places in Maryland next.

1. Baltimore and the Inner Harbor/adjacent areas, obviously.

2. Baltimore County, which has preserved it's character, a great deal of it's green space, and yet has urbanized along the way.

3. The rapid high-density development along US1 between Baltimore and DC, further cementing this into one mega-region (or, for urban planners, taking the CSA and creating one MSA from two.)

4. Columbia redeveloping itself into a more walkable place.

5. Plan Maryland, which is essentially Maryland's long-term plan to recreate itself as a less car-dependent, more transit, more integrated place. In 25 years "Maryland" will essentially be a city-state.

[krazeeboi]

A profile has already been done on Baltimore: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2009-jul-elements-of-urbanism-baltimore

[AaroniusLives]

There's also several older Savannah articles here as well. Revisiting doesn't seem to be a MetroJax issue.

[dougskiles]

You should report on several places in Maryland next.

5. Plan Maryland, which is essentially Maryland's long-term plan to recreate itself as a less car-dependent, more transit, more integrated place. In 25 years "Maryland" will essentially be a city-state.

I would like to see a report on this topic in particular.  I was reading about it over the weekend, and then also started reading about Maryland's governer, Martin O'Malley.  I could see him running for president in 2016.

[tufsu1]

Maryland is a strongly Democratic state...O'Malley is following in the steps of Gov. Glendening, who now leads up Smart Growth America....the only hiccup was during the 4-year Ehrlich term, when the Republican Governor tried to stop most growth controls and transit projects in favor of more highways.

That said, while I would be thrilled, O'Malley is not a good candidate for national office....he'd be better served replacing long time Senator Barbara Mikulski when she retires.

[Tacachale]

Re-reading this in light of the lengthy commentary about Atlanta above, it strikes me that Jacksonville can take as much (or more) from smaller cities like this than from big sprawling ones. ATL has a lot of cool stuff, but I would much rather see Jacksonville develop along the lines of Savannah, Charleston, or my favorite, Asheville. And a lot of their strengths aren't restricted only to smaller cities; a number of the other cities our size or somewhat larger that have been profiled here I would consider to be more in that mold.

[krazeeboi]

Re-reading this in light of the lengthy commentary about Atlanta above, it strikes me that Jacksonville can take as much (or more) from smaller cities like this than from big sprawling ones. ATL has a lot of cool stuff, but I would much rather see Jacksonville develop along the lines of Savannah, Charleston, or my favorite, Asheville. And a lot of their strengths aren't restricted only to smaller cities; a number of the other cities our size or somewhat larger that have been profiled here I would consider to be more in that mold.

The basic principles of revitalization are the same, whether in larger cities or smaller ones. However, in the case of Charleston, Savannah, and Asheville, they aren't big business centers and so their urban cores don't consist of a lot of office space. They've retained much of their historic urban fabric which is more conducive to creating and sustaining pedestrian activity. But this same dynamic is at play in a city like Atlanta, just more in the neighborhood villages like Virginia-Highland, Little Five Points, East Atlanta Village, etc. As far as the urban core goes, I think Jacksonville would do well to emulate cities around its size that have retained at least a reasonable amount of its urban fabric and are significantly-sized business centers, like Louisville and Richmond.

[Fallen Buckeye]

^^Right. I don't think our goal should be to be the next Savannah (or Asheville or Charleston), but we should take a few lessons on:

• how we can encourage utilization and preservation our existing building fabric where appropriate that respects our city's unique identity
• encouraging a pedestrian friendly environment by considering things such as layout of the street grid, tree cover, building setbacks, park space, etc.
• marketing our city's "brand" to world
• possible benefits and strategies for building urban institutions of higher learning

I think Jacksonville has the potential to a be a city that could really stand out in the crowd if we started getting some of the details rights. Assuming we got our act together, I can't think of another large city that could serve up our mix of Southern culture, beaches, waterways, history, and big city amenities. That's a brand a lot of people would love to buy into.

[Shine]

Agree with fallen.  Savannah is a good lesson in establishing an identity based on “uniqueness.”  Jacksonville’s growth has been focused largley on “sameness.” We need to focus on what is unique and special about Jacksonville and how it stands out from places north and south.  That needs to be incorporated into a shift from a pure growth model to a “prosperity growth” model.

[Noone]

+1 Lets Make It Happen

[Noone]

I lived in Savannah from 87-92 and loved every year of it.  A majority of the city then is not what it was is now.  The locals hated SCAD and the downtown historic area what the murder capital per capita of the US.  If only Jax could put forward the progressive thinking the City of Savannah has used to turn their city around in the last fifteen years, we too could be another southern waterfront gem of a city.  Do our city leaders have it in them?

I must admit that Savannah owes a great bit of gratitude to Richard G. Rowan & Paula S. Wallace, the co-founders of SCAD.  What that college has done for the city is insurmountable.

Can Jacksonville become a destination instead of being a pass-through?

Yes Jacksonville can become a destination instead of being a pass through if it opens it's Waterfront in our new CRA/DIA zone that extends from the Fuller Warren to the Mathews bridge.

It has been more than 25 years since we visited Savannah. But we are Downtown and it has been an eye opening experience. SCAD had their graduation this weekend.

On Sat. The city was trying to break a Guinness world record for a Pub Crawl event. Saw that on the local news and then the next story was about a police crackdown on drinking and driving.

Saw the street car line even though it wasn't running. We enjoyed the squares (parks), tree canopies, and saw the bike share stations.

The waterfront was very impressive. Didn't realize how close the container ships were to the Downtown waterfront buildings.

As for Jacksonville 2014-305 will be in two committees Fianance and RCD on Tues. and will talk about our new docking Rules. Then on Wend. Is the last opportunity for draft recommendations on our CRA/DIA Waterfront and the legislative posturing that will tell all of us if Jacksonville is a Destination and not a pass through.

Will there be any news, print, or radio coverage? Anyone going? A violation of the docking rule especially on the yet to be built floating dock on the Southbank can result in the seizure of your watercraft. Ask councilman Redman about that one. We have all given up asking you know who about you know what.

Visit Jacksonville?

After visiting Savannah I'm ready to kayak Downtown.

Who's next?

[BoldBoyOfTheSouth]

Agree with fallen.  Savannah is a good lesson in establishing an identity based on “uniqueness.”  Jacksonville's growth has been focused largley on sameness. We need to focus on what is unique and special about Jacksonville and how it stands out from places north and south.  That needs to be incorporated into a shift from a pure growth model to a prosperity growth model.

Exactly!!!

Jacksonville trying to be just another SunBelt city means that it's just another SunBelt city indisinguisable from several dozen other cities.

The people of Jacksonville needs to gain a pride of place and what makes us unique before we can market our unique city and what we have to offer others to come visit and perhaps move their offices and themsleves down here with us.

[BoldBoyOfTheSouth]

Inportant things to understand is that SCAD has become part of the urban fabric of Savannah. They restore older housing, buidlings, armories, etc and their students are encouraged to become a part of the community.

Jax's Springfield neighborhood techically has Shands / UNF Health, yet, that hosital is an island unto itself and not really part of the community of Springfield.  Sure, there maybe one or two doctors, nurses or other healhcare workers at UNF Health who live in Springfield but that's not an inspiring percentage of their employees who live there.   Most hospital employees do not patronize Springfield business (what few there even are) during lunch time or after work or happy hour.  Most get off the 95 exit near the hospital to go to work and after work, immediately get back on the highway for all points sprall.

There is a campus of the community college between downtown and Springfield, yet, those gates say "don't come in and for god's sake, it's too dangerous for you to go out so that school is an island in and of itself vs being a healthy part of the downtown and/or Springfield community.  Those parking lots and fences gives the impression that Confederate Park is a no-man's land and even get over there is more of a hassle that it's worth.

UNF has it's suburban campus and it almost has to force itself and its student body through community service to do anything in the urban core.  Sure, some UNF students go out for a good time in Riverside or Murray Hill or even San Marco Square but most just live in bland surburan rental complexes on the Southside and thinks that going to bars in Tintseltown is considered college experience/fun.

So, the gribe session is over.  Long term solutions is to build urban college campuses and hospitals that are designed to become part of the community with street level retail and classrooms, no street level exterior mirrow glass windows that don't allow people to see in, place parking garages on upper floors and within the interior of the campus.  Short term solutions would be to organize fun activities in the urban core neighborhoods and downtown and just plan group outing to the downtown bars or group dinners to urban neighborhoods.  The former takes years of planning and multi-millions of dollars; the latter just takes a few people getting together and planning activities on their own.

[Noone]

When we were there this weekend the one street car is locked up behind a fence. Asked a local and said that they don't use it much. The riverfront was busy and does anyone have any insight on how this attraction has been working?