Consolidation v Deconsolidation

[ChriswUfGator]

but in the end Brown won. He made Jax history and his reason for winning partially had something to do with his position on DT and the urban core. Moving forward, I'd like to see the council districts realigned so that the urban core is actually represented by the council. Right now, it's piecemealed into a variety of districts with neighborhoods who's needs are completely different. This may be the largest difference between us and a place like Nashville or Louisville.

Yeah, he won. It's not a lifetime appointment though. Like any smart politician, he'll always pay attention to the next election. We shouldn't saddle the leaders of a dense commercial area with having to worry about what conservative suburbanites 30 miles away think of what decisions are made in the downtown they don't like and never visit. Tell me you seriously don't see how this has contributed to our problems in a major way...

[thelakelander]

Yeah, he won. It's not a lifetime appointment though. Like any smart politician, he'll always pay attention to the next election. We shouldn't saddle the leaders of a dense commercial area with having to worry about what conservative suburbanites 30 miles away think of what decisions are made in the downtown they don't like and never visit. Tell me you seriously don't see how this has contributed to our problems in a major way...

No, I don't.  For every consolidated city with a dying downtown (there actually aren't many outside of Jax), you can easily find double the amount of non-consolidated cities with dying downtowns.  Imo, with our past leadership, consolidation or not, downtown would have still went down the tubes just from the simple fact of us ripping its economic structure apart in the 1950s.  To date, we still have not replaced that organic economic engine.

[ChriswUfGator]

but in the end Brown won. He made Jax history and his reason for winning partially had something to do with his position on DT and the urban core. Moving forward, I'd like to see the council districts realigned so that the urban core is actually represented by the council. Right now, it's piecemealed into a variety of districts with neighborhoods who's needs are completely different. This may be the largest difference between us and a place like Nashville or Louisville.

Yeah, he won. It's not a lifetime appointment though. Like any smart politician, he'll always pay attention to the next election. We shouldn't saddle the leaders of a dense commercial area with having to worry about what conservative suburbanites 30 miles away think of what decisions are made in the downtown they don't like and never visit. Tell me you seriously don't see how this has contributed to our problems in a major way...

Well there are a couple of things about this subject.  Primarily, there is the fact that we are not going to deconsolidate.  This just simply will not happen.

And I think you are believing the hype of the Hogan machine here.  If 35% voted for Hogan solely on the basis of the "R" next to his name, that means only an additional 14% agreed with his specific policies.

How many of them actually dont like the downtown.

none.

They like the jaguars, certainly.  and downtown is the middlepoint for all fans.

They like First Baptist, obviously, and that church partially owes its success to its central location.

The like the Veteran's Memorial, and the large events put on by the city that can only be staged in the downtown area.

It is a myth that they don't like the downtown spending.

What they don't like is the failures.

And that, is something that we can fix.

The crux of the problem isn't that suburbanites don't like soending money downtown, it's that they are generally opposed to spending money outside the front gates of their subdivisions. This has been proven time and again, it's basically the whole problem with the suburban political mindset. This should not have an impact on what is done in urban areas where suburban policies and architecture don't work.

Regarding deconsolidation, we already are deconsolidating, downtown is in the process of disappearing and dispersing into the suburbs. There already isn't a "city" anymore in the traditional sense. We have one large county suburb. Water finds level ground, Stephen. If the policies become more inflexible than economic realities, it dies. And it has.

[ChriswUfGator]

No, I don't.  For every consolidated city with a dying downtown (there actually aren't many outside of Jax), you can easily find double the amount of non-consolidated cities with dying downtowns.  Imo, with our past leadership, consolidation or not, downtown would have still went down the tubes just from the simple fact of us ripping its economic structure apart in the 1950s.  To date, we still have not replaced that organic economic engine.

100% correct.

100% useless statistic, more like. There are exponentially more unconsolidated cities than consolidated ones.

[ChriswUfGator]

Chris.  Your theory on this has already been put to a county wide test twice.

Once with Delaney's Better Jacksonville Plan, in which the voters of the suburbs overwhelmingly agreed to new taxes in order to rebuild the Center.

It was more recently tested (for a second time) in this last election in which a cynical right wing candidate attempted to make your very points an issue.  It ended up in a mostly white republican voting city electing the first democrat in 20 years and the first black man---ever.

The Jury is already out on this.

Hopefully this settles this.  Because literally the only next possible way to prove the point is to ask the majority of jacksonville people to individually send you a letter.

I believe there is a thread about deconsolidation already going on.  Perhaps we can post there about the issue and keep this thread solely about strategies for a downtown development agency or lack thereof.

The majority of the BJP funds weren't slated for downtown when the plan was approved. Note I said when the plan was approved, since the amount wasted on this courthouseatross has likely skewed the figures at this point. The BJP was approved primarily because it spent a busload of money on suburban road and highway improvements. And knowing how things have turned out with the courthouse and main library homeless shelter, I think you'd find most people wouldn't vote for it if the referendum happened today. Hell even the Riverside/Avondale Lola's, traditionally downtown supporters and preservationists, are sick of the main library they are trying to get the archives moved to Willowbranch. Shamefully.

Anyway, you can't call the BJP any referendum on consolidation, it spent tons supporting suburban sprawl.

[JeffreyS]

Even though we got the Baseball Grounds and Arena in the BJP.  What you can call the BJP is progressive.  No matter if you think we invested in all the right things are not people in Jax will invest in their Quality of Life and the BJP proved it.

[ChriswUfGator]

Even though we got the Baseball Grounds and Arena in the BJP.  What you can call the BJP is progressive.  No matter if you think we invested in all the right things are not people in Jax will invest in their Quality of Life and the BJP proved it.

Unfortunately, these investments in far-flung suburbs were, in hindsight, often diametrically opposed to the interests of the urban core, when those investments were designed to promote the wholesale dismantling and relocation of downtown's commercial density to unsustainable locations for the benefit of private developers. Downtown was dismantled one limb at a time, and had the unique privilege of paying the bill for the development of its own competing interests. A great degree of this would have been mitigated were it not for consolidation inflicting generations of suburban-style leadership on an urban area.

I wouldn't call the BJP progressive, because to a great extent it supported the ongoing suburban sprawl boom, which with the passage of time, I suspect we will begin to see is truly unsustainable. A 50 mile daily commute only makes sense with cheap gas. Something that isn't exactly in abundant supply these days. Progressive would have been anticipating the need and responding with mass transit, vs. building more highways and overpasses.

[Tacachale]

The roads that were expanded by the BJP run both ways - they lead back to downtown from the suburbs as surely as the lead the other way. The areas where the roads were expanded were already sprawled out; if anything, the road improvements made downtown more accessible from these already sprawled out areas, and encourage stronger planning in places that were already mushrooming anyway. And millions of dollars went to buying up preservation land - land that now can't be plowed over for even more development. Additionally, the core was the only area that saw a concentration of big projects - the library, the courthouse, the arena, the baseball grounds; proportionally, it received more money than any other area, hands down. With the population numbers in the old city being what they are, it is arguable whether they would have been able to fund projects like this without the suburban tax base.

There are many other cities (eg Orlando, Atlanta) that continue to sprawl despite never passing something like the Better Jacksonville Plan, and despite having much more vibrant downtowns than Jacksonville does. BJP's execution wasn't perfect, but it strikes a good balance between trying to clean up suburban planning and investing in the core. If and when we succeed in making our urban core more attractive for residents and businesses, we'll see the payoff of these investments.

[vicupstate]

When the BJP referendum was put on the ballot, all of the major DT projects were included: Courthouse, main library, Arena, Baseball field.  It also included $100mm for mass transit right of way.

Of course, highways were the majority of it.  But a good chunk was for re-paving and adding sidewalks too.  It wasn't just road widening and interchange improvements. 

[urbaknight]

I thing we should get DT back in order, by bring residents and businesses back to the core. If we can get DT back to its former glory, or at least close enough, then we should deconsolidate and go back to Jacksonville ad it was in the mid 1900. Cut away the suburbs and tell them "good luck".

Then we wouldn't have to stretch our resources so thin, police, fire, rescue, maintenance of roads and sidewalks etc.

[I-10east]

Channel 4: Should Jacksonville's consolidated government be restructured?

http://www.news4jax.com/news/should-jacksonvilles-consolidated-government-be-restructured/29120332

[Dog Walker]

Here is a link to a summary of the report of the Task Force on Consolidated Government:

http://www.coj.net/city-council/headlines/city-council-task-force-on-consolidation-presents.aspx

Was at a meeting this morning where Councilwoman Lori Boyer gave a brilliant verbal presentation on this and gave out copies of the report.  Looks like really great work on the part of the Task Force.  Hope it generates some corrective action and doesn't just end up in a drawer somewhere.

[spuwho]

"Continuity and retention of institutional knowledge"  is a great admission and will actually help with 2 other issues named.

What actually comes to pass is something quite different. Every new COJ council member should be required to attend at minimum 2 classes on COJ legislative history.

I have served on boards where you couldnt vote in a meeting until you finished member orientation. They found that new members were taking up too much time trying to get context on an issue up for vote.

Once the training started, board meetings got much more strategic and dealt less with operations and were way more efficient.

May our civic fathers take a similar path to improvement.