What if Jacksonville suddenly woke up?

[Thomas Joseph]

Allow me to put this another way. As per the things mentioned in the article Jacksonville was more than awake in the past.

What happened was that Jax was intentionally put to sleep. Conservative elements wanted to be rid of the film industry and wanted black people to lose their gains. The consolidation of Jax was intended as a racist guarantee not civic improvement.

With the election of Tim Curry Jax has decided to go to sleep for the future also. Jax has some great stuff but its direction is solidly backwards and it is intentional.

[finehoe]

With the election of Tim Curry

[thelakelander]

I do not care for this editorial at all.  If all these pie-in-the-sky dreams happened, Jacksonville wouldn't be what it is: a very nice place to live. Not everyone wants to live in a metropolis.  Our quality of living is pretty damn great, and every development and influx of people knocks it down just a bit as we get more crowded and our open spaces diminish.

"Peterbrookes, The Loop Pizza and Firehouse Subs would all have gigantic headquarters in the center of town that rivaled the marooned Cruise Ship of a Building that Preston Haskell's company erected to itself on Riverside Avenue. There would be standing lines for tours of Sally Industry."

1. If you can't even get the name of the store right, why should I take you seriously? And the Loop? really? They would have downtown headquarters? Because that's the kind of chain that has downtown tower offices?  2. What is the pot shot at Haskell for? I know this is old, but clearly, as the redevelopment of Brooklyn has proved, that was a smart move to build there and, more importantly, it's a nice building, within walking distance of the very core of downtown.

"Al Letson would have his own broadcast show and Jake Godbold would have a cookbook."

3.  Al Letson does now have his own broadcast, poorly named after lame mid-2000's slang, and it's so-so at best.

"The urban population would have increased faster adding to the corporate scrapers due to the less restrictive city policy and would make Jacksonville the premier city in Florida if not the southeast."

4. And this is a good thing? Like I said, not everyone wants to live in a huge city? Have you actually been to Atlanta? It's terrible.  Awful traffic, rude people, and overpriced.  That isn't something to which I aspire, and it isn't what i want for the place I have lived for 36 years.  I am really, truly getting sick of all the people who only moved here in the last 10 years saying Jacksonville has to do this, has to do that to become the "next-level" city.  It's pretty damn good the way it is.  Sure, a few more cultural opportunities might be nice, but if you know where to look, there's plenty on that front.  I wish everybody would stop trying to make us something we aren't and just enjoy what this city has to offer in the here and now.

Probably time to do a 2016 version, incorporating things we've learned and that have happened over the last 8 years. Since the establishment of MJ, I know that I've grown to accept Jax as second tier regional city. Like Portland, Salt Lake City and Greenville, there's things we can do to improve our quality-of-life but my days of directly comparing Jax to alpha cities are over.

[Tacachale]

Is it just me or does is this thread getting changing a lot?

[FlaBoy]

I do not care for this editorial at all.  If all these pie-in-the-sky dreams happened, Jacksonville wouldn't be what it is: a very nice place to live. Not everyone wants to live in a metropolis.  Our quality of living is pretty damn great, and every development and influx of people knocks it down just a bit as we get more crowded and our open spaces diminish.

"Peterbrookes, The Loop Pizza and Firehouse Subs would all have gigantic headquarters in the center of town that rivaled the marooned Cruise Ship of a Building that Preston Haskell's company erected to itself on Riverside Avenue. There would be standing lines for tours of Sally Industry."

1. If you can't even get the name of the store right, why should I take you seriously? And the Loop? really? They would have downtown headquarters? Because that's the kind of chain that has downtown tower offices?  2. What is the pot shot at Haskell for? I know this is old, but clearly, as the redevelopment of Brooklyn has proved, that was a smart move to build there and, more importantly, it's a nice building, within walking distance of the very core of downtown.

"Al Letson would have his own broadcast show and Jake Godbold would have a cookbook."

3.  Al Letson does now have his own broadcast, poorly named after lame mid-2000's slang, and it's so-so at best.

"The urban population would have increased faster adding to the corporate scrapers due to the less restrictive city policy and would make Jacksonville the premier city in Florida if not the southeast."

4. And this is a good thing? Like I said, not everyone wants to live in a huge city? Have you actually been to Atlanta? It's terrible.  Awful traffic, rude people, and overpriced.  That isn't something to which I aspire, and it isn't what i want for the place I have lived for 36 years.  I am really, truly getting sick of all the people who only moved here in the last 10 years saying Jacksonville has to do this, has to do that to become the "next-level" city.  It's pretty damn good the way it is.  Sure, a few more cultural opportunities might be nice, but if you know where to look, there's plenty on that front.  I wish everybody would stop trying to make us something we aren't and just enjoy what this city has to offer in the here and now.

Probably time to do a 2016 version, incorporating things we've learned and that have happened over the last 8 years. Since the establishment of MJ, I know that I've grown to accept Jax as second tier regional city. Like Portland, Salt Lake City and Greenville, there's things we can do to improve our quality-of-life but my days of directly comparing Jax to alpha cities are over.

Where do you draw the line of an "alpha city"? In my mind, an alpha city is NYC, Chicago, Houston, Boston, San Francisco or Miami. However, could we compete with Charlotte, Tampa, San Antonio or Nashville?

[thelakelander]

Depends on what we're competing for or being compared too.  An argument for port expansion is a different one than a comparison of urban core vibrancy and potential. In general, I'd say we're a notch below Charlotte, Tampa and San Antonio economically.  I believe all these metropolitan areas are more than twice our size. Nashville is larger as well, but moreso in line than the other three.  IMO, our true peers are places like Memphis, Louisville, Richmond, etc. However, this does not mean that we can't excel in certain areas when it comes to quality-of-life. Salt Lake City, Greenville, Asheville, Savannah, Charleston, etc. are all examples of places smaller than us that have done great things despite their size.

[thelakelander]

The major difference, IMO is size and scale. Jax is currently a metropolitan area of 1.4 million. Roughly a bit smaller than what Seattle's MSA was in 1960. Depending on what  the comparison is, there's a significant gap between 'alpha' cities (I don't think Seattle is a alpha city) and Jax. A direct comparison of downtown Jax's scale to a place three times its size and several more times its density only puts Jax at an unfair disadvantage. If the outcome is that the other place is bigger and may offer more in a certain area, so be it, who cares? Make a comparison based on weather or another subject that eliminates scale and the outcome may be a totally different story.

[thelakelander]

A Combined Statistical Area is different than a Metropolitan Statistical Area. See here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_statistical_area

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area

Jax's 1.4 million MSA is made up of Duval, St. Johns, Clay, Baker and Nassau Counties. Jax's 1.5 million CSA includes the MSA counties along with Putnam and Camden Counties.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacksonville_metropolitan_area

[Tacachale]

There are different ways to parse it. The population of Seattle's King County alone is 2,117,125. [http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk] That's substantially larger than Jacksonville's entire 7-county Combined Statistical Area at 1,543,297. Any way you slice it, Seattle is a much larger community than Jacksonville. A good comparison may be to look at what Seattle did 40-50 years ago and how we can use those lessons here, now.

[thelakelander]

yes.  Weirdly, its the same as the last time we discussed the subject.

Even weirder how the City populations of both Jacksonville and Seattle are different from a huge chunk of the surrounding states.

Yes, Jax is consolidated which really screws its numbers when directly compared apples to apples with non-consolidated cities on population, density and built urban infrastructure.  The traditional (actual in terms of urban infrastructure and development) City of Jax maxed out 30 square miles with a little over 200k residents by 1960. At the time, Urban Seattle was more than twice the size. Since 1960, preconsolidated Jax's population and density has had a Detroit like fall and was hovering around 100k in the 2010 census. Seattle fell as well but bottomed out by 1980 and is now one of the fastest growing developed cores in the country.

[thelakelander]

A good comparison may be to look at what Seattle did 40-50 years ago and how we can use those lessons here, now.

Yes, this is correct.

[thelakelander]

No one needs to live there to know that the scale is totally different. Anyone interested in seeing, take a look at the images in this 2015 MJ article:

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2015-apr-visions-of-vibrancy-seattle

There's no where in Jax offering this type of built density and the amount of vibrancy that spills out at street level:







This isn't a knock on Jax, the scale is just different.  We can do everything right and be top notch vibrant for our size, but the scales will be different. No grass roots citizen's movement is going to change that in a short time frame.

[spuwho]

Having lived in Seattle pre-Microsoft, they already had a culture in place that fostered the type of urban setting they enjoy today.

The Worlds Fair campus was dying but they didnt tear it down. Now its a core public space in Uptown.

Tons of abandoned warehouses next to the piers, but they didnt tear them down (or burn them down).  Many were converted into work or loft spaces.

But that culture has run into issues. They lost their basketball team because they refused to give up on Key Arena. Even today a new basketball/hockey arena is contraversial down in Sodo.

They are having a chronic crime problem in some areas not unlike Jax.

But the one thing that differentiates Seattle today is that they  now have several high paying corporate HQ in the area. They also have some of the highest tax rates to support 3 major transporation forms, road, rail and ferry. On top of the 2 tax plans that help pay for the football and baseball stadium.

But Seattle was not afraid to enact zoning rules that fostered urban architecture and land use. Their "no garage" residential zoning in certain areas was a direct response to a transit tax.

If people had to pay a transit tax, then in their mind Seattle shouldnt foster car use by allowing garages.

In Jacksonville, that would create impeachment talk, in Seattle its considered a trade off of urban living.

[thelakelander]

lol.  except of course that a grass roots movement did exactly that in Seattle.

Stop being such a pessimist, lake.

The pessimism on the part of the people who need to be optimists are the literal reason why jville has moved so slowly forward.

Some tasks just seem impossible, until you do them.

There may be some confusion. I'm a realist, not a pessimist. There's a difference in scales between various communities and I'm not even sure it's in Jax's best interest to strive to become significantly larger than what it is today. Being the biggest on the block doesn't always equal having a higher quality-of-life. I'm an advocate of quality, sustainable growth.  However, I don't care if Jax never catches Seattle, Atlanta, Miami, etc. in population or built density.

[CCMjax]

you don't have to care for the editorial, mmr.

Couple of things though:



I love Preston Haskell, he's always been nice to me, and Rushton married an old friend of mine, but the Haskell Building is a low rise, fairly unambitious suburban campus right in the downtown that doesn't even celebrate or explore the possibilities of Tilt Up, the design/build construction technique that he pioneered. And it does look like a capsized, marooned yacht.  Its not that its not nice.  But considering...its not spectacular either.  But great way to focus on a single sentence in a 7 page article.

Celebrate the possibilities of tilt up?  I'm confused, are you saying you want tilt up buildings all over downtown and you are mad Haskell didn't do their building in tilt?  They are generally a cheaper looking construction in my opinion and that is coming from someone who has helped design several of them.  They are really most cost effective when there are large lay down areas (like suburban communities) or industrial warehouse areas (the concrete walls are cast on site flat on their sides then tilted up into place after curing . . . hence "Tilt-Up").  And no curves, which Haskell's building has.  You see plenty of that construction scattered throughout the Jacksonville landscape away from downtown and for buildings no more than a couple stories or 50 feet.  The new Brooks facility on University next to Memorial Hospital, the new Ja-Ru toy warehouse and office near 9B and Phillips, etc.  There are many features to the Haskell building that make it unpractical for tilt, plus Haskell does plenty of projects in other types of construction so it's not exactly all they are known for. 

I do agree with you that it does seem a bit suburban for a downtown office building but hey, at least they located downtown and not off Butler somewhere.