Jax Chamber Headed to Kansas City - A few Pointers

[Metro Jacksonville]

Jax Chamber Headed to Kansas City - A few Pointers



Next week, the Chamber of Commerce and city leaders will make their annual pilgrimage to a peer city to seek out innovative ideas and successes that Jacksonville could implement. In years past, without bringing back and implementing tangible results, this trip has come under fire by Jacksonville taxpayers.

To help make this trip worthwhile, Metro Jacksonville highlights five Kansas City projects that Jacksonville representatives should take a close look at.


Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2009-sep-jax-chamber-headed-to-kansas-city-a-few-pointers

[Hurricane]

Great stuff!  Not to sound like I'm overly happy, but I'm really glad you guys started this website and go through all of the hard work to put these together.  Hopefully, some of the right people working for the city start becoming regulars to the site and learn how to correct Jacksonville.  Thanks!

[Jennifer Browning]

I agree with you!  I'm not sure why we can't have a decent rail system in Jacksonville and not have the Town Center Mall as the center of our town. (I don't think suburban malls should be the center of an urban city!)  We need to have downtown grow.... I hope the city representatives take a look at this as well.  We have the ability to become a big city we just have to do it. 

[jagsfan32092]

KC is my home town!  The Plaza is abosolutely gorgeous and is a day trip in itself.  I do hope that our leaders in Jacksonville take note of some of the offerings that KC has. 

[Ocklawaha]

Keep in mind boys and girls that KC is the city where the people mounted a movement that became a landslide initiative, which led to a vote to kill the fancy BRT plan and build LIGHT RAIL. The next thing they'll learn from KC is how the political machine was able to abort the will of the citizens and invalidate the vote and go right back to BRT.

JTA anyone? WHO'S ON THIS TRIP ROSTER?

I'll take a stab at this next one Lake!

Previous Chamber of Commerce Trips

What the Jacksonville delegation learned from these trips and how this information was applied locally is not clear to the general public.

2008 - Seattle, WA, Since this date Jacksonville has taken on a more grunge look.
2007 - Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong, China, Since this trip we have opened 3 new Panda Express locations.
2006 - New Orleans, LA, This trip was a housing boom in outlaying Duval, as we brought back 300 FEMA travel trailers.
2005 - Boston, Baked Beans went on the menu's of 4 local restaurants, sales of Sam Adams, soared.

OCKLAWAHA

[A-Finnius]

A few of Jacksonville's leaders have been quoted in the local media as believing that the St. Johns Town Center is an example of New Urbanism, when in reality, it is nothing but the latest version of a suburban regional mall.

Nice job nailing this assessment of the St. Johns Town Center.

[mtraininjax]

STJTC was simple math, build it where the people ain't, and they will come. They could add another just above Nocatee and people would still flock to open air malls, they enjoy the lightening rod games with umbrellas during the summer time.

Good ol junkets, love the Chamber for their ...... vision? Must be why we dumped them a long time ago.

[Jaxson]

The train station in Kansas City is worth looking around.  I took the Amtrak to the KCMO area this past summer and hope that we can learn lessons from other cities and their passenger rail facilities.  Our Amtrak station is currently a shed.

[DavidWilliams]

Bring back some good ideas on BBQ. Lord knows we need some more here. 

[buckethead]

Travelling can be fun.

[stjr]

What is the real purpose of this trip?  To learn lessons for Jax or to recruit business via the KC corporate community?

While the agenda reflects some substantive meetings, no doubt, I would be most disappointed in that this trip lacks much in the way of getting out into the city, its neighborhoods, and fabric for a real taste of how urban planning is working or not working.  Also, conspicuous by its absence, are visits to parks, historic sites, and more cultural and educational institutions as well as conversations with "everyday people".

Two and half days on the ground in any major city is almost a waste of time and certainly not adequate to say you have truly "tasted" and learned from it.  I would find this to be more frustrating than satisfying.

To be honest, given the KC individuals invited to meet and greet with the Jax visitors, I believe the trip is cleverly designed more to make connections for Jax business leaders, raise Jax's profile in another part of the country, and maybe recruit some of their business expansions to Jax, as opposed to really learning what is right in KC that could be duplicated here.  I have no expectations that the average citizen in Jax will benefit from this trip unless its through the creation of a few more jobs because Hallmark Cards decided to expand here.   

This is definitely a CHAMBER, not CITY oriented trip.  I am not trying to be critical, just demanding "truth in advertising".

[reednavy]

Kansas City is a good city to partner with and make our name known. KC is a MAJOR transportation hub in all aspects, road, rail and air. They're a large logistics hub, jsut like us, so it makes some sense, IMO.

[Traveller]

Maybe the mayor is trying to sell some tickets to the Nov. 8 game against the Chiefs.

[Keith-N-Jax]

LOL,,funny Traveller.

[thelakelander]

Btw, everyone wonders what will happen if the Jags one day leave Jacksonville.  Well Kansas City has lost NBA and NHL franchises.  Jax delegates may want to ask Kansas City's leaders about their experience.

Kansas City used to have an NBA team. The team's original name was Kansas City-Omaha Kings because it played home games in both Kansas City and Omaha. However, after 1975 the team would exclusively play in Kansas City. After 1985, the Kansas City Kings would move to Sacramento to become today's Sacramento Kings. In 1974, the NHL ended its first expansion period by adding teams in Kansas City and Washington, D.C.  Although they were better than their expansion brethren the Washington Capitals (who won only eight games in their inaugural season), the Kansas City Scouts began to suffer from an economic downturn in the Midwest. For their second season, the Scouts sold just 2,000 of 8,000 season tickets and were almost $1 million in debt. Due to their various on- and off-ice disappointments, the franchise moved to Denver and was renamed the Colorado Rockies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City,_Missouri