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Was Jacksonville ever considered a similar city when it came to population and economic influence, vs. Tampa or Orlando? I have this weird feeling Jax was never quite as big of a city(same with how important it was considered, for its importance) as Orlando or Tampa, but what do I know? Where Jax is more like say Pensacola or Mobile sized, in its influence.
And for some reason, I get this feeling Jax got very lucky, in landing the Jaguars. Since to me whenever I've street viewed that city, Jax doesn't seem like the most interesting City. It has a handful of nice neighborhoods(like one to the southwest of downtown), the area near the riverfront, and the beach area, but for whatever reason I was hoping Jax would jump out to me more as a City. Sometimes I've wondered if there are any interesting neighborhoods in Jax I should street view, that for all I know I missed out in looking at?
Jacksonville was the largest city in Florida from 1900-1940, before it was consolidated. It was passed by Miami, but it’s harder to keep track after they consolidated it since its population is artificially high.
Jacksonville hasn't been the largest metro in Florida since the 1930s. Both Tampa and Miami surpassed it after air conditioning became widespread, and advancing technology made it easier to develop the swampy southern 2/3rds of Florida. I don't necessarily agree that what happened 90 years ago should constitute the benchmark for this thread.
I know I'm in the minority here but I think folks are disproportionately hard on JAX on City-Data. That top level city pop number doesn't do it any favors and is deceiving. Probably the best example of why city population should not be used for size comparisons. Jacksonville is the 39th largest metropolitan area. It's skyline is in proportion with other 1.6 million metro's. It's economic output performs well against it's peer metro's and is growing faster, and it's one fastest growing metro's in the country.
Is it becoming "less relevant" as it's population grows? Well that's obviously subjective and hard to measure. To me "less relevant" implies one of 2 things:
1. Other peer cities are becoming more relevant and surpassing JAX. In that case which ones, and how?
2. Major cities/metros are becoming so relevant they are absorbing "relevancy" from all smaller cities/metros. In which case all cities and metro's under a certain size are becoming less relevant by default. (I think if the premise of the thread is true this is the more likely option.)
I don't agree that with it's growth and economic development over the last 20 years that JAX has become less relevant. I think this is more a case of the social contagion and group think that happens on here, where certain cities are automatically written off without forum posters considering objective evidence first.
I'm sorry if you think I was being too harsh, on Jacksonville. I will say what you said that people may not judge cities they know less about as fairly as ones they are more familiar with, as true.
From time to time I have Google street viewed Jacksonville, in the hopes of finding some good neighborhoods to explore on street view. I do sometimes wonder if Jax is a more interesting city, than what it seems like at first glance?
And btw, don't feel bad that certain other posters may not judge Jax as well and as fairly, as they should. I feel on a similar note, certain City Data posters who haven't visited Indianapolis for themself, don't always judge that city fairly. But that's just me, as someone who has gone to Indy numerous times and likes that city.
Yeah, San Antonio seems like a pretty good example.
Their metro population has increased by over a million in the 2000's, but can people outside of Texas name one thing that really changed since the 90's other than more people?
Salary
Dining
Shopping
Urban living
You know the things that people live in cities for.
The other thing that comes to mind is UTSA; it feels like it's done a good job of growing in significance and being more than a commuter school.
Overall, I tend to agree that the city's profile hasn't grown as much as the population.
UTSA has definitely made a lot of strides over the last decade and they're building a lot downtown now which should boost downtown even more. To add on to what Rynetwo said...
Upscale shopping: Saks, Neiman Marcus, standalone Louis Vuitton built within the last year, another LV inside of Saks, standalone Gucci store + Chanel beauty boutique that both opened within the last month (Chanel boutique only in bigger markets like NYC/LA/Miami/Scottsdale/Philly/Chicago etc, with the exception of Austin)
Ferrari dealership opened 5-6 years ago, the biggest BMW dealership in the US opened here in 2019, additional Audi/Mercedes/Land Rover/Jaguar dealerships within the last 5 years, massive exotic dealership in Boerne that almost exclusively sells 100k-1M cars opened in 2017.
There's new restaurants getting built all the time here so I'm not sure where to start with that one. Off the top of my head with new higher end spots there's Rebelle and The Moon's Daughter (that one got some media coverage https://www.bjtonline.com/business-j...BIoMsBIUniUV4M)
1Watson (another swanky type of rooftop spot downtown) just opened this week. High end local stuff at the Pearl/Southtown and then there's typical national staples like The Palm/Perry's/several Ruth Chris/Morton's/Fleming's etc. Not really my forte, but there's pretty much everything from "foodie" stuff, variety of high end places, food truck parks, chains, whatever.
With all that being said, plus the comparisons below, there's no way SA has regressed in stature. At the very least it's stayed the same and IMHO that's not true. If it was the same city it was 10 or even 5 years ago... I would not be living here anymore LOL. SA is too small to compete with Dallas/Houston and the fact that Austin is a media darling at the moment leaves it overlooked in a lot of ways.
Here's some before/after comparisons of the other areas of town. Some are still U/C and there were others I couldn't add because there wasn't anything to compare it to.
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