Moving to historic district springfield in jacksonville !!! (neighborhood, weddings)

[fsu813]

Originally Posted by Magnolia Bloom

FSU813,

Serious questions-

Are you paid to promote Springfield? Do you work for the City of Jacksonville?

Look at my posting history. I educate on all of the historic (and semi historic) urban core neighborhoods: Riverside, Avondale, Springfield, San Marco, and Downtown itself.

I know a lot about them and most others on City-Data don't, it seems. I'm also pretty familar with Murray Hill and Ortega. So when people bring nonsense to the table in a discussion about any of these areas, I'm inclined to cite it as such.




I'm a clinician with a very unique set of responsibilites, which includes being familar with these areas. It's a job requirement per se, though I didn't need that to prompt my interest.

[fsu813]

Chean10, at first I thought this was you! But, turns out it's not, of course.

Yet another family with young children moving in:

Springfield Residents Jo-Ann Williams & Christina Parrish | mySpringfield



What were they thinking?

(ha)


Also, Chean10, you'll probably enjoy this too:

Peter, THE Peter in Peterbrooke (a well known & successfull local chocalatier), is going to be opening a new line of sweets. The first retail/wholesale location will be on Pearl Street, in the neighborhood. Pretty cool, huh? He's branching out into unique, organic types of ice cream, cotton candy, hard candy, etc...not just chocolate.

Here's some info...

http://hphotos-snc3.fbcdn.net/hs424.snc3/24467_371578618637_371577398637_4732797_7865795_n. jpg (broken link)

Sweet Pete's- Pure, Simple Sweets I have worked in the confectionary industry since the age of 14 when my mother founded Peterbrooke Chocolatier. She named the business after my sister Brooke and me. I have long had a passion for making confections. Over the last year, I have enjoyed creating a wide variety of hard candies at home. These included pulled sugar candy canes and cast sugar lollipops. In addition to the hard candies, I also experimented with marshmallow, and jellies. When I purchased marshmallow, lollipops, and other candy, I noticed that they were filled with artificial flavors and colors. Many confections contained high fructose corn syrup and other unnatural ingredients. Increasingly, candy was manufactured in Mexico or China. I believed that consumers deserved better. I believed that consumers deserved pure, simple, sweets made the traditional way with real cane sugar while using natural flavors and colors. It became clear to me that there would be a need for my sweet services! A good friend and now business partner approached me about a neat old house in Springfield –a quaint up and coming Jacksonville neighborhood. Everything just clicked and Sweet Pete’s was born!


Peter

//www.facebook.com/sweetpetes

[Sensei Han]

Originally Posted by fsu813

Chean10, at first I thought this was you! But, turns out it's not, of course.

Yet another family with young children moving in:

Springfield Residents Jo-Ann Williams & Christina Parrish | mySpringfield



What were they thinking?

(ha)

Same thing I'm thinking!

[fsquid]

FSU, you got a link to that spreadsheet with the school rankings in Duval? THANKS

[fsquid]

Waspy Baptists can't be exciting?

[fsu813]

fsuquid,

School "Grades": //www.city-data.com/forum/jacksonville/847513-moving-jacksonville.html

[KerryB]

Originally Posted by Robyn55

Oh boy - another straight hair Waspy probably Baptist family. Are you trying to convince people that Springfield is every bit as bland and boring as more affluent areas of town appear to be? How about some middle or upper middle class Jews - or Italians or people from eastern Europe - like Bosnians (our largest single immigrant group). Or Asians - or people of color? Seems to me that my community in PVB is more diverse than this. Robyn

Instead of making broad assumptions based on almost nothing, why not go over there some & see for yourself? Or does that make too much sense??

I know a lot of Jax residents in general think if you've got some black & brown people with a couple Asians thrown in there that are all upper income levels it means you're "diverse". But from my experience of hanging out in Springfield for a while now on a regular basis & all over Jax in general, its probably the most truly diverse area of town right now as its got low, middle & upper class people of all races living in the historic district. Most are transplants from somewhere else, but a lot grew up around there too.

So yeah, whether that's your bag or not, you're not gonna get that somewhere like Ponte Vedra. Its just not happening.

[Sensei Han]

I saw African Americans in Springfield, but I did not see any Hispanics other than the guys who work in Hola! Mexican restaurant... and I didn't ask if they lived in the area.

Are there any Latino/Hispanics in Springfield?

[fsu813]

besides my wife?

yes.

[Robyn55]

In response to all of you - the gentrification issue is an interesting one - and I enjoy reading about it - articles like this one:

Next American City » Magazine » Gentrification and its Contents (http://americancity.org/magazine/article/gentrification-and-its-contents-buki/ - broken link)

At this point - I'd say that Springfield (and yes - I have been there - I've been to most places in this area) is perhaps 10-20% of the way in terms of gentrification. It won't stay that way. It will become either more gentrified - or go back to where it was a decade or more ago. Note that when an urban area becomes totally gentrified - its population closely resembles that found in Ponte Vedra Beach in terms of socio-economic class (because property becomes expensive). The population may be diverse from an ethnic point of view - but most people will be up there on the income scale. The big problems with Springfield IMO are:

1. Lousy real estate market (bad in Duval in general but worse here). Unless you're a real urban pioneer - when you're looking for a place - you don't want to see what pops up on RealtyTrac when you do a foreclosure search. OTOH - for a real urban pioneer who's willing to gamble on what may be 10-20 years down the road - you can probably get some great deals in the area now.

2. Lousy schools (we already had the discussion about magnet schools - I personally wouldn't count on them being around in 5-10 years). OTOH - families are not necessarily the best urban pioneers (they're not prepared to "roll with the punches" because they have kids). Singles and couples who don't have to worry about schools/kids probably make better urban homesteaders. Instead of those corny blonde poster families - I'd like to see a picture of an obviously gay male couple who love to rehab and decorate places. For some reason - I think JAX was named as one of the top 10 up and coming gay cities in the US in some publication a few years ago. This would be a good demographic group to attract IMO.

3. Not many jobs close by. I lived in Philadelphia years ago when various close-to-center-city neighborhoods there were being gentrified. The single largest draw to these neighborhoods was thousands of people could walk to work.

4. Not much in the way of services in the area (shopping - restaurants - etc.). In Philadelphia - you could walk to dozens of places. So you're still pretty much car dependent. It's nice that fsu813 bikes to work. But that seems to be a "guy thing" (a fellow who writes a column in the FTU does that too). If I were still working - I don't think I'd like biking to my law office dressed for work. Nor would I enjoy wearing bike clothes and packing and changing into work clothes at the office (even if my office had a shower - never worked in an office with a shower).

5. No true urban "feel". You're talking about single family houses for the most part - not high rise rentals or condos. When I was younger and working - I really wanted an urban maintenance free on my part place to live (a place where I called "the super" to fix stuff) - which is why I lived in high rise rentals and condos. Now that I have the time for a house (and have learned to loathe condo associations) - I still don't want to make it my life's work (which older houses can be).

6. Crime (which is everwhere in the metro area - although there's more or less depending the particular area you're looking at) is a bigger issue than it would be if this were a true urban area with high rise buildings. I've lived in urban areas that had crime - and security is much easier in the context of a high rise than a single family house. In fact - one of the reasons we moved here is we wanted to try living in a house - and houses in the area we lived in in Miami were always getting burglarized (although high rise condos like the one we lived in didn't have problems).

Maybe more to follow, Robyn