Suburbs are dying....Urban living is growing (Jacksonville, Miami: short sale, rent)

[KerryB]

Originally Posted by jsimms3

Jacksonville Leaders See Benefit of Walkability

An awesome article. Robyn and Kerry, I know you guys (or one of you at least) is further out living the retirement dream, but I know both of you are always looking for signs of a more progressive leadership and desire/steps to create a more vibrant, competitive city. Well this is one article that never would have been written 10 or 20 years ago. There are so many articles coming out just like this and so much more enthusiasm from city and local business leaders. There are also baby steps being taken.

Now in addition to lobbying to speed up the river dredging to help the port support post panamax ships (and a resolution with the lonshoremen and Hanjin negogiations to build its new terminal), the city is now in talks with CSX to connect its Blount Island and Dames Point terminals by rail to a Westside Intermodal terminal to boost cargo capacity and efficiency. CSX started these talks.

CSX Exec Calls for Trainport

And this:

Good News for JAA Financial Numbers and Passenger Counts

Good articles & encouraging, thanks.

BTW, its def not me thats retired, lol. I'm 33 & trapped in the suburbs (for now) longing to get back to some kind of decent urban environment. I'd just like to see more actual work being done instead of just talk & studies. So far, thats really all we have here. That coupled with us already being so far behind doesn't exactly make me feel good about putting my eggs into that basket. I'd love for the city to prove me wrong though.

[fsu813]

St. Nicholas isn't a very popular place place to live, and iy's certainly not "urban" at all.

Unlike the other areas mentioned, noone moves to St Nicholas b/c it's St. Nicholas, there's not any real momentum or change on there, it has very little going on there, etc....basically it's trending down or treading water.

[maggie88]

Yes, thanks for the St. Nicholas info. Hard to tell from what I'm reading. It seems a but more plain than some of the other areas. I've just been loving the photo thread, jsimms3. What more could one hope for -- a walking photo tour to see the different neighborhoods. Are you going to do any of the beach neighborhoods like Jacksonville Beach or PV Beach?

Awesome weather report, Robyn. I think unless one moves to San Fran, nowhere is the weather ideal. Believe it or not, summers here are hot and humid 90% of the time into the 90's many days but it's the winters! Ahhh! Today, we're having major wind storms and blowing rain and snow!!! I'm OK with hotter weather but it's these winters that keep one hibernating for several months. You don't realize just how much you hibernate until spring hits. We're not winter sports people. We far prefer warm weather sports so...

[jsimms3]

Haha Maggie I think if you think San Fran summers are comparable to FL summers you are in for a real shock. LoL And thanks for the photo comments...I am out of Jax photos for the time being (I have been focusing on other cities), but next time I am in town I will try to hit up the beaches. The beaches have their own urban character...Atlantic Beach is reminescent of Cape Cod, Neptune maybe like NJ, Jax Beach is a mix of ugly stucco highrises and cool areas with some seedy areas, and PVB is gorgeous, very high end FL resort/retirement/wealthy family areas.

[bativac]

Maggie, my wife and I are in our late 20s early 30s and live in St Nicholas. Yeah, it's a quiet area, but home prices are fairly low, neighborhoods are quiet and safe, and it's close to downtown. I like the area. I'd rather be in San Marco or Riverside, but home prices are prohibitively expensive.

Not sure where fsu813 is getting the idea that "St. Nicholas isn't a very popular place place to live" because everyone that I know who lives here loves it, and there aren't a ton of homes for sale (though certainly there are a few here and there). Certainly it's not an area like Historic Springfield, where you have some gentrification surrounded by blocks of ghetto. St Nicholas is more of a middle class type area with some upper middle class and some lower middle class.

At any rate anybody looking for an urban environment like you'd find in San Fran or NYC or Chicago would be hard pressed to find a very satisfying one in Jacksonville. You can certainly find it in pockets here and there but for the most part, sprawl is king.

[donisanasfan]

summer in SF is closer to winter in Chicago, then a florida summer. I grew up in the bay area and love the weather there, but it is light years different then Florida. SF in the summer is foggy, wet and cold 75% of the time. Go over the bay bridge and it will warm up 15 degrees. Go even further east a few miles into the valley and you will be about 25 degrees warmer then SF. Never stays too hot for too long anywhere in the bay area as the coastal fog always makes its way in at some point to cool things off. Love the weather-hate the taxes, traffic and Nancy Pelosi.

[maggie88]

I hear you about San Fran -- the only thing I could like about it is the weather. I don't think I would live anywhere in CA. I've been in FLA at all times of the year and am aware of the heat -- all I can say is I prefer the heat extremes to the cold extremes after 12 years in Midwest. You know it's time to move to a warmer climate when you run to the grocery store and you have to scrape 3 inches of snow/slush off your car when you come out an hour later to load your car. I would be happy never to have to scrape ice off of a windshield again! Although I will say it's always beautiful during the holidays but that's a few weeks out of a very loooong winter season.

Bativac, thanks for your comments on St. Nicholas. I was looking at jsimms3's photos on the photo thread and it seems like a nice area too. We're totally open for all possibilities and this site is great for exploring. We're not looking for NYC, SF or Chi anymore. Been there, done that. We're looking for a southern climate that has some urban feel to it but we don't have to be immersed in it anymore. We've lived in NYC, Phili, CT, Twin Cities, Knoxville, TN, and visited many other cities that we really like but don't want to live there (Atlanta, DC, Seattle), and Jacksonville feels right so far. I lived in the south for 14 years and I miss it for a lot of reasons. I look forward to seeing some of these neighborhoods in person. That's the only way to really tell if a place is right for one to move to.

[fsu813]

hey maggie if youre lookin for photos www.metrojackonville.com has many pictorials about these neighborhoods but some are dated. also www.myspringfield.org has a bunch of photo galleries.
st. nicholas is ok but its a lot like murray hill where it just ok and not moving quickly in either direction imo.
dont wrry there arent ay places where u can immerse yourself in urbanism here compared to those other cities

[fsu813]

Yup, This: Jacksonville leaders see benefits of making city ‘walkable’ | Jacksonville Business Journal is a great article.

Seems like COJ/community leaders didn't realize that a similar plan is already in the Downtown Master Plan.

Connecting the electic, historic, active, and unique urban core neighborhoods of Riverside, San Marco, & Springfield to eachother and Downtown itself is a great (and common sense idea).

A lot of it is in place already (the S line, for example), but needs some tweaking and support.

Looking forward to this. =)

[Robyn55]

Originally Posted by jsimms3

Jacksonville Leaders See Benefit of Walkability

An awesome article. Robyn and Kerry, I know you guys (or one of you at least) is further out living the retirement dream, but I know both of you are always looking for signs of a more progressive leadership and desire/steps to create a more vibrant, competitive city. Well this is one article that never would have been written 10 or 20 years ago. There are so many articles coming out just like this and so much more enthusiasm from city and local business leaders. There are also baby steps being taken.

Now in addition to lobbying to speed up the river dredging to help the port support post panamax ships (and a resolution with the lonshoremen and Hanjin negogiations to build its new terminal), the city is now in talks with CSX to connect its Blount Island and Dames Point terminals by rail to a Westside Intermodal terminal to boost cargo capacity and efficiency. CSX started these talks.

CSX Exec Calls for Trainport

And this:

Good News for JAA Financial Numbers and Passenger Counts

We could leave our place on Key Biscayne and go perhaps 25 miles on bike paths from Key Biscayne through Coconut Grove and down to south Coral Gables. Good exercise. One problem I can see with something like this in JAX is a lot of streets have on-street parking - so it's hard to put down a new bike path (except as a separate lane on a road - and I don't much care for those). A path along the River would of course be a natural (unless too much Riverfront is owned privately and not available to the public). Robyn