What would you change about jacksonville (neighborhood, theater, construction)

[floridabirdlover]

There needs to be a crack down on crime. Too many people getting away with things right under the noses of the officials. Crime is rampant and it's unacceptable.

[madcapmagishion]

Originally Posted by floridabirdlover

There needs to be a crack down on crime. Too many people getting away with things right under the noses of the officials. Crime is rampant and it's unacceptable.

What exactly is a crackdown on crime? Does that involve more police on the streets? On a walking beat? Building more/bigger jails? Having more prosecutors and judges, streamling the court system? How about more police neighborhood substations, where cops are more familiar with the neighborhood they patrol.

[Kevin from Tampa]

As someone who is from Florida but has only visited Jax (non-resident, but I've spent a lot of time there as a visitor, both for business and fun)-

1-Make an effort to build up a residential urban core.
2-Expand the light rail you have there. Jax and Orlando are the two major cities in Florida where this makes the most sense. I'd have lines running parallel with all the major expressways, and then expand that tiny inner core rail to run all around downtown (or maybe put in streetcars around there), and maybe a line to the beach, with a streetcar out there along A1A.
3-Find some way to gentrify that area that is sort of north or northwest of downtown. That area reminds me of rust belt cities up north.

Just a few thoughts from an interested outsider of sorts.

[JBtwinz]

What I would really like is to be able to bring family and friends downtown and be able to find enough things to stay all day. Now I am not talking about resturants or the Landing. We can now walk the riverbanks and visit the MOSH and the Riverside Market, but I would like more. Could be a Childrens Museum, a skyline observatory with history of Jacksonville in one of the highrises, a decent and fun way to go back and forth to the Suns games from the Landing. We have so much Naval history, maybe a small decommisioned navy vessel and merittime museum with Imax of Jacksonvilles attributes next to it at the shipyards abandoned condo spot. I know there is plenty to do for us locals to explore, but for the average Joe and his family coming into downtown cold, they definitely are lost. I have been here going on 22 years and I know from the past nothing is going to happen overnight, but before I am 6 feet under I would be happy to never hear about the landing as a downtown destination and now coming in as a quick second Saint John's Town Center is is becoming the buzz when visiting Jacksonville.

Just my two cents

[jsimms3]

^^^There is a private group that is quietly raising funds and getting approval to build a new naval/maritime museum on the Southbank by RCBC and to moor a decommissioned naval vessel there for tours. You have to keep in mind that it is **very** expensive to moor old ships (like millions of dollars a year depending on the size), which is why even large cities like Philly moor ships and then let them rust and don't maintain them.

[JBtwinz]

Philly is home to the Navy Ghost fleet, along with Benicia, Ca and Norfolk, Va. The boats you see in Philly are awaiting sale to scrap yards or foreign countrys.

[jsimms3]

Those aren't the boats I'm referring to, actually. Take the SS United States for one.

SS United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[bativac]

Originally Posted by JBtwinz

What I would really like is to be able to bring family and friends downtown and be able to find enough things to stay all day. Now I am not talking about resturants or the Landing. We can now walk the riverbanks and visit the MOSH and the Riverside Market, but I would like more. Could be a Childrens Museum, a skyline observatory with history of Jacksonville in one of the highrises, a decent and fun way to go back and forth to the Suns games from the Landing. We have so much Naval history, maybe a small decommisioned navy vessel and merittime museum with Imax of Jacksonvilles attributes next to it at the shipyards abandoned condo spot. I know there is plenty to do for us locals to explore, but for the average Joe and his family coming into downtown cold, they definitely are lost. I have been here going on 22 years and I know from the past nothing is going to happen overnight, but before I am 6 feet under I would be happy to never hear about the landing as a downtown destination and now coming in as a quick second Saint John's Town Center is is becoming the buzz when visiting Jacksonville.

Just my two cents

I remember back when they opened that tiny little joke of a maritime museum on the Riverwalk. My dad was shocked at its diminutive size. With the amount of history in Jax - maritime and otherwise - we deserve a much nicer museum.

Unfortunately, generations of Jacksonville residents (and I say this as a 3rd generation native) have displayed apathy when it comes to cultural institutions like museums. Not to mention downtown has been such a ghost town for so long that most locals have given up on it.

I think there needs to be a profound change in the local culture before anything positive happens downtown. The culture here is still of a "build something halfassed and leave it" mentality. I mean, how far can you walk along the Riverwalk without tripping over a broken board? How far can you take the Skyway without having to get out and walk another two miles to wherever you're trying to go?

[jsimms3]

Skyway? Nothing's going to happen there for a reallllyyyyy long time if ever.

Southbank Riverwalk? About to be completely redone in the same fashion as the Northbank Riverwalk with construction to start soon (as soon as the Friendship Fountain renovation is complete).

As far as people contributing to cultural institutions in Jax? Jacksonville actually has one of the best arrays of cultural institutions in the SE, financed by a small group of individuals. What we need is the general public to care more and not just the same residents of the same few neighborhoods. We'll never have options and institutions like New York or Boston, but we can bulk up what we have for sure. I want the same! We couldn't possibly have a better central library, but MOSH can be expanded and improved to appeal to adults, too. We definitely need a real maritime museum. MOCA can have better exhibits, and the Cummer can be expanded. The JSO needs a good replacement for Fabio Mechetti in 2014 (it will be next to impossible to replace him!). The Florida Theater has *a lot* going on already, including the country's longest continuously running theater troupe.

What I would like to see is a university presence downtown. We turned away FSU's Law School, the Art Institute, Florida Coastal School of Law, and plenty of others. All of these schools could have acted as the turnaround for Jacksonville's downtown, providing a base student population and a need for more businesses and residents.

[JBtwinz]

I never knew about the schools, even though they would not contribute to the tax base they would have helped spin off plenty of business's and the need for housing as you mentioned.