Maps 3 in the News

[jbrown84]

Is Springfield a neighborhood/district?

[Spartan]

Yes. It's adjacent to downtown Jax on the north side. Cool historic area with a little bit of everything.

[Kerry]

Spartan - there is a large gap of rural land and very low density housing between 9A and the beaches. In all honesty Springfield is a hell hole. There was an attempt in the past to develop Springfield but it didn't work. Just too many crack houses to shut down. If you watch Cops when they are in Jacksonville they never have to leave Springfield to get all the video they need.

Here is a true Springfield story. Several years ago we were on vacation in OKC and on our return trip to Jax our mini-van broke down in Dallas. We didn't have time to wait for repairs so bought a new Armada. When we got home I realized that I had taken the back seat out of the minivan before we left so it was still in our garage. I tried to give it to several salvage yards but no one would take it. I mentioned it to my friend and he said he would take it. He lived in Springfield and said if he left it on his porch someone would steal it over night.

So at lunch we loaded it into the back of his pickup and he took it home. When he got home he parked in front of his house and went in to get his son to help him unload it. When they came back out it was already gone. He said he wasn't inside his home 30 seconds. Anyhow, that is how I got rid of the back seat of our minivan.

[Spartan]

That's not unique to that one inner city neighborhood in Jacksonville, though.

[betts]

I still think Springfield will take off. It's simply too close to downtown, and is too unique not to. The economy probably hit it really hard, I'm guessing. When my son bought his house, the city had great tax credits they were offering, and in some of the less developed sections were giving $25,000 cash to people renovating a house. His property taxes were frozen for 10 years at the pre-renovation rate. At least I hope it will improve. I love to drive around and look at the houses there.

[Platemaker]

Reposting this here because I posted in the wrong thread....

Posted by Ocklawaha in the comments section of the Moving Forward article:

"Also, it should be noted that NO other city is broadcasting more Anti-Jacksonville crap then OKC, as the media there is having a Jaguar/Jacksonville/Failed Everything Feeding Frenzy."

Where is he getting that 'crap'??

[kevinpate]

Reposting this here because I posted in the wrong thread....

Posted by Ocklawaha in the comments section of the Moving Forward article:

"Also, it should be noted that NO other city is broadcasting more Anti-Jacksonville crap then OKC, as the media there is having a Jaguar/Jacksonville/Failed Everything Feeding Frenzy."

Where is he getting that 'crap'??

Maybe they interviewed a Tulsan, planted amongst us for just such an emergency.

[Spartan]

Maybe they interviewed a Tulsan, planted amongst us for just such an emergency.

Are you saying that there are Tulsa posters in our midst?

[kevinpate]

Are you saying that there are Tulsa posters in our midst?

well, I meant OKCmetro in general, not OKCTalk specifically

[gmwise]

I still think Springfield will take off. It's simply too close to downtown, and is too unique not to. The economy probably hit it really hard, I'm guessing. When my son bought his house, the city had great tax credits they were offering, and in some of the less developed sections were giving $25,000 cash to people renovating a house. His property taxes were frozen for 10 years at the pre-renovation rate. At least I hope it will improve. I love to drive around and look at the houses there.

Though I am for this.
Isnt this sorta like cash for cluckers.? lol

[HOT ROD]

i haven't heard or seen anyone from OKC post or say anything bad about Jax.

What is that dude smokin?

[soonerguru]

What is that dude smokin?

Probably meth -- or else he's freebasing. He's obviously very paranoid.

[gmwise]

Probably meth -- or else he's freebasing. He's obviously very paranoid.

isnt that what Jax "dudes" do? lol

[Spartan]

Though I am for this.
Isnt this sorta like cash for cluckers.? lol

You could look at it like that. Isn't your kids being able to go to public school kinda like socialism?

Or you could just look at like a tax rebate for health insurance, something neocons love.

[soonerguru]

Though I am for this.
Isnt this sorta like cash for cluckers.? lol

Does cash for cluckers involve chicken farming?

[gmwise]

You could look at it like that. Isn't your kids being able to go to public school kinda like socialism?

Or you could just look at like a tax rebate for health insurance, something neocons love.

I'm a liberal...
I'm all for it...
lol

[gmwise]

Does cash for cluckers involve chicken farming?

brat lol

[jbrown84]

That's not unique to that one inner city neighborhood in Jacksonville, though.

There's some van seats in a front yard across from me that I would love for someone to steal.

[megax11]

See, seeing as we're getting up there in the population chart with Jacksonville, we should get an NFL team, like they have.

Aparently a little market like them (meaning smaller than other locations in Florida, or any other NFL state) can support the NFL, so I don't see why we couldn't.

Have some oil tycoon get some land, and build a stadium to NFL standards, and I'm sure the NFL wouldn't mind expanding.

[Watson410]

See, seeing as we're getting up there in the population chart with Jacksonville, we should get an NFL team, like they have.

Aparently a little market like them (meaning smaller than other locations in Florida, or any other NFL state) can support the NFL, so I don't see why we couldn't.

Have some oil tycoon get some land, and build a stadium to NFL standards, and I'm sure the NFL wouldn't mind expanding.

There's only one problem.... Jacksonville doesn't support their team very well. That's why they blacked out ALL their home games last season (Even in Jacksonville). It was an attempt to get the fans to actually come to the games instead of staying home and watching it on TV...

[jbrown84]

Plus that's their only major league team.

[mugofbeer]

FL has 3 NFL teams with Miami, Tampa Bay and Jacksonville. I wonder whether the fact Jacksonville didn't support their teams well is a product of the market size or if it is a product of the state being split by 3 teams, along with the fact that so many of hte people in FL are from somewhere else and their allegience is with, for example, NY, Philly or Boston?

[betts]

Kerry might weigh in here too, as he knows more about Jacksonville than I do. I think it's possible that the massive support for University of Florida football in that area might have some effect as well.

[Kerry]

Kerry might weigh in here too, as he knows more about Jacksonville than I do. I think it's possible that the massive support for University of Florida football in that area might have some effect as well.

It is four things betts.

1. University of Florida does play a role but UF is 70 miles away and Tampa is actually the big attraction for UF grads. I would say a fair amount of UF fans in Jacksonville have never set foot on a college campus.

2. The stadium is way too big. They built it to handle crowds for the Florida/Georgia game and it seats about 20,000 too many. In an attempt to increase demand, so as to avoid blackouts, they covered 10,000 seats. It didn't help. Winn Dixie even bought the remaining 10,000 empty seats and tried to give them away when you bought groceries - it still didn't work.

3. Jacksonville doesn't have the corporate base. No way around that. The stadium didn't even sell naming rights. Neither has the baseball stadium nor the 18,000 seat arena. All three of which are in the same area of downtown.

4. Finally, here is the big one - the population of Jacksonville is greatly exaggerated due to the way metropolitan areas are defined and the fact the City of Jacksonville covers nearly the entire county. Population centers get attributed to Jacksonville MSA that are nowhere close to Jacksonville.

Here are some examples: St Johns County (181,000) is considered part of Metro Jacksonville because there is some urban development right at the county line but half of St Johns County population is around St Augustine 30 miles away. So the whole county gets added in to the total. Baker county is 100% rural and is more than 15 miles from the nearest urbanized part of Jacksonville but the entire 26,000 people get added in. The same goes for Nassau County (70,000) where nearly 100% of the population lives more 20 miles from any urbanized portion of Jacksonville. Then we have Clay County (184,000) that, like St Johns, has a portion of their population as part of Jacksonville’s continuous urban fabric but a large chuck of the population is removed by many miles from Jacksonville.

Finally, a portion of Jacksonville residents are not here most of the year for two reasons - they are either snow birds who claim the Jacksonville area as home for tax purposes or are military people who claim the Jacksonville area home for tax purposes. I know both kinds of people and when I was in Army basic training it was suggested to list Florida as your home state to avoid paying state income tax when we sat en-mass to complete our W-4s.

The end result is Jacksonville is actually closer in size to Tulsa than it is to OKC.

[mugofbeer]

Finally, a portion of Jacksonville residents are not here most of the year for two reasons - they are either snow birds who claim the Jacksonville area as home for tax purposes or are military people who claim the Jacksonville area home for tax purposes. I know both kinds of people and when I was in Army basic training it was suggested to list Florida as your home state to avoid paying state income tax when we sat en-mass to complete our W-4s.

I think this is the biggie reason. If OKC had a stadium and tried to land an NFL team, I'd be concerned about the attendance, too. If you look around, there are very, very few places that actually DO support both a top attended college program and an NFL team. There seems to be some mutual exclusivity to them.