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How is Jacksonville Florida's Largest City?


gjoseph

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Point well taken. My question would be, how is Jax Florida's largest city yet often overlooked for cities like Miami, Orlando, and Tampa? How does Jax claim the spotlight?

It's overlooked because it's a considerably smaller metro ("city") and people know it's actual city population is pretty much meaningless. Unless it starts growing at a lightning pace or gets something special that the other cities lack, it will never claim the spotlight.

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I agree. Jacksonville is on the right path, and should worry less about the numbers game (that takes care of itself) and less about the hype... (if they don't know what Jacksonville has to offer it's their loss). Grow at your own pace, and improve that quality of life as you've stated and you'll be the envy of all big cities.

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for all the corporate relocations to Jax over the last 15 years or so, I was shocked to learn that metro Orlando, by comparison, has way more suburban office space than Jax (although Jax has more in their downtown-- but not by much, which also shocked me, since everyone's always criticizing Orlando as being such a tourist town).

This, with all the hype Jax got in Florida Trend and every article written on the subject since 1991. If it hasn't sped up by now, it won't. Or at least won't in any big way. The Jags have even been there for 10 years and its Florida's Insurance capital.

No knock on Jax, though. All I know is this: Orlando is doing something right, and Jax isn't (unless they are trying to control growth on purpose, like Gainesville).

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^You also need to keep in mind that metro Orlando is nearly double the size of metro Jax in population and land area. So the fact that Jax even has more office space in its downtown, as well as more locally based Fortune 500 companies, are pretty impressive statistics, especially when broken down by office sf/metro resident. Based on that, I'd say Jax is doing fine holding its own.

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No knock on Jax, though. All I know is this: Orlando is doing something right, and Jax isn't (unless they are trying to control growth on purpose, like Gainesville).

Let us not forget Orlando has the type of hype and publicity that today's money can't buy. Many people choose not to mention this, but the tourist thing is working heavily in Orlando's favor, which is no knock on them at all. But its tough to compare Jax success to that of Orlando.

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^ Yes the tourist factor does help Orlando's image, and alot of the Fortune 500 companies that have opened offices here cite that as one of the reasons they chose Orlando. However, I think the efforts of the local business big wigs here in the last 10 years have also contributed to Orlando's rennaisance. They have really helped this area's economy to diversify and as a result, the manufacturing, R&D, and digital media industries have grown more than tourism. IMO, that's a really good sign. Tourism will never leave Orlando anyway - the two are now joined at the hip and need each other to thrive.

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Just to let you guys know and to hopefully settle the concerns regarding Jacksonville's size in terms of land mass, here are the facts:

1) Jacksonville has approximately 840+ square miles of land of which about 100+ square miles of that is totally water: including lakes, rivers, etc. Therefore, Jacksonville is actually around 700+ square miles of usable land.

2) Jacksonville is the largest in terms of "land mass" in the "CONTINENTAL U.S." which means only the 48 states excluding Alaska & Hawaii.

3) If you include Alaska & Hawaii along with the continental 48 states of U.S., then Jacksonville has the 2nd largest in terms of land mass in the entire country.

4) Junuea, Alaska has the largest in terms of land mass in the entire UNITED STATES... it encompases approximately 3,000+ square miles of land!!!

5) How's that for size???

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So basically tourism opened the doors for a lot of Orlando's success.

Yes and No. Since I'm an Orlando native, I'll explain a little more in detail. Back in the 60's & 70's, in the era we natives like to call "B.D." or "Before Disney", Orlando was already a major exporter of citrus. When KSC opened in the 60's, Orlando's economy was beginning to diversify to include aerospace & defense industries. Martin Marrieta (now Lockheed Martin) opened a manufacturing plant here and a few defense contractors followed suit. When Disney opened in the 70's, that diversification took a nosedive and the buffoons who were in charge of running this city back then placed ALL of their focus on tourism. It was to be the shining star of our city, bringing in millions of dollars for roads, schools, and all the good things for the public that tourism can bring. Somwhere along the way in the 80's though, that vision was lost and Orlando's roads, schools, and the like all deteriorated, while the tourist district (IDrive & LBV) all thrived and gleamed w/new roads & interchanges. It was in the mid-90's when the Central Fla public began to notice and start to complain to the new buffoons who now run this city. Now, here we are, in 2006, and there is just NOW starting to be a beginning of REGIONAL cooperation in this city. Commuter rail, dowtown redevelopment, a possible UCF medical school, and the like.

The point of my story is...Yes, tourism can open the doors to a lot of great things for a city; however, it's up to that respective city's LEADERS and the entire COMMUNITY to work together in order to keep harmonious balance between the economy and quality of life. Getting off of my soapbox now...

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Yeah, since 1997, metro Orlando has seen road work projects unlike anything I've ever witnessed- anywhere. Its been like Sim City since then. I could give a laundry like of road work alone that would include over 40 projects- that I know of personally- widening and new roads. It's like this town came out of a coma and finally did what they should have done 10 years earlier.

And a majority of it is nowhere near the tourist corridor in the southwest.

Also, the whole aerospace industry with Martin and what not... All of this has developed independent of Disney. One has nothing to do with the other. It was springboarded by KSC and the military.

Tourism opened the doors for the hotel industry, convention industry, and the airport's success. The rest of the industries catching up to tourism is allowing these others to maintain themselves easier, so that the whole CF economy is not totally dependent on Disney.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Nope, not true...does not cover east of the intracoastal, nor does it cover an are/township called Baldwin, and nor does it cover an area I think referred to as Maxville but i'm not sure about that. Duval county is something like 840 sq. miles (minus water it's 787 sq. miles), but Jacksonville is 757.7 sq. miles of land (not all of which is developable due to marshes/swamps and the like). Not even half of Duval is actually developed either, so it's only the southside which has little land left and is actualy starting to build up, the inner loop (within 295) and along the highways not stretching all the way to the outer limit. If all of Duval were developed the way it is now, we would easily have around 1.5 mil or even 2 million people in the county itself.

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Duval county is:

Jacksonville

Jacksonville Beach

Atlantic Beach

Neptune Beach

Baldwin

Those are actual cities that still retain their own Mayor, etc.

Others that are psuedo cities:

Maxville, Whitehouse

All of duval is still under JSO, JFRD, etc. since they are technically the county sheriff and fire/rescue.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hmm. I have never been to Jacksonville, but I have family there and we are going to be visiting soon.

I was suprised about the statement of the lack of suburbs there. Surely they have suburbs. We only have a population of 43,000 in our city, but the metro area has a population of 487,990. Even we have suburbs - small ones, but we do have them.

I am sure there are suburbs there - aren't they? :unsure:

I mean it has no suburbs and the city is pretty much all of Duval County. Look at other Major Cities, Miami has suburbs, Tampa has suburbs, and Orlando has suburbs. In my opinion I think they should redesign Jacksonville because it isn't fair in the Major city list it has no Diversity, not really a good culture I think Jacksonville should be reconsidered as a Medium sized city or not even a major city!!!!!!!!!!!!
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