A "Blight Fight" Mascot For Jacksonville?

[Metro Jacksonville]

A "Blight Fight" Mascot For Jacksonville?



So now Jacksonville has a trash can with boxing gloves as the mascot for the "Blight Fight"? Since when did the 13th largest city in the country revert back to being Mayberry?

Read More: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2015-mar-a-blight-fight-mascot-for-jacksonville

[I-10east]

So what's the controversy again?

[Noone]

Love the picture. That is funny. Does everyone remember Drippy? The EPB mascot I believe. May still be around. There was legislation as I recall to spend a $100K and the breakdown was $25,000 for the costume, $25,000 for the informational material, $25,000 for someone to wear it. and $25K for diapers?

Stay positive.

[Rob68]

Sounds like a good idea to me..anything to get people to clean up is a good thing...personally id like to see a community volunteer group to help those that need the help in cleaning up their yards and others to just clean up their space...sounds like a good job for people doing community service and theres plenty of those..how about a contractor caught doing something bad? He could spend his time and expertise helping to clean up. Im just sayin...dont poo poo an idea unless youve got a better one.

[thelakelander]

^Here's a thread with some pretty good alternatives to cleaning up blight in a manner that gives distressed communities a chance at revival.

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php?topic=21389.0

With that said, there's nothing new under the sun. Jax isn't the only American city attempting to fight blight. There are good and bad examples to follow. Right now, it appears we're following the path of Detroit, Youngstown and Flint. Columbus is a peer community applying a different strategy that appears to be more successful at this point. Here's a look at a pretty damn good alternative.

Mayor Announces ‘Mow To Own’ Program To Clean Up Neighborhood Blight

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Mayor Michael Coleman plans to announce a new plan at Wednesday’s State of the City address that will clean up the city’s vacant homes, 10TV’s Jason Frazer reported on Tuesday.

According to Coleman, the new program is called Mow to Own.

Coleman plans to enlist the help of homeowners to clean up properties, which they would eventually own.

“What we’re going to do to the next door neighbor that lives there is to say, ‘If you take care of this property, you cut it, you maintain it, your sweat equity can be used to acquire the lot,’” Coleman said.

The Mayor said that he did not want to create more blight.

“Another thing I don’t want to do is to take away a blight and create another blight by a vacant lot that just sits there with weeds overgrowing,” Coleman said.

http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/2012/02/28/columbus-coleman-announces-mow-to-own-plan.html

They're doing some good work in turning Weinland Park around as well. Weiland Park is a neighborhood similar in scale, age and architecture as Springfield, New Springfield and Durkeeville.







http://columbusfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/WPC_progress_report.pdf

$15 million pledged to kick-start Weinland Park area

Collaborative aims to fight blight, build and fix up more than 100 homes in three years

A new group is working to rejuvenate the Weinland Park neighborhood north of Downtown by pledging at least $15 million to develop housing in the area plagued by crime, foreclosures and vacant houses.

The Weinland Park Collaborative, which includes the city of Columbus, Ohio State University, the Columbus Foundation and 12 other institutions, also is investing money in job training and education.

"If we work collaboratively, we can put together a model of neighborhood revitalization and take on the underlying issues without displacing people," said Doug Aschenbach, president of Campus Partners, which is Ohio State's community-development arm and another of the group's members.

The goal is to re-energize the housing market by renovating and building more than 100 homes in two to three years. The collaborative is expected to invest at least $15 million in the neighborhood of 4,800 residents, said Lisa Courtice, vice president of community research for the Columbus Foundation.

Here are some details:

• Homeowners will be able to apply this fall for grants of as much as $20,000 for home improvements. A total of $600,000 will be available and administered by the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission.

• Habitat for Humanity will build six homes on land now held in the city's land bank. That will be funded by some of the $1.5 million in federal neighborhood-stabilization money awarded to Habitat. Construction is to begin in the spring.

• The NRP Group, along with Wagenbrenner Development Co., will build 40 lease-to-own houses west of N. Grant Avenue near the old Columbus Coated Fabrics site. The homes will be financed through low-income housing tax credits.

• Wagenbrenner will use part of $2.5 million in federal neighborhood-stabilization money to help renovate 14 vacant houses in the same area, selling them next spring, said Mark Wagenbrenner, the company's president. "Our ambition is to do more than 14 homes," Wagenbrenner said. "We've got to turn around the core of Weinland Park."

Wagenbrenner is redeveloping the 21.5-acre Columbus Coated Fabrics site at N. Grant and E. 5th avenues, a project estimated to cost $80million that could include 305 homes and 300 apartments.

The nearby area is the neighborhood's most blighted, marred by vacant and abandoned houses, said Joyce Hughes, president of the Weinland Park Community Civic Association. Before anyone can talk about new housing, that area has to be fixed up, she said.

Full article: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2010/08/28/15million-pledged-to-kick-start-weinland-park-area.html



It would be pretty cool to see Jax get to a point where a plan to actually tackle blight in a manner that creates economic revival opportunities is implemented. I'm not sure that a trash can with boxing gloves achieves this.

[thelakelander]

The Weinland Park stuff is pretty impressive. Here's a few more pics floating around the net:

http://www.preservationnation.org/information-center/sustainable-communities/creating/habitat-for-humanity/central-ohio.html




Infill by Habitat for Humanity of Central Ohio.

[sheclown]

A prancing trash can does not make any real progress toward fighting blight.  But unlike a bulldozer with a blank check, it won't do that much harm either (except, of course, to our pride). 

And this is specifically the problem.  The city milks the federal government to the tune of millions of dollars a year for 40 plus years to "fight blight" in the urban core.  All that seems to happen is that crazy monuments get built, homes get placed too close to dumps, houses for homeowners get turned over to investors to rent out.  No one accounts for anything in a city that "lacks the capacity" to handle its finances.

But we get Gomer, the talking trash can.

Why?  I'm beginning to suspect that we want to keep our urban core blighted so we can continue to get those federal dollars.

I imagine that Alvin Brown hopes that Gomer will satisfy the residents of the urban core that he fulfilled his campaign promise of urban core revitalization.

[mbwright]

If there was no blight, how would KIm's cronies profit from the demo's paid by federal funds?

[sheclown]

Here's the problem with the blight fight.

1.) Fine people into compliance -- never mind the fact that the urban core is filled with people who are struggling to feed themselves.  See Mr. Foster for more detail.

2.) Mow down old neighborhoods -- instead of giving money to help fix these houses.  This has the net effect of removing affordable housing from the urban core.

3.) Give them an app to report trash -- has the staff been increased to deal with these complaints? 

4.) Blame the trash on the people who live there -- instead of enacting policies which help people deal with illegal dumping (now if someone dumps illegally on your property, you have to pay for it). 

The blight fight all along has been pointed at the people who live in the urban core.  It has done little to  address city owned property which is a major blight factor, nor has it offered a helping hand to people. 

And funny thing is that the federal government GIVES Jacksonville millions of dollars a year to HELP people who live in the urban core.

Blaming the victim for the crime.  Let's look at the system which neglects the schools, the roads, the sidewalks, the city owned properties.

Jacksonville, you wanna fight blight?  Look in your checkbook. 

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

How are we spending the federal dollars?  Are we spreading the pork and masochistically calling it help?

 

 

[I-10east]

I disagree that Fight Blight = a runaway bulldozer. Notice that the bucket mascot is on jaxkids.org, a website catered to Jax's children. There is nothing wrong with putting heat on homeowners to clean up their property.

[I-10east]

I think that most older American major cities (Baltimore, Detroit, Cleveland, Columbus, etc etc) makes Jax's blight issues look like child's play. You will never see any pictures of the overwhelming neglect within these other cities here, because Metro Jacksonville's agenda is say say that Jax has a unique blight situation, and everywhere else is successfully replacing all of their blight swimmingly, and I know for fact that is complete BS.

Cities like Bmore, Cleveland, Detroit etc has tons of truly historic and beautiful large family homes, rowhouses etc falling into complete disrepair; It's like our Springfield everywhere up north. Most of the homes fallen into disrepair in Jax aren't historic, suburban style, and have no true architectural value. 

 

[Rob68]

Yes children dont own property but there nothing wrong with social lessons for kids to learn that we all have to do our part to keep our environment clean and neat.

[I-10east]

^^^Thank you Rob.

[thelakelander]

I think that most older American major cities (Baltimore, Detroit, Cleveland, Columbus, etc etc) makes Jax's blight issues look like child's play. You will never see any pictures of the overwhelming neglect within these other cities here, because Metro Jacksonville's agenda is say say that Jax has a unique blight situation, and everywhere else is successfully replacing all of their blight swimmingly, and I know for fact that is complete BS.

Cities like Bmore, Cleveland, Detroit etc has tons of truly historic and beautiful large family homes, rowhouses etc falling into complete disrepair; It's like our Springfield everywhere up north. Most of the homes fallen into disrepair in Jax aren't historic, suburban style, and have no true architectural value. 

You obviously don't read my articles. I've posted images of blighted Cleveland, Detroit and Baltimore several times throughout the years.  I've also covered places like Gary, Toledo and Youngstown, OH as well. When I have some time, I'll dig up a few links just for you.

[thelakelander]

Yes children dont own property but there nothing wrong with social lessons for kids to learn that we all have to do our part to keep our environment clean and neat.

So....how do you like the Weinland Park revitalization process as an alternative? There's no fighting trash can but the neighborhood is being economically stabilized and jobs are being created.

Im just sayin...dont poo poo an idea unless youve got a better one.