How many Jacksonvilles can fit inside Jacksonville?

[Metro Jacksonville]

How many Jacksonvilles can fit inside Jacksonville?





Read More: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2016-jan-how-many-jacksonvilles-can-fit-inside-jacksonville

[Tacachale]

Interesting thought experiment. You should do one on what COJ might have annexed if we hadn't consolidated. This would have been much of the older Southside neighborhoods, the mid-Westside, the Airport, and perhaps Arlington.

[David]

Interesting thought experiment. You should do one on what COJ might have annexed if we hadn't consolidated. This would have been much of the older Southside neighborhoods, the mid-Westside, the Airport, and perhaps Arlington.

^ I like that idea. I'd imagine Arlington, parts of Southside out until at least University blvd. Welp, everything you just said. heh.

[vicupstate]

Interesting thought experiment. You should do one on what COJ might have annexed if we hadn't consolidated. This would have been much of the older Southside neighborhoods, the mid-Westside, the Airport, and perhaps Arlington.

Isn't annexation very difficult under FL law?  Most cities seem to never move their boundaries, and JAX had nothing but failure doing so from the '30's up to Consolidation as I recall.

I had no idea Tallahassee was so large landwise. Consolidation with Leon County would seem to be a no-brainer there. Most people already live in both anyway and there are no other incorporated communities.

[Tacachale]

Interesting thought experiment. You should do one on what COJ might have annexed if we hadn't consolidated. This would have been much of the older Southside neighborhoods, the mid-Westside, the Airport, and perhaps Arlington.

Isn't annexation very difficult under FL law?  Most cities seem to never move their boundaries, and JAX had nothing but failure doing so from the '30's up to Consolidation as I recall.

I had no idea Tallahassee was so large landwise. Consolidation with Leon County would seem to be a no-brainer there. Most people already live in both anyway and there are no other incorporated communities.

It's may be hard, but not impossible, as many cities did it and continue to do it, Tampa, Orlando, Tallahassee, St. Petersburg, Fort Lauderdale, Ocala, etc. That was the usual strategy for Florida cities; Jax and Miami were the two major examples, and both of them found other ways to accomplish comparable thing. Jacksonville obviously consolidated, and Miami is semi-consolidated with Miami-Dade County.


Jacksonville did have multiple attempts shot down before consolidation, but it successfully annexed a lot of areas up to the 30s. If Consolidation had failed, it would have had to return to that strategy.

[thelakelander]

Annexation isn't as hard as some would think. You should see the battles for land in high growth areas of Central Florida where you have several cities in one county. 

Here's a look at the city limits of municipalities in Pinellas County:


Broward County:



Last, my home county, Polk County:


Take a look at Winter Haven and Lake Wales. When I was a kid, these cities were square boxes that were 15 miles apart. A mall opened in 1996, halfway between them and they went on an annexation war to gobble up as much county land as possible where they thought new growth would take place. Now the cities are weirdly shaped because in some cases, land was annexed to "protect" certain areas of future growth from being annexed by a neighboring city. In Winter Haven's case, this strategy paid off when CSX/Sunrail deal resulted in an intermodal hub being built right off SR 60. Although the site is more accessible from Bartow and Lake Wales, it's actually in Winter Haven's city limits.

Lakeland has done the same thing, stretching out along the I-4 corridor where Florida Poly University and new warehouses like Amazon have popped up. Auburndale is now getting into the annexation game to get as much land around I-4 and the Polk Parkway (it believes it has a right too) before Lakeland gobbles it up.

[Tacachale]

^Yeah, and beyond annexations is the incorporations, where some suburb or group of houses at a former railroad junction formally organizes a town government. That was happening a lot at the time of Consolidation; it's likely there would be more "towns" in Duval County if Consolidation hadn't happened. It's still happening in South Florida. I think Loxahatchee Groves, population 3200, is our most recent town as it incorporated in 2006:

http://www.loxahatcheegrovesfl.gov/Pages/index

[Ocklawaha]

I'd really like to see a map drawn of the urbanized area, everything from the 1 acre farmette's along Old Plank Road, to Clarks Fish Camp and north along the National Wetlands where strips of settlement and factories have popped up. Such a map would likely show the true limits of the city today, minus the tree farms. One would have to make a judgement call as to including the National Wetlands, Monuments, Cemetery, Airport and other urban amenities that don't qualify as residential or business but are needed for any city.

[vicupstate]

The totally disjointed lines and donut holes are a testament to the difficulties involved, otherwise more unified and logical shapes would be appearing. Often extending water/sewer lines are used as a leverage to essentially require annexation.  Commercial areas obviously need that and residential ones can sometimes do without. Also, residential annexation is often a money-loser in terms of costs vs. benefit.

Given the corruption and inefficiencies in the City government at the time of consolidation, I don't think annexation would have been successful in very many instances, had it not passed.     

[thelakelander]

Also, unfortunately, many of the donut holes from annexation were created on purpose by those cities. Many are areas of blight, high crime, etc. where little tax revenue is generated, so cities have annexed around these residents over the years.  Even today, much of what many believe is inner city Orlando (particularly along the Orange Blossom Trail corridor), is actually in unincorporated Orange County. However, they've successfully found a way to skip the problem areas and expand south to get the airport and Lake Nona's Medical City on the Orange/Osceola County border.


Orlando city limits in orange.

[vicupstate]

So all of the white area between I4/408/417 and 528 are all struggling? 

[thelakelander]

Specifically the area slightly SW of DT, between I-4 and SR 408. This particular map is City of Orlando generated, so it doesn't show other adjacent municipalities between DT and the airport.

[I-10east]

IMO Jax's consolidation is actually a liberal idea in principle; Someone in Mandarin or Baymeadows somewhere is paying for the city's core, believe that. Versus these core only cities (many which have alot of poor) that are left to fend for themselves. I do not want to see Jax deconsolidate ever.

Baltimore received 1.8 BILLION dollars during Obama's stimulus, and no one talks about it; Detroit is another city that received alot of money. People laugh when I say the alot of cities can learn from Jax; Just having the basic municipal government structure to keep the city afloat without needing any federal government help.

[thelakelander]

IMO Jax's consolidation is actually a liberal idea in principle; Someone in Mandarin or Baymeadows somewhere is paying for the city's core, believe that. Versus these core only cities (many which have alot of poor) that are left to fend for themselves. I do not want to see Jax deconsolidate ever.

It's quite the opposite. Neither Mandarin or Baymeadows have anywhere near the amount of industry, manufacturing, port terminals or major companies operating in a limited amount of land area as the historic core of the city. A place like downtown would be fine if the tax money it generated, was only reinvested within that particular district. Without cash coming from elsewhere to pay for infrastructure that makes development in places like Baymeadows feasible, what you see today would not be there.

[I-10east]

I'm sticking to exactly what I said, the tax money is spreaded throughout the city versus 'little municipality here paying for there own crap here and little municipality there paying for their own crap'... It's really simple...