Lake, you and I are mostly of the same mind. I agree that we, as a city and a community at large, need to start somewhere. But there is a difference between an honest start at more serious urban design and putting lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig no matter how much lipstick you put on her.
To the comment about the walkable communities in Jax all being old: it's because they were designed that way from the start. Riverside had it's own grocers, butchers, tailors, mechanics, hospital, dentist, eye doctor, you name it it was all right there for you. Mind you this was in an age before the automobile blew up and became the only "sensible mode of transport". Springfield used to stretch all the way to what we call "the north side". there was a street car that ran the whole length into downtown. These are old neighborhoods simply because no one has left them for the "convenience" of the suburbs. Trying to take a development in the middle of no where on Atlantic Blvd and trying to make it "walkable" is just silly. Someone said it was easy enough to get to a grocery by bike. Who in their right mind would ever try to cross any street at any intersection on a bicycle east of arlington!!?? that's suicide, man! Has no one heard about the guy that just died on a bike crossing an average intersection?!
Until the city takes a real look at the infrastructure of our communities and pushes for real urban development we should not be praising the "attempts" of developers to make more "walkable" communities. We should be denouncing them for what they are: very pretty, very done up, very large pigs. It's the same s*%t on a different day. No real change is being made in this city. Even BRT looks like it's going to go through. And then we'll have the same downtown we had 10 years ago. A ghost town.
