Detroit? Birmingham? Those cities are bankrupt. Houston's got a gajillion people. Omaha? C'mon please, I want rail like anybody else but as bad as it is right now I wouldn't look to any of those cities as shining examples of planning or anything else positive.
Don't we have the largest park system in the nation? It might not all be Central Park but we do have an Olmstead Brothers.
Regressed since the Super Bowl? Those were FAKE bars on Bay St during the game. Now they are real.
If memory serves, a COUPLE of the bars were real at the time. There are like four now. Progress perhaps but not much for all the money spent.
There are cities of 30,000 that Jacksonville could learn from. I've never been to Omaha, but I keep hearing lots of positive things about it. No doubt, they have their act together a lot better that the folks on Duval street.
Jax may have the largest park system, but it also has the lousiest. 97% of it is unused conservation land.
That is part of Jax's problem. 2/3rds of the city has a inferiority complex and the other third has a superiority complex based on apple-to-oranges population figures made possible by consolidation.