I'm struck by how many people above think it is somehow "better" for children to be raised in an environment where they are isolated from people who different from themselves, have to be driven everywhere they might want to go and have little access to anything other than electronic-based entertainment. To each his/her own, I suppose.
Close access to the beach, youth sports leagues, a big yard to play in, etc. is a bit more than electronic-based entertainment. And again, it's all about space. If you have 2, 3 kids, in my mind it makes no sense to live (if you have the choice) in an area in which you basically have no yard and your living space is crammed, vs an area which provides more square footage and more green space. Suburbs tend to offer the latter, and city core living does not.
And if suburbs are more homogeneous in demographics in certain areas, then so what? Will a kid who grows up in a mostly white neighborhood and is taught right vs wrong, the importance of hard work, excels in school, and then moves on into the work force be less ready for the real world than a kid who grew up in a neighborhood and school that's 30% white, 30% hispanic, 20 % black, 20% Asian and taught all the same things? Absolutely not.
This post seemed to get lost among all the negative posts. I just wanted to see it reposted again.
And to add my two cents:
I'm white, married, with one kid, and more coming. We both work, shes a teacher, and I'm an engineer. I live in a newer neighborhood in Southside, and we're going to be making the move to SJC in the near future. So, we're part of this "White Flight" that this board seems to denounce. And that's OK with us. If a little racial segregation is required for better schools and low crime, so be it. Longer commute? I'll take it, and in fact, I'll just avoid rush hours for my Jax commute.
We'll trade DCPS for SJCPS as soon as possible. Are St. Johns schools perfect? No, obviously; their problems are just different. As another poster mentioned, it's about being in a school system where parents are involved. As a teacher in DCPS, the stories are tragic, and these families are our neighbors!
Most of the people involved with this "White Flight" are law abiding, tax paying, families looking to keep their families strong. Why does this concept get hated on here? Is it possible that there might be some truth to the reasoning behind this?
It's as if being a white, successful, friendly, and strong family here is viewed as negative.
You're conflating two things: being "a white, successful, friendly, and strong family", and living a suburban lifestyle. Neither of those things is dependent on the other. No one considers it negative to be white or successful or to have the impulse to have a strong, safe family environment.
There are plenty of people who consider the suburban lifestyle (or parts of it) to be negative. But not all the criticisms are the same. To me, and a number of others on this forum, the issue isn't the suburbs or even White Flight, per say. I don't care where other people live. If you want to live in the suburbs, have at it. My problem is when our communities and governments focus on developing those great suburbs while neglecting or even disadvantaging other parts of town and the health of the overall metropolis.
For instance, in another thread you were advocating the First Coast Expressway. This is a project that may make it a bit easier for suburbanites to get around, and will open up new land for suburban development. We always seem to have hundreds of millions of dollars for projects like that, but we can't scrape two nickels together to fix our urban infrastructure and keep chunks of Downtown from falling into the river. In other words, our state and local governments continue to subsidize suburban development but struggle even with simple upkeep of our urban areas.
I'm only conflating the two topics because I believe that there might a strong correlation between the two in the case of why White people might be moving to St. Johns County. Why do White people believe life is better in suburbia in NE Florida?
Regarding funding:
As MANY tend to do, you're confusing different levels of government and different pots of money. The State of Florida (FDOT, in this case) and the City of Jacksonville. Different entities, different leadership, different revenue sources. If urban infrastructure needs more funding (which I agree certainly does), then that's on COJ, not necessarily the state. I do want to point out that FDOT IS funding urban infrastructure within the urban area: Overland Bridge Project, and I-10/I-95 Operational Improvements Project. Both projects are increasing capacity through the urban/downtown area.
Can the state help out COJ with funding? Absolutely, in the form of grants and other types of beneficial monies. Why isn't that happening? What about a growth management plan and supporting land development policies that ACTUALLY encourage urban growth? Or, a Public Works Department and JTA that are well-funded, and can maintain urban infrastructure? What about functional local government led by a mayor that can actually govern, raise taxes, set budgets, etc. ?
I mentioned the FDOT and First Coast Expressway as something that touches on St. Johns (obviously, COJ and JTA don't control what happens in other counties). As far as FDOT goes, it certainly focuses much more on the outer city than the inner (connecting the state is their mission). The First Coast Expressway is just one recent example among many, but the same tendency is clear even in their urban core projects, where the needs of commuters and travelers often trump what the actual neighborhoods want. Looking at I-95 specifically, the interchange plan involved even further encroachment on Riverside and Brooklyn to serve drivers. FDOT was
very resistant to the less invasive design and the bike/pedestrian element desired by the neighborhoods. If I recall correctly, you argued for the flyovers as something the community "needs" despite the invasiveness, and thought the bike/ped element was a frivolous expense. This is one example of the ways government investments can stack the deck in certain ways: here, FDOT's goal was to make it easier for drivers to get through the area as fast as possible, the needs of the area itself was an afterthought.
You're spot on about the issues with COJ and FDOT.
As to your point about people moving to St. Johns, for one thing, it's not as though all white people in the metro are moving to St. Johns County (or want to). For those that do, you're right, many of them do it because that's the lifestyle they want. You're probably right about a lot of the driving factors: they what St. Johns has to offer (or what they perceive it to offer) and don't mind the long commutes, racial segregation, isolation, etc. For others, though, it's a lack of options. Proportionately, there are a lot more suburban areas than in-town neighborhoods, especially those that offer comparable amenities and benefits. When communities subsidize suburban development and neglect urban neighborhoods, the results aren't surprising.
For still others, it's a lack of
knowledge of what options there are. Professional families new to Jax often end up in St. Johns because they don't know the metro and St. Johns has a strong brand. They know it has A-rated schools and is full of their peers, so even folks that might prefer Avondale or San Marco head for the county line. Plus, it's all so many of us know. When generations of Americans grew up in subdivisions and are told their whole life that living the dream involves a big new house with a garage and a yard with a white picket fence, it has an effect. It's harder to put the upsides of living in a downtown environment or streetcar suburb on a billboard ad. In our situation, we lose many people interested in that lifestyle to cities that do it better.
