Can people get over the fact that we're consolidated? Last time I checked, there wasn't an asterisk next to Jax on this list.
Well, the city-county consolidation is important for a variety of reasons not to "get over." In the first place, it results in apples-and-oranges comparisons. When you compare the City of Jacksonville to say the City of Orlando, you're really comparing most of a county to a small section of a county. It helps to point out the consolidation regarding these comparisons because it notes the difference. If city/county consolidations were commonplace in Florida and the rest of the country, Jacksonville would leap back on the list dramatically.
I'm actually more for consolidation than not. It's stupid that a person can live in "Orlando," but in reality live in "Celebration," a part of the suburban sprawl that overall identifies as "Orlando." For example, I grew up in "Miami," but in reality I lived in a suburb of Miami.
In the next place, consolidation tends to hide inherent realities under the mass of the city-county relationship. As noted, consolidation masks the decline in the urban core's population and vitality.
+3,782 Tampa (112.1 square miles)
+3,627 Jacksonville (767 square miles)
+3,539 Orlando (93.5 square miles)
+1,940 Miami (35.68 square miles)
I know absolute growth isn't everything but when economically struggling places 15% of your size (or less) are still packing in more or just as much people, there should be some concern. The overall growth slowdown has impacted just about every region of the country outside of Texas. Seriously, if we took away the curtain of consolidation, our city would show population loss. That's something that is not happening across the majority of the country.
It becomes more jarring when you break it down by population increase per square mile (rounded
up):
Tampa: 34
Jacksonville: 5Orlando: 38
Miami: 54
Again, it's not a fair comparison, as we're comparing apples and oranges here, with regards to consolidation. But leaving Jacksonville out of the mix, Tampa and Orlando had the most total population increase, but Miami has the largest jump in density.
It's one of the problems with news and data reporting nowadays in general. A number and a ranking taken out of context means little without some analysis. Because an increase of about 5 people per square mile is quite revelatory about the state of the city-county consolidation that is Jacksonville, in a way that a baseline number in a list is not.
And again, it's not really about numbers and rankings and being the biggest. In the first place, "biggest" isn't necessarily "best."
In no way has being the largest city in Florida given Jacksonville cache and status over other cities, other counties, or other regions in the state. None. Even though Miami is "smaller," there's a cultural cache to The Magic City that drive people to the city and the county.
And size isn't everything. My current city of Washington DC isn't the biggest in the nation. The metro region isn't the largest (although it's quite large and populated.) But it's a much more pleasant place to live than say...Los Angeles. It's certainly greener and prettier than New York. And right now, it's just as unbearably hot as Jacksonville! Asheville in North Carolina is a small city in the mountains. And it's awesome. Because they focused on being the best they could be, that city is a pleasant place to visit and I suspect, live.
Having said all that, it would be interesting to see an overall county comparison as well, for a more accurate picture of what's going on. Meaning that we know that Miami the city has grown in population, but has Miami the county? And what's the increase/decrease rate per square mile?
