We have been thinking about Jacksonville’s urban core and looking at ideas that we think can make it work as a thriving, diversified, and fun place to live .  The urban core must have a dense and vibrant community that will attract supporting business.  Why can’t  we use the biggest and best ideas from around the world, bring them back to Jacksonville, and implement them into our city?  Light rail transit has more than proven itself in other city arenas, why is it so hard to get the powers that be to consider it?

One of the most abused areas in the urban core, is the area designated as the shipyards development area.  If we only knew how much public and private money has been poured into this land, I think we would all be appalled.  We were thinking about that piece of property, thinking what if?  What if finger canals could be cut into land perpendicular to the river.  What if these small finger canals became plots of land for dense, diversified housing with water access?  Could two and three story flats be designed for a variety of residence.  Could low to mid income families live next door to middle upper income families?  Diversity is what makes a community thrive.  We need to think outside the box.  When I was a young man, my Dad used to tell me, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you’ve always got.”  Can Jacksonville step up and become it’s full potential. Can we stop doing what we have always done, those things that still are not working, and start coming at this thing from a different view point of view?

We have attached a mini documentary called E2 that aired on PBS.  The critically acclaimed series narrated by Brad Pitt, focuses on innovators and pioneers, who envision a better quality of life on earth: socially, culturally, economically, and environmentally.  All of this series is well worth watching.  Some can be watched on Hulu and others on the E2 site.  The attached is titled, Adaptive Reuse in the Netherlands.  What if?  What if we could turned the shipyards into a mini version of Amsterdam’s Eastern Dockland?