Perspectives

Two new projects in LaVilla and San Marco are creating something in short supply in Jacksonville: urban townhomes. Can they help Jacksonville’s “missing middle” housing problem? The projects Two townhome projects are currently moving forward in Jacksonville’s Urban Core: Johnson Commons in the Downtown neighborhood of LaVilla, and the Terraces of San Marco. Johnson Commons, a partnership between Corner Lot

By next week, vaccines could be available locally for children ages 5 to 11 and the long pandemic nightmare we’ve been living might finally come to an end. I can’t wait to get my 6-year-old vaccinated. He’s looking forward to it too.  He’s been wearing a mask for nearly two years. Even when friends, neighbors, and strangers have refused to

Former Congresswoman Corrine Brown, who long represented part of the Jacksonville area until 2017, is set to stand trial for the second time in the courthouse she has often said she built. And that is a gross injustice. Brown has a status of counsel meeting slated for Nov. 10. This in theory is a prelude to a sequel trial in

Jacksonville stands to be a major beneficiary over the next 15 years as Amtrak plans to add service across the country. In March, the intercity passenger rail provider released its 2035 Vision plan, including more than 30 new routes and improved service on more than 20 existing routes. The plan identifies more than 15 states that would see an increase

My son is 6,
He likes to run,
I encourage him to go the distance
Jury selection is underway in the murder trial of the three men accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery in Glynn County, Georgia, about an hour’s drive north of Jacksonville. The murder trial quite possibly would never have happened if the video of Arbery being stalked, cornered, and gunned down by racist vigilantes while on an afternoon run had not been leaked and released.

Time was when a candidate could run for mayor or whatever they wanted in Duval County, armed with nothing more than a vat of Brylcreem, one of those old-style Jacksonville twangy accents that have all but disappeared, and an endorsement from the big Baptist church Downtown. Times have changed.  The good ol’ boy system has begun its long goodbye. Politics

One Riverside Avenue, the development planned to replace the former Florida Times-Union headquarters, will likely be up for final site plan approval by the Downtown Development Review Board in November. Here are four simple, common sense ways to activate the pedestrian experience throughout the development – without significant changes or expense. One Riverside moves forward One Riverside, the development planned

“I’m never living in the South again.”  This is what my mother says to me often. A New Orleans native who fled the muggy bayou for Chicago at the tail end of The Great Migration in 1970 has no desire to return to the soil that birthed her. Neither to live in New Orleans or to move permanently to Florida

Problems are plaguing the city of Jacksonville’s recycling drop sites, and Mayor Lenny Curry’s Chief Administrative Officer Brian Hughes got an earful about it at the last City Council meeting. In response to the grilling from Council members, Hughes pointed out that the mayor’s office did not foresee people taking trash to the recycling drop sites.  He also told them

For those who wondered about how their City Council districts were drawn, the ongoing redistricting process shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Politics in 2029 in Duval County will, at least on the City Council level, look like they did in 2019 or 2009. You’re going to see Republican domination. That’s despite Democrats’ holding