Ignoring History won't make it go away

Ok, I’ve been watching some more of that PBS, and I’ve developed a question… well to be honest, I had the question before I saw a few cooking shows… but here goes. How is it that we’ve become so short-sighted as a nation?

(How do cooking shows factor in? Well, it’s pretty simple… a lot of cooking shows have great emphasis on fresh, organic food. You need land that is treated with care and respect for organic food to grow and flourish- most farm land in America is not treated with either! How can I say that? Well, land that is treated with care and respect has minimal artificial pesticides, fungicides, etc.! There’s a lot of flack in Oregon about land use… acreage that is now used for organic agriculture is in dispute… because developers want to put houses on it, while downtown gets gentrified and priced out of the range of low and middle income city-dwellers! )

In any case- when land is developed for building anything then it is lost for use in agriculture. And once that land is lost to agriculture the capacity to grow food is diminished. So what happens? Rich developers and builders vacation in Italy, France, Spain… and marvel at the wonderful organic foods! (Well, if you didn’t develop everything that produced greenery and was scenic, guess what? We’d have wonderful organic food here in the U.S. too!)

Builders build, and developers develop, companies and people move in. Then whatever section of town that was built up and developed gets… I dunno, tired? Overdeveloped?

Traffic patterns change, because the areas developed for housing for the people working in the developments for business change…! And what was once a fashionable place to live/work, see and be seen in, is not. Housing values drop. Businesses decide to move… usually for cheaper digs, or to be fashionable… (sometimes both!) leaving abandoned business parks and subdivisions in their wake.

A new piece of land ticks on someone’s radar, and it must be developed into something! What? Who knows! A verdant field, lush with greenery, shrubs and trees, a few critters roaming… becomes a shopping mall! Why? Aren’t there enough shopping malls? I live in Jacksonville, Florida, and we have three big malls, and innumerable strip malls, and if your neighborhood has a Wal-Mart in it… well, you need a huge parking lot, and a few satellite stores will pop up to catch the traffic from the Wal-Mart. But if you go downtown… once the city offices close… you hear crickets… and since downtown is near the river, you hear frogs. There are some older neighborhoods downtown, and they are food deserts mostly. (In case you missed it, a food desert is an area of town where you can’t get any fresh food!) The shops and restaurants that do exist are open only during business hours, and the once great shopping districts are defunct.

There have been several efforts to revitalize downtown, but none include the current residents… why? I don’t know, maybe they’re not fashionable?

Three new condominium projects have been started, but they are not very successful, because… they’re in food deserts! What’s the point in living downtown in a nice condo with great views of the river if you have to travel 35-40 minutes from home to get some groceries? Entertainment… what entertainment? All the movie theaters are in the outlying suburbs- Jacksonville does have a symphony, but no ballet (don’t laugh!). I guess I’m something of a spoiled cosmopolitan…. Used to downtown areas that had more to offer than courthouses, city buildings and a landing….

What’s the point you ask? Well, it is this. Why, instead of letting downtown go to seed ,,, isn’t downtown being re-developed? Jacksonville has some beautiful old buildings, waiting for someone to invest in them! But, since no one comes downtown after business hours (except for Jaguars games… GO JAGS!) It’s a vicious cycle! Oh there’s the Landing, but it’s not like Fisherman’s Wharf… (I know- I’ve been to Fisherman’s Wharf! While Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39 are obvious tourist traps- they’re still cool places to go.) And while it’s true there’s no Alcatraz off the shore of the St. John’s River… there should be more to the River walk than an obvious mall! Philadelphia has a few obvious malls, but it also has the famous Reading Terminal Market… it’s over 100 years old, a beautiful mix of various shops that is still used by everyone!

There is no such tradition here in Jacksonville, and if there were, there is no groundswell of support to find and keep such a place open!

Wait a minute! I forgot! Segregation! (Yeah, it rears its’ ugly head here in Jacksonville, we are in Florida.) Jacksonville once had a large and thriving African-American community one hundred (!) years ago… It was known as the “Harlem of the South” ! Shops, stores, including grocery stores, theaters, doctors, dentists, beauticians…the whole shebang!

But, there was a fire that devastated the ‘hood… and there is very little of it left now. What is left can be found is in the Ritz LaVilla Museum, and it’s rather small, which is a shame. African Americans have a rich history in this nation, despite the legacy of slavery. Is it honored and respected? Well, no.

Maybe that’s the reason for the short-sightedness, history can be ugly. Ignoring it a nice way to avoid the pain, the guilt and in some cases, the responsibility of our collective past has to our collective future.