Oh Jacksonville

Although I am not a native Floridian (which technically only refers to the Timuquan), I have been a Jacksonville resident for years and have fallen in love with our imperfect home.

Jacksonville is blessed with the perfect climate, shockingly beautiful beaches and an underdeveloped  intracoastal waterway that boasts thousands of miles of tidal creeks. We are the biggest city in Florida and the biggest land-mass city in the whole country (other than about 4 in Alaska but if you only have one person per 10 square miles, just sit down).

So why can 88% (according to me) of Americans find Miami on a map while 92% (according to them) can't figure out a reason to look for Jacksonville?  Why is the only Jax thought that most of our fellow Americans ever have:
"Hell yes, we're finally in Florida! Wait, Ft. Lauderdale is still 6 more freakin' hours away?"

Well for starters, bad luck. We were apparently the first choice as a location for Hollywood but decided instead to build paper factories which are truly horrible.
"That's the smell of money!" is code for
"I mistakenly bought property here on the day the wind was blowing North and now I don't have a  prayer of ever selling this insanely smelly house."

We also have a little penchant for murdering each other. We have been the murder capital of Florida for a decade save for a little accounting dispute in 2010 that may or may not have taken our title temporarily. Furthermore, we apparently boast an apartment complex with the single highest murder rate in the state.

However, the biggest landfill (Florida doesn't have mountains) that we have to climb on our journey for respect is our love for shooting ourselves in the foot. For a city with an image problem, a huge LED lit billboard in front of millions of visiting motorists is a gold mine! So Jacksonville, remember you've got one chance to make a first impression. Here's the bat, swing for the fences.....
http://instagram.com/p/hZggwIFZF2/