Last night I attended the third of four events for the
Jax2025 community visioning series hosted by the
Jacksonville Community Council, Inc. (JCCI). While the previous two meetings were focused on what Jacksonville might be in the future, the gist of last evening was metrics. i.e. What we might measure to know we have created the great city we hope all for? I was immediately aware of a shift in the tone from past quorums as we sat down to face what seemed more like work than speculative musing about the future.
As Thomas Edison put it, "Vision without execution is hallucination." Many of us can come up with great ideas, coach a football team from the couch, or complain that "they ought to...", but the act of subjecting our thought to the scrutiny and abuse of the real world is a discipline in itself that parallels the creative act in importance to our society. Many great ideas are squandered, left to remain in the ether and never touch the millions they might help or effect, because the hard work of translating ideas into reality is never accomplished.
This is one of the reasons I was drawn to JCCI as an organization. They seem to have found a balance between community outreach and the intent to actually effect policy-making. They describe a clear course between vision and action that is a comfort to people like me that hope their hours of volunteering will not be in vain. There is a hope that one's time will be valued and that the organization will steward its fruits towards their greatest impact.
Among the second of two groups I sat with last night, we were asked to consider one of the priorities identified during the previous sessions: that Jacksonville would be "a place where people matter." How would you, dear reader, begin to measure this?
With a little more thought and introspection than previous nights, we were eventually able to make headway with the question. We discussed that there is a relationship of trust between a city and it's occupants that goes something like this:
Citizens agree to pay their taxes and not cause trouble. In return, the city agrees to foster a place where the pursuits of its citizens can flourish. A city fulfills this contract through the quality and breadth of its services and through the fairness and equanimity of its laws.
Are parks and amenities widely available and well maintained? Are cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers equally well served (and thus valued)? Are places available where people can gather and recreate in public and in safety? Are regulations fairly and equitably applied?
I hope that Jacksonville will be the place where, in holding up my end of the bargain, I can be sure the city will do the same in kind.
