Lived (and drove) there for 11 years. Nope.
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5/9/2017
I moved to Jacksonville in my late teens, finished high school and Bartram Trail, went to college at FSCJ and started my career, all in Jax. My wife and I moved across the state in 2014 and I have never been happier to see a city in my rearview before in my life. I will never, ever live in Jacksonville again if I can help it and only go back to visit once or twice a year because family and friends still call this miserable city home.
First things - this is some of the worst traffic in the US. I drove the full 11 years I worked there and in 2013, I'd say I sat on the off-ramp from 95 to Blanding for up to 2 hours at a time trying to get home. Even off the interstates, it's not much better. The city has been horribly planned for its population expansion and the roads are overcrowded, perpetually being worked on, and dangerous. How many people die a year on the Buckman? I used to drive it four times a day and every single time I felt like I was throwing dice with the reaper. A few months before we moved, a man's pickup was knocked off the top of the bridge. Off. That was one of the last straws.
Because of the size of the city - biggest landmass city in the US, if you didn't know - you can pick a direction, drive for an hour, and still be in Jacksonville. Or, between the hours of 6a-10a or 3p-7p, pick a direction, drive for an hour and only go about six miles because traffic is gridlocked.
The job market is meh - I worked in nonprofit. However, because I worked in nonprofit that was specific to victim's services, I can tell you this - the crime in Jacksonville is unreal. Murder capital of Florida for a hot minute there, our sexual assault rates are waaaaaay higher than listed on this site because JSO code sexual violence reports in such a way that they don't have to report them all as actual crimes committed - and that's just the reported ones. We lived in Riverside for 3 years and on my block in a six month span there were two violent assaults near Boone Park and a home invasion/murder three houses up from us.
Not that JSO is much better. They're a menace, the sheriff Rutherford is as corrupt as they come. Go look online for 'JSO assault civilian' and check out the myriad of clips of these megalomaniacs going to town on unarmed people. One recently clocked an old man - a Vietnam vet - who was peacefully protesting bombing Syria. They're monsters. Trust me. I had to work with them.
The city is still hugely conservative, bigoted and homophobic. Our front door was vandalized in Riverside, which is the 'liberal' side of town, so clearly it's not that advanced.
Did I mention the traffic?
Dia | Columbus, OH