according to the mayor’s
office. Each year, roughly
7 percent (or about 2,300
people) retire from these
bases, settle in Jacksonville
and search for jobs, reports
the Jacksonville Regional
Chamber of Commerce.
“Retired [members of
the] military are one of our
greatest work-force assets,”
says Jerry Mallot, executive
director of Cornerstone
Regional Development
Partnership, the chamber’s
economic-development arm.
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA
Special Regional Report
North riverbank of downtown Jacksonville, Fla.
The Challenge:
BRAIN DRAIN
The population gain of
Jacksonville’s Duval County (the
city is the county seat) began slowing down in 2007, when nearly as many people moved out of
the region as moved in. Between
2002 and 2007, the net population change dropped 42 percent
(from 11,820 in 2002 to about
6,800 in 2007). Although no one
tracks the skill level of those who
migrate from the region, “we know
that many who are leaving are educated,” says Henry Luke, a consultant to the city and founder of
Jacksonville-based Luke Planning.
To combat brain drain on
the state level, the Board of
Governors recently asked the
legislature to approve $65.4 million to increase the stagnant sal-aries of college professors and
staff by 4 percent at Florida’s 11
state universities, including the
University of North Florida at
Jacksonville (UNF).
In addition, the University of
Florida system, which includes
UNF, announced that it would
allocate $11 million of its own
resources to give faculty members
and staff members raises of up to
3 percent. The goal: to stem the
tide of nationally known educators leaving the Sunshine State
and to retain students and educational dollars.
Locally, Jacksonville community leaders collaboratively crafted
a 46-page economic-development
strategy, the “Blueprint for
Prosperity,” four years ago to
attract talent and increase the
education/income levels of
all Duval County residents to
national levels. The city, the
chamber and the work-force-development agency WorkSource,
along with the input of 11,000
citizens, set several benchmarks.
One benchmark includes
driving up the per-capita income
of Duval County residents as a
percentage of the U.S. per-capita
income by 0.5 percent annually
beginning in 2007. The good
news: The income gap has been
closing steadily. According to the
U.S. Department of Commerce,
Duval County residents’ per-capita
income was $29,452 in 2002 (95.7
percent of the national per-capita
income). By 2006, that figure
jumped to $36,616, which is 99.7
percent of the U.S. per-capita
income—an increase of 24 percent
over the past four years.
“As our income increases
toward national levels, we will
increasingly attract high-income,
skilled people,” says Luke, who
served on the blueprint’s executive committee.
Another goal is to decrease
the income gap between whites
and other racial/ethnic groups
by up to 50 percent by 2020. In
1999, for instance, there was a
47 percent gap between white
and Black per-capita income, and
a 33 percent gap between white
and Latino per-capita income,
when comparing Duval County
residents’ per-capita incomes as
a percentage of the total United
States’ per-capita income. By
2020, the goal is to close the
per-capita-income gap to 23
percent for Blacks and 16 percent
for Latinos.
“If we can pull up these income
levels, the whole tide will rise,”
says Mayor Peyton. Although
it’s too soon to gauge the progress, the plan also includes developing targeted business sectors
that require advanced degrees and
encouraging social/business interactions between people of different races/ethnicities to create
opportunities.
