By Daniel Piotrowski
editor@jacksonvilleprogress.com
The tourism expert working with the city of Jacksonville and Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce helped move the Blue Ribbon Committee closer to consensus Thursday night when members seemed to agree on the goal of creating instilling pride in the community.
“A sense of pride helps develop the mindset of making the community attractive to retirees and young couples,” said Dr. Peter Tarlow, tourism and economic development expert from Texas A&M.;
Participants in Thursday’s session seemed to go back and forth about whether to focus on being a retirement community or to cater to young couples looking for a city with a strong educational system.
Tarlow identified cleanliness as a goal everyone seemed concerned about after doing a survey of participants. But the group then gravitated toward getting local residents to take pride in how their neighborhoods look.
“If pride is started, people will put pressure on other people who don’t have pride or who run the city down,” he said.
The committee will meet with Tarlow again in early December to discuss a campaign in which they can try to instill a sense of pride in the community from the children in school all the way up to the city’s adults.
