Monday, August 07, 2006

The Youngest City in America

Yep, it's us.


In the paper this morning, Jacksonville ranks as America’s most youthful city

In taking the top spot for youthfulness, Jacksonville — and its median age of 22.9 years — beat a field of mostly collegiate locales.

Rounding out the top 5 were Provo, Utah, (home to Brigham Young University); New Brunswick, N.J., (home of one of Rutgers University’s three campuses); Florence-Graham, Calif., (a Los Angeles borough); and the self-explanatory College Station, Texas, (home of the Aggies of Texas A&M).


It's a good news bad news thing.

Compared to other towns, the median income of a local family is about half the Best Places average $76,893. And while development may be stamping along, the dwellings aren’t exactly castles, as is evident by the $127,900 median home price — compared to $259,568 averaged in the study.

The lack of home-buying-based sticker shock could be partly responsible for the area’s exceptional cardiac health: Jacksonvillians are 33 percent less likely to die of a heart attack than the other Best Places.


This is interesting:

Jacksonville also placed in the Most Singles category with the 20th-highest percentage of unwed residents among the cities studied.

“If they’re not married, they’re in the Corps,” said Nick Zucal, a Marine who has been stationed aboard Camp Lejeune for the past two years. “This is not really the place to be for single men, that’s for sure.”

The unfavorable ratio of women to men can leave leathernecks with little to do on the weekends.

“Go to the beach, get a tattoo… that’s pretty much about it,” said Mike Roberts, another Marine. Roberts later attached going to the mall or Wal-Mart to the still-short list.


Things that make ya go "hmmmm..." There's a little more to do than go to the beach or get a tattoo. Walmart sucks. It's always packed, and parking sucks. Lots of strip clubs, but most of the dancers...whatever. You just have to think some more to entertain yourself, that's all.

At least he didn't say "Jarheads", though. He's probably a retired Marine, so I'll let it slide this time. Word of advice. If you've never "done a hitch" then Leatherneck and Jarhead aren't words to use. It's like bitch. A girl can say it when talking, a guy just can't. Or Dego. If you say it, you better be Italian.

I'll stop with one last quote:

According to Money Magazine, the personal crime rate is 25 percent lower in Jacksonville than the rest of the nation, while the property crime rate is a slim 1 percent below the national average.


Mostly we get drunk and break stuff. See? Plenty to do. (jk of course.)


7 Eloquent Orations:

On 8/07/2006 11:16:00 PM, Blogger blipey waxed damned near poetic whilst opining...

Sounds like a great place to be. Kansas City continually ranks high on the following lists:

1. Fattest Cities in the US
2. Worst Cities to be Single
3. Your City Government did what!?!?
4. Places that apparently don't need no stinking public transportaion.
5. Best AAA affiliate of the Yankees

Oh well, the midwest mindset is hard to change. It really is getting better here, but the collective "we" gets scared when too many good things get rolling. Then we turn it down a notch so we can bleeed off some of the excess momentum.

Makes me wish I was well off enough to have a place in KC to come back to when I wanted AND live somewhere else. It has its charms.

 

On 8/07/2006 11:38:00 PM, Blogger blipey waxed damned near poetic whilst opining...

Don't know where to post this, so I'll leave it here.

I liked the recent comments phrasing "________ opined that" or whatever it was before. I think that was it. Whatever it was, I think it was better than "stated that..."

Stated is such a sterile word.

 

On 8/08/2006 06:58:00 AM, Blogger JanieBelle waxed damned near poetic whilst opining...

Hi blipey.

(Forgive me, I'm not usually up at this hour so coherence may not be optimal.)

It was actually "commented thusly". I too, am unhappy with "stated", and truthfully, "opined" is what I wanted to use. "said" is right up there with "stated", plus a lot of times when we quote each other we start with "blipey said:" so the recent comment looks like "JanieBelle said blipey said" which is just plain dumb.

Here's the deal. I've been reading that the blogspambots look for the word "comment". So I'm trying to replace it, and can't find just the right word.

I was going to use "opined", but I got an email telling me that word was used a lot on AtBC by one of the resident fruitcakes, and may cause unpleasant flashbacks for some of my commenters. I can't seem to find anywhere where that was being used, though.

Is everyone OK with "opined"? When I find the right word, it'll also go where the "comments" link is on the home page, the header on the comments pages, and where the "recent comments" header is on the home page.

 

On 8/08/2006 07:40:00 AM, Blogger Lifewish waxed damned near poetic whilst opining...

I have no problem with "opined". Other options:

declared
spake thusly
remarked
enunciated
uttered
asserted
professed

 

On 8/08/2006 07:50:00 AM, Blogger JanieBelle waxed damned near poetic whilst opining...

Some good ones there, Lifewish.

Thank you.

I think our first post this morning will be about thoughts on this.

The only problem with "opined" that I can think of is that it sucks as a noun.

So the header would read "Recent Opinions" to which I'm not grooving.

I'm liking enunciated and uttered. I doubt the spam bots will be looking for those.

Hmm... which leads me to polling script...

That's an issue for another day, though.

Kisses,
JanieBelle

 

On 8/08/2006 09:56:00 AM, Blogger blipey waxed damned near poetic whilst opining...

I also like uttered / recent utterances.

"Spake thusly" is sort of ridiculous in a perfectly acceptable way. However, could you rearrange it, so we all sounded like we came from a Nietzsche text: "Thus spake ______".

 

On 8/08/2006 10:00:00 AM, Blogger JanieBelle waxed damned near poetic whilst opining...

Hi blipey!

You'll have to take that up with Lifewish. I think he's offering to randomize the vocabulary a bit.

That would be very, very cool.

Check out the Enunciations Thread

Kisses,
JanieBelle

 

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