When talking about Jacksonville and would could have been...
They were early on the Winter Film Capital of the World. When filming was still being done in New York they would come down to Jax for the winter. Eventually the whole industry moved out to LA and Jacksonville became a footnote.
And then there's Lynyrd skynyrd, Allman Brothers, 38 special, Molly Hatchet... the place basically defined southern rock in the 80s.
(we'll ignore the fact that they also produced limp bizcuit).
But we can't forget that Jax is a southern town. It's no excuse, but you can't overlook the role of white flight and race relations when looking at what happened there. You can see how segregated the place still is.
Race and ethnicity 2010: Jacksonville by
Eric Fischer, on Flickr