So far, our question of the week isn't inspiring much interest, and in case you're still thinking about it, what are the impact of the aerotropolis concept on Whitehaven?
We hope you'll weigh in, and as a reminder, here's the question:
If you had the power to take definitive actions to fight the abandonment and decline of Whitehaven, what would you do?
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7 comments:
Use the broken windows theorty by cracking down on the small stuff (grafitti, loitering, panhandling, truancy).
Use eminant domain to penalize people who don't maintain their property.
Offer some incentives to businesses to move to the area. Increase jobs and the population will follow.
The 3rd commentor has it completely backwards. Jobs follow people (educated, motivated, high quality workforce). Not vice versa. The jobs won't go to Whitehaven, and in a larger sense, Memphis, because the work force is subpar. It's the biggest reason Marion didn't get the Toyota plant.
To improve things, we have to raise the quality of the workforce mainly through better education, and then jobs will come.
But it is a COMPLETE fallacy that people follow jobs. The reality is: jobs follow people.
The third and fourth commentators neither realize that the Whitehaven area DOES have jobs now. In fact, it may have more jobs than any other part of Memphis if you include the Airport.
That includes high tech jobs at Smith & Nephew and Medtronics and other employers. It's also only a few minutes from most other employers in the City and across the State line.
As I stated in the earlier post, the blight needs to be cleaned up and the old but attractive homes and lots should be marketed for rejuvenation by young professionals, both white and black
4th commentator here; allow me the luxury of clarification. Of course Whitehaven has a lot of jobs. It is a huge employment center with Smith & Nephew, fedex, Medtronic, etc. However, I was commenting on the IDEA that creating jobs will bring people. That is patently false. If you want proof, then with all the jobs in Whitehaven (the aforementioned companies pay well above average wages) why aren't people moving into Whitehaven in droves, black and white? I would say the reason lies in both the areas you have pointed out (blight) as well as the old Memphis bugaboo, racism (I mean let's face it, white flight killed Whitehaven, along with terrible development and zoning decisions). Now white flight and terrible planning decisions have killed HIckory Hill (Cordova's next), although Whitehaven is at an advantage in that it has some great housing stock, which HH most certainly does not.
Bottom line, in most of Memphis, white people flee when black people migrate in.
I second the white flight theory.
That's one of the reasons midtown has never declined. A lot of midtowners never left and it's a place tolerant of diversity.
I feel sorry for those that had to see there beautiful area become the next victim of white flight suburbanization.
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