Smart City Memphis

Join Us At Our New Address

2011-07-29T21:53:00.002-05:00

Smart City Memphis is now at www.smartcitymemphis.com.

We hope you'll join us there.

MATA, DHS and MHA: Why their jobs are harder than you thought

2010-02-15T17:55:00.001-06:00

On Smart City Memphis, many of us make things sound easy. Let's just build dense, walkable neighborhoods. Let's just remove bus fares and make the routes go here or there. Let's tear down the rest of the public housing and humanly integrate "those people" into "normal neighborhoods". We know why things are messed up, how to make things right and are mad as hell that things aren't changing faster.

Well, sometimes real life creeps up on you. Today I was reading A Coordinated Human Services

Transportation Plan for the Memphis Area of 2007 (don't ask why). Several facts slapped me in the face and screamed, "SEE, THIS IS REALLY HARD TO FIX AND MAY TAKE A REALLY LONG TIME!"

There are people in the Memphis Metro Area that desperately need transit options. Depending on which populations are included, this number is somewhere between 70,000 and 430,000 people. Few of them live close to each other or close to where they need to go. Few destinations are clustered in a logical way to make any transit option viable other than the personal automobile. The challenge to serving our residents is far more wide-spread than people realize. And, we are making decisions about public housing, new neighborhood development and the location of services that may be exacerbating the problem.

What is transit?

Transit covers a lot of bases. The trolley, city buses, taxicabs, private vans and school buses are some modes most people would recognize.

Who currently uses transit in Memphis?

The elderly and disabled who cannot drive
Low-income residents who cannot afford to own or operate cars
Tourists

Where are the most in-need target populations?

Surprising to me, the regional population of people over 60 years old are the most centrally located. The greatest concentration is within the 240-Loop but pretty evenly dispersed throughout it. People with incomes below the poverty level reside largely inside the city limits of Memphis but outside of the 240-Loop. The population with disabilities is much more spread out across the six-county region.

Where do most transit trips originate?

Trip origins are spread out all over the region. Origins based on Families First, the Food Stamp program and Medicaid caseloads are concentrated in three locations.

Mainly in the Memphis city limits but outside the 240-Loop
West Memphis
Northern Tipton County

Origins based on elderly and disabled caseloads are concentrated in South Memphis, Fayette County, West Memphis and Desoto County.

The top 60 overall origin points are listed in the table below.

CATEGORY

LOCATION

Affordable

Housing

Sites

(17 Locations)

Agnes Place -Grove Street, Memphis

Airways Villa - 2305 Pendleton Street, Memphis

Alexmire Apartments - 347 E. McLemore Avenue, Memphis

Alpha Renaissance Apartments - 1471 Genesis, Memphis

Apartments at LaPaloma - 1394 LaPaloma Circle, Memphis

Cane Creek Crossing - 100-114 S, Main Street, Memphis

Cleaborn Homes & Foote Homes - S. Lauderdale, Memphis

College Park - 838 Walker Avenue, Memphis

Frisco Court - 1756 LaPaloma, Memphis

Gastalia Heights - 1999 Carver & 1768 Keltner, Memphis

Knob Hill Apartments -1059 Florida St. Memphis

Parkway Commons - 1524 S. Parkway East, Memphis

Salem Manor - 2220 S. Parkway East, Memphis

The Commons at Brentwood - 640 Aspire Lane, Memphis

Thompson Courts - LaPaloma, Carver, Keltner, Memphis

Turrell Meadows, 67 2nd St. West Memphis

Wellington Place - 1005 S. Wellington, Memphis

Neighborhoods

Corridors

(13 Locations)

Chelsea Corridor, Memphis

Elvis Presley Corridor, Memphis

Frayser, Memphis

Hickory Hill, Memphis

Lamar Corridor, Memphis

Midtown, Memphis

Poplar Corridor, Memphis

Raleigh, Memphis

South Memphis within I-240 Loop

Summer Corridor, Memphis

Third Street Corridor, Memphis

U.S. Hwy 51/Thomas Street Corridor, Memphis

Winchester Corridor, Memphis

Senior

Housing

Sites

(30 Locations)

Barry Homes, 255 Lauderdale St. Memphis

Barry Towers - 255 Lauderdale Street, Memphis

Belmont Village of Memphis - 6605 Quail Hollow Road, Memphis

Borda Towers - 21 Neely St. Memphis

Camilla Towers - 256 S. Camilla, Memphis

Carestone at Bartlett - 3345 Kirby Whitten Road, Memphis

Cleaborn Homes - 430 S. Lauderdale St. Memphis

College Park Senior Building - 838 Walker Avenue, Memphis

Ecumenical Village - 217 W. Jackson Ave., West Memphis

Exxum Towers - 3155 Sharp, Memphis

Franklin Park - 3393 Kirby Road, Memphis

Highland Towers - 400 S. Highland, Memphis

Hollywood Senior Center - 1560 N. Hollywood, Memphis

Independent Apartments - 875 Linden Avenue, Memphis

Jefferson Square, 741 Adams Avenue, Memphis

Latham Terrace Senior Housing - 295 E.H. Crump, Memphis

Luther Terrace - 3907 James Road, Memphis

Lutheran Village Condominiums - 3589 Covington Pike, Memphis

Memphis Tower - 1081 Court Avenue, Memphis

The Parkview - 1914 Poplar Avenue, Memphis

The Villas of West Memphis - W. Jackson Avenue, West Memphis

Venson Center - 439 Beale Street, Memphis

Wesley Graceland Gardens - 1430 Graceland Pines, Memphis

Wesley Highland Manor - 3549 Norriswood, Memphis

Wesley Highland Meadows - 3517 Andy Way, Memphis

Wesley Highland Place - 3550 Watauga, Memphis

Wesley Highland Terrace - 366 S. Highland, Memphis

Wesley Meadows -1325 Mclingvale Road, Hernando

Wesley Millington Towers - 5077 Easley Av., Millington

Wesley Stage Park -2779 Battle Creek Drive, Memphis

Where do most transit trips end?

Again, I was surprised by the density maps. While destinations are spread all over the place, an East Memphis corridor going north to south from Bartlett to Hickory Hill stood out. As well, the Collierville area had a similar density.

The top sixty destinations are listed in the table below.

CATEGORY

LOCATION

Career Centers

and

Workforce

Development

Centers

Memphis Messick Adult Center

Tennessee Career Center - Somerville, Fayette County

Tennessee Career Center at Memphis - Covington, Tipton County

Tennessee Career Centers - 5 locations in Shelby County

Tennessee Technology Center at Memphis - Alabama Avenue Location

Tennessee Technology Center at Memphis - Tchulahoma Rd Location

William R. Moore College of Technology, Memphis

Cultural and

Recreation

Locations

Downtown Memphis - Various Locations

Graceland, Memphis

Memphis Zoo/Overton Park

Midsouth Coliseum, Liberty Land Park, Liberty Bowl Stadium

Educational

Destinations

Christian Brothers University

Mid-South Community College - West Memphis

Rhodes College

Southern College of Optometry

Southwest Community College- Millington Center, Memphis

Southwest Community College- Somerville, Fayette County

Southwest Community College- Southeast Center, Memphis

Southwest Community College- Whitehaven Center, Memphis

Southwest Community College-Gill Center, Frayser

Southwest Community College-Macon Cove Campus, Memphis

Southwest Community College-Union Avenue Campus, Memphis

University of Memphis

University of Tennessee

Human

Services

Agencies

County Health Department - Shelby, Tipton, Fayette, Crittenden, DeSoto

Memphis Housing Authority

TN Dept of Human Services - 3rd St. & Mitchell Avenue, Memphis

TN Dept of Human Services - Jackson & Macon Avenue, Memphis

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Memphis Office

Various Non-profit Human Services Advocacy and Supporting Groups

Various Faith-based Human Services Organizations

Medical

Facilities

Baptist Memorial Hospital-Collierville

Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto

Baptist Memorial Hospital-Tipton

Baptist Rehabilitation-Germantown

Crittenden Regional Hospital, West Memphis

Memphis Children's Clinic - 6 locations

Memphis Health Center-E.H.Crump

Memphis Kidney & Dialysis Service

Methodist Fayette Hospital - Somerville

Methodist Le Bonheur Germantown Hospital-Germantown

Methodist North Hospital-Covington pike

Methodist South Hospital -South Memphis

Methodist University Hospital-Union Avenue

Regional Medical Center at Memphis (THE MED)/MEDPLEX

Shelby County Health Loop Clinics - 10 locations

St. Francis Hospital - Kate Bond Rd, Memphis

St. Francis Hospital - Park Avenue, Memphis

St. Francis Hospital - White Station Rd, Memphis

Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Memphis

Retail

Places

ALDI - various locations

Kroger Stores - various locations

Pharmacy Stores - various locations

Shopping Malls - various locations

Wal-Mart Stores - various locations

Transportation

Hubs

Greyhound Bus Line - Downtown Memphis

MATA American Way Transit Center

Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) North End Terminal

Memphis International Airport

Are we adequately serving people with transit needs?

Despite an extraordinarily wide range of public and private services, the simple answer is, no.

Latent Demand = 222,148

Average Daily Demand = 74,049

Average Daily Served = 25,860

At best we are leaving somewhere between 65% and 85% of the most in-need population unserved. This is before we talk about including people who might make public transportation a mode of choice. Not because MATA is dumb. Not because MHA is bad. Not because people don't want transportation options or because options are universally doomed.

This is a hard, long term project because for fifty years we have intentionally built a community that has made it that way.

Today, I simply want to applaud the few people who woke up this morning knowing that they were heading out to try fixing it.

Join Us At Our New Home

2009-12-01T18:17:00.002-06:00

We’ve moved.

Our new address is www.smartcitymemphis.com.

We hope you’ll join us there.

The new, improved blog will feature postings by about three dozen friends who share our passion about Memphis and will be regular guest bloggers.

To top it off, the site will feature Amie Vanderford’s photographic artistry.

Urge To Merge Leads To Urge To Surge

2009-11-29T17:34:00.002-06:00

Overlooking and listening to the rhythmic surf of the Atlantic Ocean from a third floor condominium, it’s hard to be objective about Jacksonville.

But we’ll try.

Our professional reason to be in Northern Florida is interesting in its own right, but combined with the nine-month timetable for the newly appointed commission to write a charter for a totally new government for Memphis and Shelby County, it’s been fascinating to check in on a city that merged its city and county governments in 1968, a few years after Nashville did.

Back then, Memphis, Nashville and Jacksonville found themselves in much the same economic position. But in momentum and potential, Memphis clearly had the edge.

Changing Times

Nashville and Jacksonville were mired in government scandal. Confidence in public leadership had bottomed out and dysfunction gripped their governments. Meanwhile, in the years leading up to the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Memphis was doing well.

There were early signs that the times were changing. Population was beginning tentatively to move eastward, retail stores were flirting with the suburbs and plans to widen two-lane highways out of Memphis (like Poplar Avenue) were being made.

Dr. King’s assassination punctured the general sense of progress and sent Memphis into a free fall whose results we’re still dealing with. Faced with the abandonment of downtown, the white stampede out of Memphis and economic upheaval, Memphis leaders dug in their heels, assuming that things would return to normal.

But by the time the smoke cleared, there was a new normal. The Memphis in which they had so much confidence was fundamentally changed, setting in motion troubling trends that continue even now.

Changing History

In Jacksonville and Nashville, confronted with their own crises, they chose to think differently and to shake up things, particularly the government structure that was seen as central to their problems.

It was hard in those days to conceive of Nashville or Jacksonville being competitors to Memphis. After all, Memphis thought its major rival was Atlanta. It all seems so naïve now, but it was a comparison that hung on even as the Georgia capital grew by leaps and bounds, becoming not only a major Southern city but a major national city on its way to becoming an international city.

Those Memphis delusions of grandeur are long gone, swept away by the reality that we are not even keeping pace with Nashville and Jacksonville. But, there remains the persistent attitude that we don’t need (or can’t) do anything: What will be will be.

It’s inarguable that for over 30 years, we’ve used the lack of a consolidated government as a crutch to keep from making the tough decisions or acting courageously. Nashville and Jacksonville took a “no excuses” attitude by changing their governments and it shows.

Changing Things

They had a different image of themselves – one defined by self-confidence and self-worth – that was the antithesis of the one here. Obviously, the positive changes didn’t come overnight. But they did come, and it’s hard to find anyone in either Nashville of Jacksonville – in public or private sector leadership – who does not credit the consolidated government as the spark that burned away the corrupt government, brought in innovative new leaders, flattened out increases in the tax rate (Jacksonville’s is the lowest of the major cities in Florida), turbo-charged their economies and repositioned their city’s images.

Some people in Shelby County opposed to merger of city and county governments say that Nashville and Jacksonville would have prospered regardless of their governments. But there doesn’t seem to be anyone in leadership who agrees.

Jacksonville is beginning a review of its charter to update it, and in a July 30 presentation to the commission, City of Jacksonville General Counsel Richard Mullaney said: “We in Jacksonville enjoy a competitive structural advantage in the creation of public policy that other counties in the state of Florida do not…There’s no question that 40 years ago, for those of us who were here and were observers and participants that we were in a very different place.

“At that time, not just structurally, Jacksonville at that time was viewed by many as a slow-moving, backwards Southern town with an inferiority complex…we are in a very different place. They (rest of the state) marvel at how the smallest market in the nation got an NFL team and…I think that happened because of this structure.

Changing Trajectory

“They marvel at a preservation project that acquired 53,000 acres to take them out of development. They marvel at River City Renaissance, they marvel that we brought a Super Bowl here, and they marvel quite frankly at this consolidated for of government.”

Jacksonville was racked with scandal in 1934, but Mr. Mullaney said the governments were not merged at the ballot box until 1967 because “those who fear change and those with vested interests in the current system won out” 43 years earlier.

As the charter commission in Shelby County does it work in the next nine months, we’ll probably hear a lot of statistics and data, but what finally moved us to the pro-consolidation side of the ledger weren’t the tangibles. It was the intangibles.

All the numbers aside, what we find palpable in Nashville and Jacksonville is a “can do” attitude and a sense that they can dream big and act boldly. Both cities send the unspoken message that they are places that care about themselves and are proud of themselves. Neither has the character or the culture of Memphis, but they are creating more jobs, attracting more business investment and creating the kind of quality of life that is a key competitive advantage in the new economy.

Changing The Rhetoric

Here’s the thing: we’re tired – actually, exhausted - of being told that Memphis has potential, Memphis is at a crossroads and that great things are about to happen in Memphis. We’ve heard it in every election since 1978, and it’s simply getting old.

While we’ve been talking about our potential, other cities like Nashville and Jacksonville have been reaching theirs. In the end, this is why we think that creating a new government for Memphis and Shelby County is our last, best shot at moving past the rhetoric about our potential to actually realizing it.

Simply put, we have to change Memphis’ trajectory, and it will take something profound and earth-shaking. It seems clear from the history of Nashville and Jacksonville that the earth-shaking event can be blowing up the existing government and starting over.

After our visit to Jacksonville, we volunteer to buy the dynamite.

Sucking The Life Out Of Cities

2009-11-23T16:45:00.003-06:00

Regionalism is all the rage. The Obama Administration is betting big on regional planning as a way to make smarter decisions on transportation, climate, the economy—all those things that don’t respect political boundaries. The Administration plans to reward communities that work together across jurisdictions toward common goals and, by implication, punish those that do not.

Who can argue with that? I certainly can’t.

But as I sit here in a brand name suburban motel room situated on a highway that could be anywhere, all my doubts about the wisdom of regionalism resurface. I can walk to the Shell station for some Fig Newtons, and I see a Checkers across the street, but there’s too much pavement between here and there to make the trip.

I happen to be in this motel in City A because I landed today in City B for a meeting tomorrow morning in City C. Got that?

All three cities, plus two others, happen to share a single region. On their own, all of these cities have distinct charm. But string them together with the highway sprawl so familiar all over the country, and it sucks all the charm out of the idea of regionalism—fast. In this case, the sum is decidedly less than its parts.

These are the opening paragraphs from today's blog post by our colleague, Carol Coletta, at www.good.is. To read more of her post, click here.

Thawing Out The Logic About Tax Freezes

2009-11-22T23:39:00.004-06:00

At the risk of being burned at the stake for heresy, we just have to say it: we don’t care if warehouses are moving from Memphis to Mississippi.

And while we’re at it, let’s be honest about one more thing: tax freezes are more about land development than economic development.

But as long as our economic development officials measure success by giving tax waivers rather than limiting them, we’ll continue to chase distribution jobs and pretend that they somehow are positioning Memphis to succeed in a knowledge economy.

As long as we talk the talk about the power of a regional economy and but can’t walk the walk, our obsession with North Mississippi will continue to erode a healthy, balanced economic development strategy.

It’s An Entitlement

Maybe, just maybe, North Mississippi is luring the kinds of companies we shouldn’t really worry about, because the vast majority of employers who are still here are the value-added kinds – those that pay good salaries for good jobs.

And maybe, just maybe, we should be focused on keeping people, and it starts by doing a better job of explaining that taxes in North Mississippi are higher than taxes in many parts of Shelby County. Perhaps, we should let Mississippi pay for the infrastructure that distribution facilities want and we should do our best to keep the people who work there.

But that’s not what we do and because of it, to this day, no one has adequately explained why over a 10-year period, Memphis and Shelby County approved more than half of the state’s tax freezes – 809 of them – while Nashville approved only five. Or put another way, Memphis approved more tax freezes than Nashville, Chattanooga, Jackson and Knoxville combined.

A former director of the Nashville mayor’s office of economic and community development put it best: “Incentives should incentivize. Once it becomes an entitlement, it’s no longer an incentive.” It’s easy enough to know which noun applies to tax incentives here.

Why Do We Fight For Them?

For 15 years, it’s been real estate development interests that have driven the lobbying that turned tax freezes into entitlements, and they took them to the point that warehouses may never again pay taxes in this city. It is sobering to drive down Shelby Drive and Holmes Road in Southeast Shelby County and realize that a handful of the hundreds of warehouses covering the landscape are paying property taxes.

It almost defies logic. If a company doesn’t understand the added competitive power that comes from being in the world headquarters of FedEx, perhaps they’re simply too stupid to care about in the first place.

But if we don’t give taxes away, we’re told we’ll lose the “logistics business” to Fayette County or DeSoto County. The key question regarding warehouses is this: why should Memphis taxpayers care where they locate? If they locate in Shelby County and get tax freezes, it just perpetuates the disproportionate share of local property taxes being paid by homeowners and small businesses.

Years ago, city and county governments hired a firm to analyze land use and taxes. After inputting the data, he called officials to say that he could not deliver the final report on time because his computer malfunctioned. He was given extra time.

Error Message

A few weeks later, he called again. He reported that the computer hadn’t malfunctioned after all. Because so many large swaths of property were off the tax rolls – particularly mile after mile of warehouses in South Shelby County – the computer “thought” that the data must be faulty and sent an error message. Shelby County was not similar to what was normally found in other metros like ours.

As syndicated columnist on urban affairs Neal Peirce has written: “Call it, if you will, the crack cocaine of state and local governments’ economic development practices -- their endless flow of tax breaks and outright gifts to private corporations they either want to land, or figure they have to pay off to stay put.”

Today the practice runs so deep, pervading such a huge number of corporate location moves, that officials -- even those who privately admit it’s an insane, zero-sum system -- keep on forking out the cash, no matter how incredibly costly the addiction. For years Greg LeRoy has been America’s chief whistle blower on the subsidies, which he estimates add up nationally to $50 billion a year.

So what should be done? First, says Mr. LeRoy, “disclosure-disclosure-disclosure.” When the public is informed, the jobs blackmail diminishes. As we have frequently said, this begins by posting every tax freeze on the city and county websites. Then set up serious “clawback” recapture provisions when a subsidized firm doesn’t fulfill its job-producing promises. And stop all subsidies for retail deals, except in truly-depressed inner-city neighborhoods.

Reinvestment Needed

And, let governments, Mr. LeRoy proposes, start registering and regulating the site location consultants who make often negotiate the public subsidies. This would stop them from double-dealing (and driving up subsidy costs) by requiring that they take payment from just one party to any transaction.

But the really fresh ground LeRoy plows is a big reminder to us that the scramble for jobs that ignited the subsidy wars will soon be pointless -- and simply unaffordable. With baby-boomers headed toward retirement, we’re likely to face an enormous shortage of skilled workers. From 1980 to 2000, the pool of prime-age (25-to-54-year old) workers increased by 35 million. But from 2000 to 2020, the expansion will be just 3 million. Teachers, nurses, expert workers of all sorts will be in desperately short supply. Huge new efforts (and spending) for workforce development will be critical to stop a slide in the United States’ standard of living.

At the same time, America’s physical plant is suffering from serious disinvestment and deterioration. Traffic congestion is costing our economy $67.5 billion a year; thousands of bridges need replacement; wastewater systems are in bad shape; almost 2,600 dams are now deemed unsafe; transit spending is far below what’s needed to maintain even the inadequate systems we now have. The American Society of Civil Engineers totals the repair bill at $1.6 trillion. Discount that 50 percent and the pending bills are still staggering.

The bottom line, says Mr. LeRoy: “We need reinvestment, not disinvestment.” It’s time, he asserts, to take a “fine-tooth comb” to the $50 billion states and cities are now spending for corporate promises of jobs. Any subsidy that doesn’t serve compelling public need by creating more skilled labor, or doesn’t provide a “carrot” for companies to invest in new skills development, should go on a list for likely elimination.

It’s time, Mr. LeRoy concludes (as if speaking for Memphis taxpayers), for sweeping reform of the subsidy policies and to recognize them for what they are: “wasteful handouts we can no longer afford.”

This Week On Smart City: Places That Define Cities

2009-11-21T16:19:00.005-06:00

This week's Smart City features Katherine Gustafson, award-winning landscape architect and designer of Chicago's Lurie Garden. We'll talk to Katherine about creating places of serenity, in a bustling city.

Dr. Nancy Zimpher is the Chancellor of the State University of New York. With 64 campuses and almost a half million students, Dr. Zimpher believes she has the assets that will make the difference in New York's future.

Smart City is a syndicated, weekly hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life: the people, places, ideas and trends that affect us all. Host Carol Coletta, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, talks with national and international public policy experts, economists, business leaders, artists, developers, planners and others on the pulse of city life for a penetrating discussion on urban issues.

Smart City is broadcast at 6 a.m. Saturday and Sundays on WKNO-FM, but it is also webcast and podcast so you can listen to it anytime you like. For the webcast, times for the broadcast in other cities and to sign up for the podcast, visit our website.

Getting The Cobwebs Out Of The City Website

2009-11-19T00:10:00.003-06:00

There’s not much that can be done to the city and county websites that would do any damage.

They are the digital equivalents of a three car pile-up on the interstate. Well, in the county’s case, it’s more like a five car pile-up.

If a public website is the on-line representation of a government’s persona, our governments’ personalities are defined by secrecy, misdirection and obfuscation. Even when you know information is on the website, it doesn’t mean you’ll ever find it. It’s been buried so expertly, it regularly requires a search party to find it.

It’s hard to fathom the fact that city and county government spend about $31 million a year on information technology, and that these websites are the best we can get.

Monkeys And Hamlet

That’s why the Wharton Administration is on the right track with its intention to overhaul the city’s website as part of its new transparency policies. While local government has a dismal record of imbedding new technologies in ways to open up the public sector and to create effective e-government, there’s no reason that the fundamentals of on-line transparency shouldn’t be done forthwith.

The Wharton Administration is currently circulating a survey asking for the public’s advice on improving the city website. It’s good that a usable, user-friendly city website is a priority of Mayor Wharton, and seven years of frustration with the county website fuel his determination to do something different in City Hall.

As the theory goes, if you lock a group of monkeys in a room with typewriters, they will eventually type Hamlet. In the meantime, they could be accused of typing out the Shelby County website, perhaps the most impenetrable government site anywhere.

Our Suggestions

As for the city website, it would be an improvement if it just got the basics right.

First, get rid of all the extraneous information. Who really is going to the city website for tourist information? Make it simple and make it about city government.

Second, don’t make us have to know the city organizational chart to find information. It’s a curious feature of local government websites that before a visitor can find the information that he needs, he needs to know what division or department it would be found in. Hell, we don’t even care what the org chart looks like, much less that it’s used to organize information on the websites. We just want to find what we need without having to click four times to get to it or rummage around to find out what department it’s in.

Third, it’s not just about an understandable website. More to the point, it’s about understanding writing. For example, it’s just hard to understand why there’s not someone among the 6,000 employees of city government who can be asked to write a easy-to-read summary of the 409-city operating budget. After all, the new transparency policy will be toothless if the information posted online is in the kind of bureaucratese that defies comprehension.

Fourth, post everything. A quick survey of studies and major reports prepared in the past 5-7 years tallies more than 165 of them. About five of them are on-line. Here’s a rule of thumb: everything goes on-line – tax freezes, contracts, special project reports and data that gives the public the ability to hold departments accountable. Some cities are doing some remarkable things by using GIS to measure city services and keep citizens informed, and there’s just no excuse why Memphis isn’t among them.

Be The Best

Fifth, don’t appoint a committee to build the new website. Group think is the enemy of a cohesive vision and execution of a quality website. That’s why we suggest that city government do something really revolutionary – forego one of those $1 million contracts with some corporate giant hired to build a new website. Rather, create a R & D war room by hiring 3-5 young web designers for $15,000 apiece and turn them loose to design the model 21st century government website.

Six, build a website with the user in mind rather than being driven by political egos and political agendas. Don’t talk to us like voters; talk to us like the people we are – the ones who pay your salaries. Tell us what we want to know, rather than what you think is in your political self-interest.

Seven, get serious about e-government. Every form or application in city government should be on-line – every one. Meanwhile, we ought to be able to do more than pay government money for tickets and taxes. Rather, we ought to be able to do anything on-line that we can do standing at a counter in a city department.
Meanwhile, dozens of governments are developing broadband networks for their communities, but Memphis isn’t one of them. Here, not even downtown Memphis is wireless. In Atlanta, Mayor Shirley Franklin introduced the "Atlanta Dashboard" that keeps city government managers focused on goals and indicators of success. Most of all, it opens a window for citizens to judge how city operations are performing.

Keeping Pace

In Boston, Mayor Thomas Menino is equipping all city vehicles to double as "digital street assessment tools" to measure vibrations created by rough roads and potholes, then send the data to a computer that maps locations using GPS. Shanghai, China, is doing much the same thing, but its constantly updated map is also used by private companies who want to know which routes are best on a given day.

At its most basic, there needs to be a plan to apply technology to improve administrative functions and to share more information within and without government. More to the point, this level of transparency can in fact transform the relationship between the government and the people it serves.

It's about creating government that's open for business when we need it, 24/7/365. It's about citizen-centric government and flattening the bureaucracy, and it's about increasing government efficiency and productivity, promoting transparency and accountability, and inviting the public into discussions and decisions.

That seems to be where the Wharton Administration is headed. It’s past time for Memphis to get into the first tier of cities using technology to modernize and economize its operations and to engage and involve its citizens.

Inside Baseball Strikes Out In County Government

2009-11-18T01:30:00.003-06:00

Here’s the real problem with the appointment of the new Shelby County Mayor.

It’s not the alliance between a couple of Republican commissioners to usher in the era of the Joe Ford Administration.

It’s not the parody of leadership that two days of serial voting produced.

It’s not even the laughable criticisms about the Wharton Administration’s financial stewardship by a leading candidate.

Hope Springs Eternal

The real problem is that from the beginning, the appointment of the interim county mayor was an insiders’ game. It was driven by an impulse that one of the commissioners should get the political plum. It was also about the devaluing of the county mayor’s job by suggesting that almost any commissioner could do the job.

The sad part is that there wasn’t anyone on the county legislative body unwilling to game the process in one way or another – either as a potential candidate or in return for political support. It was probably too much to hope that instead of turning to look at each other first, the commissioners would look beyond the county building to consider who in Memphis would be the qualified person to provide the sound management that the $1 billion enterprise needs over the next nine months.

We suspect that FedEx founder and guru Fred Smith may have even been willing to bivouac one of his top managers at Shelby County Government to keep it on sound footing, particularly to continue the debt reduction plan by the Wharton Administration. With little notice, the amount of debt service payments by county government actually went down last year for the first time in about 25 years.

Getting The Message Right

Or, if the Shelby County Board of Commissioners wanted to send a strong message about the future, its members could have chosen one of the talented, young people who are more than capable of setting the right agenda and sticking to it. It was a move that could have sent a dramatic message about the changing of the generational leadership in Memphis.

Instead, the commissioners sent a different message, the unmistakable one that it was politics as usual in county government. At a time when the hopeful attitude unleashed by the election of a new Memphis mayor could have spread to county government, the commissioners elected one of the hoariest names in local politics.

To put it bluntly, at the precise moment with the commissioners should have been sending a message about a new day and new hope, it chose to elect someone with political baggage that immediately makes half of all Shelby Countians instinctively abandon confidence in him and their county government.

Dashed Hope

This is not to say that Mayor-to-be Joe Ford is not a fine person. But that does not change the fact that his family name is anathema to so much of the public. In the end, a majority of the commissioners essentially said they just didn’t care and did it any way.

It was a valuable opportunity squandered, and because of it, the momentum that could have been born from new hope and enthusiasm has been muted, if not derailed completely.

To further complicate things, Commissioner Ford’s stinging and unfounded criticisms of CAO Jim Huntzicker, whose name was submitted at the 11th hour as a compromise candidate, will now require serious fence mending by the interim mayor. In fact, it’s hard to imagine Commissioner Ford succeeding without Mr. Huntzicker’s institutional knowledge and financial advice. We can only hope that the new mayor does not plan to make any changes to the major appointed officials who operate Shelby County Government day to day.

The Fallout

During deliberations about the mayoral appointment, Commissioner Ford exhibited a regrettable tendency to shoot from the hip wide of the mark. That continued after his election with his half-baked idea to eliminate the board of The Med. Hopefully, this behavior is an aberration and the real Ford style has not yet been previewed.

Already, there is speculation that Commissioner Ford – despite protestations to the contrary - is a possible candidate in the May primary for county mayor, but it’s hard to imagine a scenario where he could be elected. There are just too many barriers.

Fallout from the appointment came quickly. The two Republican commissioners who voted for Commissioner Ford – Wyatt Bunker and Mike Ritz – already have targets painted on their backs by some irate members of their party. It could be problematic for Commissioner Ritz, who already had created some discomfort for some party members with his iconoclastic brand of representation, and Commissioner Bunker’s critics suggest that he has simply taken his conservative constituents for granted with this vote.

Ups And Downs

It remains to be seen what will develop from the current political rumblings, but the political winner at first blush seems to be Commissioner Deidre Malone’s mayoral campaign. Her vote against Commissioner Ford strengthens her credentials with voters outside Memphis, a place where she needs to gain a stronger foothold and be identified as someone who’s not willing to go along to get along.

Speaking of county commissioners, Steve Mulroy continued his quixotic quest to save the rotting Zippin Pippin at the Fairgrounds. All that’s left are the wood and metal from the track and structure of the old roller coaster, because the cars, motors, and everything else were taken away years ago by a company who bought the ride.

It didn’t want to spend the money to move the track, and as Commissioner Mulroy acknowledged, the wood is in such bad shape that it would have to be replaced anyway. In other words, at this point, the controversy is essentially over whether to save the metal track.

Surreality

It’s reached a point where it’s just Kafkaesque – spending close to half a million dollars to disassemble rotting wood and rusty tracks and to store them until there is some unimaginable time when they are needed again.

It’s enough to make the commissioners’ deliberations about the next county mayor look reasonable.

No DeTox For Addiction To Tax Freezes

2009-11-17T01:00:00.005-06:00

Here we go again.

It seems that Memphis economic development officials have an addiction to tax freezes that the Betty Ford Clinic couldn’t cure.

Meanwhile, they have an obsession with North Mississippi that Sigmund Freud couldn’t have shaken.

As a result, real reform of our community’s Payment-in-lieu-of-tax (PILOT) program always seems just out of reach, and even when loosely grasped, it’s only a matter of time before the hoary justifications for giving away taxes are trotted out once again.

This time around, it's about giving tax breaks to businesses already in Memphis who are threatening to leave Shelby County. They have to have been here 10 years, to be investing $10 million and retaining 100 jobs. Someone should lock the key to the city and county vaults, because we predict a run on the bank by companies who say they are now thinking about leaving.

Unchecked And Unbalanced

Most troubling of all this is the fact that there are no meaningful checks and balances in deliberations like the one today before Memphis City Council to loosen up tax freeze policy again. Advocates for the change in policy are the same economic development officials who benefit from the change itself, and once again, in the absence of a comprehensive plan to shift our incentives from cheapness to quality, City Council members are susceptible to the self-serving analyses and recommendations.

Curiously, the only outside assessment of the city and county policies on tax freezes – which recommended common sense and reasonable reform – was forgotten almost before it was officially submitted for consideration. And although some of its recommendations were approved, the full impact of the well thought out report was never realized, and campaigns to water down the changes began almost before the ink had dried on the government resolutions.

The tax freeze program was so out of control that it was criticized by everyone from pro-business Forbes magazine to researchers, and most of all by city and county governments’ own consultants, URS Corporation and NexGen Advisors, who called for major overhaul of the program in its 97-page report issued December 1, 2005. Even then, it took more than a year for local government to get around to reforming the PILOT program, which has always been more about real estate than economic development.

But, most importantly, the tax freeze program lost public support and credibility because of the Memphis and Shelby County Industrial Development Board’s pro forma approval of any application whose paperwork was filled out correctly. But most damning of all, in a 10-year period, for every tax freeze approved in Nashville, Memphis approved 83 totaling about $60 million, a total that was more than the other major cities combined.

Quality Counts

These days, economic development officials act as if we all have amnesia and that our opinions about the overuse of this incentive have changed. While we’ve tried to give away the store, decades ago, Nashville decided to send a message about quality government, quality of life, and quality of public investments.

It set out to execute “quality strategies” that make it today a magnet for young college-educated workers and skilled jobs. It identified key public investments to make this happen. It rejected the notion that it should sell itself at a discount to get jobs and people to move there.

Memphis took another road. It was rooted in “old school” economic development programs that sold our city on the basis of cheap land, cheap labor and cheap taxes. Ultimately, what we’ve learned is that throwing money at companies to convince them to love us is not only poor public policy, it is also counterproductive, stimulating higher tax rates that choke off the small businesses and the entrepreneurs who create most of the new jobs in the first place.

Forbes magazine held up our PILOT program as the poster child for tax incentives run amok: “Targeted tax cuts aimed at attracting particular employers are bad policy. For decades now targeted tax incentives have been a favorite elixir of state and local politicians in depressed communities. But targeted tax incentives don’t spur real growth. Quite the contrary…tax incentives are inevitably financed at the expense of established businesses. Today’s winner of a targeted tax break is tomorrow’s victim of a broad increase in business taxes.”

No But’s

The third strike for the program was the thoughtful report by the city-county consultants. One of those recommendations – the so-called “but for” test - was for companies asking for tax freezes to prove that they need the public investment (and that’s what it is) to make their projects work.

It seems a good time to remember what the consultants wrote: “The current matrix approach (the score sheet now being used to award tax freezes and set their terms) for awarding PILOTs should be abandoned and replaced by a ‘but for’ test or the true economic need of the project.”

This was what was always missing from the PILOT process. Instead of an emphasis on facts, there was an emphasis on rhetoric that is being resurrected once again: “The company will move to Mississippi if it doesn’t get the PILOT” or “This company is looking at locations in Indianapolis right now,” or “This company wants a sign from government that Memphis values its presence.”

In truth, this strict “but for” test was straightforward and encouraged good stewardship of scarcer and scarcer tax dollars. The consultants define “but for” as a business investment that isn’t reasonably expected without the public tax freezes, and it can be proven by a “gap analysis, a competitive cost analysis for competing sites, or a combination of the two,” the report states.

Getting It Right

“The establishment of a ‘but for’ test is the whole premise of any public investment or the need for it from a logical, moral and legislative standpoint,” the report said. “Most, if not all, business incentive programs across the country imply a ‘but for’ test in their intent and enabling legislation.”

Previously, we’ve expressed our concern about the pervasive feeling of unworthiness that is found in Memphis, and which is mirrored in public policy like the PILOT program. It embodies the attitude that we aren’t worthy to have new business and business expansions without bribing them. Is it at all possible that unlike the other cities who sell their cities on their quality, we come off looking desperate and unsophisticated, and a result, we give more than necessary?

We think David Birch, former Harvard and MIT academician and now president of a company that advises companies on where to locate, said it best: "The cities growing fastest right now have the highest taxes, most expensive workers, most expensive land...To say you want the cheapest worker is an old way of thinking. What you really want is a talented labor force, not the least expensive labor force."

Or as Professor John Eger puts it: "The effort to create a 21st century city is not so much about technology as it is about jobs, dollars and quality of life. In short, it is about organizing one's community to reinvent itself for the new, knowledge-based economy and society; preparing its citizens to take ownership of their community; and educating the next generation of leaders and workers to meet these global challenges...At the heart of this effort is ultimately defining a 'creative community.'"

Corporate Tax Dodging

In the end, it seems logical that the overriding question about tax freeze policies is whether they are encouraging the reinvention of Memphis into a creative community, a city of choice, known for its quality and innovation. The answer seems obvious, and so then is the rationale for expanding the basis for issuing yet more PILOTs.

As government officials consider what they’re going to do, we recommend that they listen to the Smart City interview with Greg LeRoy, author of The Great American Jobs Scam: Corporate Tax Dodging and the Myth of Job Creation. He said: “There’s a popular myth that’s promulgated by companies and their consultants and their public relations machines suggesting that tax breaks are responsible for companies locating or relocating or expanding. I think that’s just not true because all state and local taxes combined has a cost of doing business for the average company in this country of less than one percent of their cost structure.

“Tax breaks, therefore, comprising some fraction of less than one percent of a company’s costs can’t create markets, can’t drive innovation, can’t drive skilled labor. It’s really become a way for elected officials to take credit for things that are already going to happen in the market. And by letting these programs become so loose and allowing them to become pro-sprawl, we’ve also allowed these incentive programs to turn into things that are really harming our land use, undermining our public schools, forcing people away from transit…”

Mr. LeRoy suggests that programs like ours are in truth real estate development masquerading as economic development. “We hope elected officials look at the broader policy issues about how policies affect everybody paying taxes to the city, to the county, to the state, and what’s really going on is a burden shift in which companies that are foot loose, or threaten to be foot loose, are getting lots of other people to pay for their public services, because when a company doesn’t pay its fair share of the cost of public services it uses, everybody else either has to pay higher taxes or get lousier public services.”

Amen. And we pray that no one thinks now is the time to return to policies that were key to creating the low-wage, low-skill economy on which we are too dependent.

Reports: Kids, Cars And Carbon Footprints

2009-11-16T00:02:00.002-06:00

Three recent reports we’ve been reading are about social promotion of students, Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO’s) and airports, all subjects that should be of interest to Memphis.

In a study about social promotion of students in New York City, “Ending Social Promotion Without Leaving Children Behind,” the well-respected think tank, RAND Corporation, said that social promotion “remains a controversial and hotly debated policy (that)…has come under increasing attack and criticism.”

That certainly was the case here when Memphis City Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash proposed similar promotions out of concern that the stigmatizing that comes from grade failure outweighs every student showing mastery of that grade’s subjects. The policy is under study these days after an outcry that such a change was tantamount to throwing in the towel at city schools.

We were willing to give it a try, since there’s little evidence that current failure policies are doing much to change the trajectory of the most seriously at-risk students. Then again, maybe we were simply influenced by the lessons of our lives from a simpler time.

No Harm, No Foul

Back when some of us here were in school, no one talked about social promotion, but there were students who moved up a grade each year with every one else. There was also the unwritten, but oft-applied policy, that no one would be held back a grade more than one time in the 12 grades then offered.

But back to the RAND report, it calls for identifying struggling students early and providing interventions to turn their academic performance around. That early intervention was a centerpiece of the plan for Memphis City Schools, but some school board members felt it was too undefined to embark on a new promotion policy.

The most seminal conclusion of the RAND study was that “retained students did not report negative socioemotional effects.” Surveys of these students in fact showed “greater sense of school connectedness than at-risk promoted students and not-at-risk students.” “The study found no negative effects of retention on students’ sense of belonging or confidence in mathematics and reading over time,” it said. In addition, principals and teachers In New York tend to be positive about performance-based promotions.

The think tank recommended stepped-up identification and intervention of students with problems, greater attendance at special Saturday sessions and summer school and collection of data and measurement of results of intervention strategies.

Better Planning

Meanwhile, the report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) – with one of those bureaucratic titles we love, “Metropolitan Planning Organizations: Options Exist to Enhance Transportation Planning Capacity and Federal Oversight” - suggested that MPO’s also needed more performance-based measurements.

Unfortunately, the report didn’t address the need to bring rationality to membership of MPO’s, and if you’ve read us much, you know this is a sore point here. Our MPO is one of the most unrepresentative in the country. It’s controlled by suburban interests and in a region that is majority African-American, black members are few and far between.

That said, some of the GAO’s recommendations were nonetheless important as Congress considers legislation concerning the role of MPO’s. And they seem in line with the ambitions of Memphis Mayor A C Wharton “to move (MPO) from acting as a planning organization to become a more visionary agency acting on the shared values of the community and what we want Memphis to be and asking the tough questions about sprawl.”

As Mayor Wharton – chairman of the MPO - has said, the MPO approach is too often to find out that the federal government will pay for two bridges, four roads and three interchanges, so the organization approves two bridges, four roads and three interchanges. Instead, he wants MPO to consider transportation as more than additional lanes of asphalt, to mitigate the negative impact of I-269 and to think about place-making rather than project-building.

Better Results

To all of that, we can only say amen, and toss in one more: that MPO would require MATA to develop a plan that will create a 21st century public transit system.

The GAO said that 85% of MPO’s want more funding for transportation planning and about 50% say the lack of flexibility for federal funds is an obstacle to more effective planning.

GAO recommends that Congress should make MPO transportation planning more performance-based by (for example) identifying specific transportation planning and charging U.S. Department of Transportation with assessing MPOs’ progress in achieving these outcomes. It sounds simple, but it would produce a revolution in the work of MPO’s.

“Currently, there are no requirements (for MPO’s) to attain explicit performance thresholds, such as reducing congestion or improving highway safety, built into the federal planning requirements for the MPO’s.”

Up In The Air

Many MPO’s – and possibly ours with its Imagine 2035 plan - have taken on duties that aren’t required by the federal government such as some land use planning. And some MPO’s have led public processes to develop integrated land use and transportation scenarios. Finally, 16% of MPO’s have responsibility for operating all or part of their regional transit system.

Regarding another mode of transportation, air travel, Brookings Institution’s report, “Expect Delays: An Analysis of Air Travel Trends in the United States,” sounded a warning for major metro air traffic centers. “Increasing stress on our air travel system will accompany the return of economy growth, requiring future infrastructure investments to target both the large volume of environmentally and spatially inefficient short haul flights and the country’s critical 26 metropolitan centers of air traffic.”

While Memphis International Airport is not one of the largest 26 airports, the conclusions of the report bear close attention. “All is not well in the sector,” Brookings wrote. “The same surging oil prices taxing commuters and truckers are also wreaking havoc on the airline industry as real jet fuel prices increased over 55% in three decades. The growing air travel industry also led to increased emissions, leaving more pollutants in flight paths and the areas surrounding airports. Equally troubling, all those passenger increases intensified congestion and air space pressure, depressing national on-time arrival performance to near-record lows.”

After reviewing 19 years of air travel patterns, Brookings Institution found that air passenger travel recorded its first annualized since 9/11 and the decline continued through March, 2009. In Memphis, over a year, the number of passengers dropped 6.2%.

Delays in metro centers of air travel will continue and intensify as the economy improves. “The return of economic growth will increase travelers, reduce on-time performance and continue the hyper-concentration of U.S. air travel within major metropolitan areas and on short-haul flights,” the report said, adding that half of the country’s flights are for less than 500 miles.

This Week On Smart City: Creating And Sparking A Creative City

2009-11-15T19:18:00.003-06:00

Smart City is talking with people who have discovered new ways of attracting and retaining a creative community.

First we'll speak with Helen Johnson and Josh McManus. They lead a group called CreateHere, which focuses on the artists in their own backyard in Chattanooga, TN. Through an innovative series of grants, programs and projects, CreateHere is helping to build a thriving community for artists, artisans and creative entrepreneurs.

And we'll speak with Aly Khalifa of Gamil Design. He was looking for a way to unite the creative community of the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area of North Carolina. Taking inspiration from the world of open-source software, he co-founded Sparkcon.

Smart City is a syndicated, weekly hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life: the people, places, ideas and trends that affect us all. Host Carol Coletta, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, talks with national and international public policy experts, economists, business leaders, artists, developers, planners and others on the pulse of city life for a penetrating discussion on urban issues.

Smart City is broadcast at 6 a.m. Saturday and Sundays on WKNO-FM, but it is also webcast and podcast so you can listen to it anytime you like. For the webcast, times for the broadcast in other cities and to sign up for the podcast, visit our website.

Giving Every Child A Chance To Learn

2009-11-13T14:58:00.006-06:00

In light of our post and your discussion about the D's and F's environment that most city school students come from, "Parenting, Language Development and School Readiness: The Importance of Early Brain Development," a new report by the Urban Child Institute, is crucial reading for anyone who cares about our children.

The skills that help a child succeed in kindergarten begin to develop long before she enters school. Language skills, for example, begin to develop as soon as a child hears her first words. Early childhood language development reflects both parenting practices and the type of language that young children hear at home. Preschool language skills, in turn, are strongly associated with later literacy and academic achievement.

Interventions that increase parental responsiveness, that improve parental language, and that encourage reading to young children help to place these children on the strongest possible footing when it is time for them to enter kindergarten.

In the end, so much of success in school and life is about early brain development, and as Urban Child Institute points out, if a child's synapses are not developed at this early age, education is much more difficult.

Praising Our High Marx

2009-11-12T18:38:00.006-06:00

Often, it seems Memphis took Groucho Marx’s self-deprecating attitude and overlaid it on the entire city. Paraphrasing the comedian, Memphians don’t want to belong to any city that will accept them as members.

It’s a lack of self-worth that plays out in local politics where big projects pass for vision and where cheap projects win out over quality ones. The poster child for this lack of ambition is The Pyramid, a bargain basement arena touted as state-of-the-art until we saw what one really looked like when the FedEx Forum opened.

It’s as if there’s an underlying belief that Memphis just doesn’t deserve the best or that it doesn’t have the ability to do what great cities do – dream big and set national standards.

Vital Signs

There are signs that things are changing – FedEx Forum, Autozone Park, National Civil Rights Museum expansion, and Hattiloo Theater – and exciting ideas bubbling up from the grassroots – Memphis Music Magnet, Memphis Art Park, Skatelife Memphis, Project Green Fork, Clean Memphis, Coalition for Livable Communities, Grow Memphis, and dozens more.

A hub for Memphis creativity, Memphis College of Art, continues to be a force in neighborhood redevelopment, a new theater for Playhouse on the Square hints at new life for Overton Square, Memphis Bioworks Foundation advances construction of its research park, and the Fairgrounds offers a blank canvas for something nationally significant.

But a great city isn’t about great projects. It’s about great people. That’s what’s most exciting these days – the willingness of groups of people all over the city to be part of a DIY (do it yourself) movement to improve Memphis.

Bottom Up

Often, news coverage leads us to believe that great things only happen when there is a great mayor. There’s little denying that after the chaos, division, and distractions that have dominated City Hall in recent years, it will certainly be a welcome change to have a different style and attitude in the mayor’s office. That said, there are just as many cities whose success is tied to citizens working for change as mayors leading change.

That is why all of us should be so hopeful right now, because we could be about to have both – innovative mayoral leadership and a growing number of citizens involved at the grassroots level. As this new era begins, Memphis must shake off other evidence of our lack of self-worth – the lack of recognition for the experts and the “best practices” that we already have here.

Youth Villages CEO Patrick Lawler seems to win a national award every year, and this year, he was invited to join a select group of nonprofit leaders to meet with President Obama, and to top it off, Youth Villages got a shout-out from the First Lady herself.

The Best In The Field

Church Health Center is a regular tour stop for cities looking for innovative ways to respond to the health needs of their poor, and founder Scott Morris has been featured often in national and international news programs. The Urban Child Institute is a unique civic asset, driving policies and programs for children from conception to three years of age and its research is definitive. Local foundations have been forces for riverfront improvements, Shelby Farms Park/Memphis Greenline, and community development.

Meanwhile, the university that gets too little respect – University of Memphis – has methodically improved its faculty so that it now has people and programs that are competitive with most universities.

For example, this year’s Distinguished Faculty Award winner, Robyn Cox, is recognized as a leading international researcher in audiology and hearing aid research, and Provost Ralph Faudree is a world-class mathematician specializing in the field of combinatorics that is understood by only a few people on the globe. Director of the Graduate Program in City & Regional Planning, recently moved here from Cornell University, is the oft-quoted and widely respected Ken Reardon, an activist for neighborhood redevelopment.

Bring On The New

Robert Neimeyer, professor in psychotherapy research, is the author of 21 books with emphasis on finding meaning in grief. Communications professor David Appleby is well-known for his nationally broadcast documentaries, which have won almost every award in his field. Meanwhile David Cox, Laura Harris, and Karen Weddle-West spoke at a Congressional hearing earlier this year, an invitation that is often used as the marker for a major university.

With a new mayor will come a new attitude, and hopefully, a new appreciation for the grassroots leadership, the innovative programs, and the national expertise that need to be treated as the kinds of forces that can change the course of Memphis history.

This was previously published as the City Journal column in the November issue of Memphis magazine.

Memphis Gets D's And F's From City Students

2009-11-10T22:40:00.003-06:00

It’s nothing short of hypocritical for us to wring our hands over the D’s and F’s given to Memphis City Schools students in the Tennessee Department of Education report card.

After all, that’s exactly what we as a city preordained for them.

Yes, these 105,000 students made D’s and F’s, but what did we expect?

Making The Grade

These students come from neighborhoods that earn D’s and F’s on their best days. Crime fighting in their neighborhoods gets D’s and F’s. The low skill, low wage economy where they find their jobs deserves D’s and F’s.

Opportunities to break the cycle of multi-generational poverty that grips them are D’s and F’s. Day care and early childhood for them largely get D’s and F’s. The social network that teaches job skills to middle class kids and connects them to employment earns D’s and F’s.

Housing conditions get D’s and F’s. Literacy programs and community resources earn D’s and F’s. Risk factors for child development are D’s and F’s, and so are coordinated social services. The ratios of children to working adults are D’s and F’s, and so is economic integration.

Health care and access to it are D’s and F’s. Public transportation gets D’s and F’s. Infant mortality rates earn D’s and F’s. Physical activity and sexual activity are D’s and F’s.

Reboot

And yet, in the midst of this D and F world, Memphis City School students are supposed to earn A’s and B’s like the middle-class kids in the suburban school district.

It’s the parochial residue from the puritanical work ethic: they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. These are people without boots, much less the energy to pull them up.

It’s the same short of policy by bromide that fuels the mantra of higher standards as if standards alone will give these students better opportunities and choices for the future. More to the point, the ability of Memphis’ students to achieve these higher standards won’t result only from more qualified teachers in the classroom. They will be achieved only when all the other D’s and F’s in these students’ lives are equally addressed.

The good news is that change is in the wind. Finally, after more than two decades of pretending like the poverty in our midst could simply be ignored, there is a growing understanding of its cancerous impact and growing interest in getting deadly serious about attacking it with the full force of our governments and civic organizations.

Geography Lesson

Its target is what Robert Lipscomb, Memphis director of housing and community development, called the “geography of poverty” in a meeting yesterday at Leadership Academy. As he pointed out, it’s no mystery to any of us where the problems are, and because of the concentrated nature of the poverty there, the “city of choice” concept is merely vaporous rhetoric.

There, choices are cut off. There is a greater likelihood of a future in the justice system that in a system of higher education. There is little choice for entering the economic mainstream, because there aren’t the paths to self-sufficiency that exist in neighborhoods with higher incomes.

There is a lesson learned by these young people that is more powerful than anything they ever learn in a city classroom. It’s that everything in their world teaches them that the city in which they live places little value in them.

Tale Of Two Cities

Reasons for optimism center on Memphis’ “City of Choice” agenda praised by the Brookings Institution in a report early this year. It’s a new, strategic way of looking at public policies and public investments – with an eye of creating choices for every one in our city. It’s about giving talented people choices for the future, poor people choices for better jobs and middle class families choices for staying in Memphis. It’s about using the federal stimulus funding with the end in mind and leveraging local government funds to propel real change.

But first and foremost, it’s about the geography of poverty and the no man’s land that traps more people in poverty in Memphis than the entire population of Chattanooga.

It’s a city within a city. And as it always is, when the national economy sneezes, poor people catch pneumonia.

Harsh Realities

That’s why in the city within a city, it’s almost impossible to find a family that isn’t on welfare. There are 50,000 vacant houses, and the density of the neighborhood is half of what it was 30 years ago, making public services more difficult to deliver and more difficult to have impact.

In the city within the city, neighborhoods have so little value that Shelby County Board of Commissioners will turn over 140 lots to a builder to construct even more homes that earn D’s and F’s.

In the city within the city, more than half the families live on less than $8,700 a year. Children there almost have no friends who weren’t born out of wedlock and whose mothers aren’t single. Incredibly, the mean age of death in some poverty-stricken zip codes is less than 60 years of age.

Vigilant Vigils

Here’s the thing: we were appalled by conditions of the dogs at the city animal shelter, and we could have easily joined the people who held vigil there. But we think there are reasons to hold vigils on the other days of the years when it’s not animals, but people, who are being emotionally starved and educationally malnourished.

We wonder why we never see the picketers in front of Planned Parenthood walking in front of City Hall demanding better chances for every child once they’re born.

There’s little argument here that it was time for a vigil at the animal center, but we’re past time for vigils demanding action to change the lives of the 151,000 people held captive in the geography of poverty in Memphis.

As former Indianapolis Mayor Steven Goldsmith said: “It’s not just that poverty is morally inappropriate. It’s also economically dangerous.” That’s why it’s in the best interest of everybody in the region that we not only get serious about fighting poverty but that we become the national model for it.

Downtown's Case Against City Hall For Abandonment

2009-11-08T23:37:00.003-06:00

At a time when cities were making investments to improve their downtowns, City of Memphis put our downtown up for adoption.

More accurately, City Hall left downtown like a waif in a basket on the doorstep of the Center City Commission.

There was no note and no money. There was only the directive for the city-county agency to assume the responsibility for the future of 80 blocks that are common ground for every citizen of the region.

Unfunded Mandate

It was a stunning act of civic neglect, especially considering that in the 8-10 years since that mandate, Memphis Mayor Willie W. Herenton hardly let a day go by that he didn’t hold up the “downtown renaissance” as the proudest achievement of his 17 years in office. There were times that his descriptions were flourished to such a point that it was hard to imagine that he ever walked in downtown Memphis.

Over the past six years, as he boasted about his legacy for downtown, sidewalks were crumbling, streetscapes were haphazard, urban design was sloppy, maintenance was nonexistent, alleys were deteriorating and vibrancy was as scarce as a retail store on Main Street. And yet, the $1 billion city government dumped responsibilities for downtown on an agency whose annual budget is about 0.6% - six-tenths of one percent – of one of its parent governments.

Faced with such a daunting challenge, Center City Commission has been able to fund about $6 million in capital improvements in an 80-block area by leveraging the extension of tax freezes, an option that has been all but taken away by Shelby County Board of Commissioners and as a result, it offers little potential as a source for more bonds for improvements.

City Beautiful

That only leaves $113.4 million in improvements that were needed years ago – in demolition of deteriorated sidewalks and alleys; construction of new curbs, gutters, sidewalks and ADA compliant access ramps at street corners; and new lighting, street trees, trees grates, trash cans and benches. Utility upgrades are also needed (and we can only hope that someday city government does understand that its large “gray tombstones” of utility boxes scattered all over downtown are constant reminders of its civic disregard for aesthetics).

The lack of improvements to the downtown infrastructure stands in stark contrast to the big project mentality perpetuated by city government. While we have been strong advocates for Autozone Park, FedExForum and Beale Street Landing, it is disingenuous for City Hall to act as if isolated spots of excellence are the same as making sure that the entire fabric of downtown is of the highest possible quality.

The reality is that several billion dollars of development have been set on top of a collapsing foundation. It’s absurd to think that infrastructure investments that benefit the entire city should be borne by a small downtown agency whose funding comes largely from a special tax on downtown businesses.

Frayed Welcome Mat

And yet, this is precisely what the city’s decision to abandon downtown’s infrastructure suggested. At the precise time that city elected officials were delivering uplifting rhetoric about the importance of downtown to the overall economic health of the region, to attracting and retaining talent and to its role as “welcome mat” to Memphis, it was engaged in a financial sleight of hand that largely set downtown adrift.

To top it off, city government subsequently abandoned its responsibility for landscaping and maintenance downtown, shoving that to the Center City Commission, which also pays about $200,000 a year to beef up security because Memphis Police Department won’t do it.

It’s a strange testament to chasm between the rhetoric about downtown and the reality of downtown.

These days, few people remember the time when both Memphis and Shelby County Governments provided yearly operational funding for Center City Commission and backed it up with yearly CIP funds.

Getting The Policy Right

It was sound public policy then. It would be sound public policy now, so hopefully, the new Wharton Administration will reevaluate the failed Herenton policies on downtown and develop a serious plan of action to fix the many things that are broken in the public realm.

It’s time for a new look at funding for downtown improvements and to develop a comprehensive plan to bring the area up to a presentable level of infrastructure, particularly streetscape and ending the discordant signage and lack of standards that characterize it.

These problems are main reasons why vibrancy in downtown Memphis is as much a distant dream as an Ikea on South Main. It’s why we favored limited vehicular traffic back on Main Street. Clearly, what we’re doing now isn’t working, and doing the same thing and expecting different results is delusional.

Serious Advocacy

Unfortunately, an 18-member task force didn’t end up recommending an experiment in cars on the mall, but it did make recommendations that were equally important to Main Street, notably turning the trolley from a postcard photo for tourists into a reliable, serious mode of transportation; better maintenance of the mall and more serious anti-neglect enforcement.

There was the regular filler “feel good” material, like “advocating for Main Street” and “collaborative marketing and promotion among downtown businesses.” And yet, it’s hard to escape the idea that what downtown needs right now is a Greek chorus and an army of activists demanding change in policies and attitude when it comes to its needs.

In this regard, there are some neighborhoods in Memphis that have shown how to get public sector action and it’s time for an effective downtown coalition that can exercise the clout and mobilize the political influence to get City Hall attention to the needs of downtown and the results of more than a decade of neglect.

Hit Teams

More the point, our city does not have a commitment to quality public realm. And it shows. Here’s the thing: if asked to show someone Memphis’ model public realm, we ought to be able to take them downtown. But at this point, we have merely hints of what could be. If nothing else, public realm is the perfect first priority for all of us who work and live downtown to write our elected officials about.

To this end, we have a proposal. We think that the Center City Commission should invite teams – architects, residents, urbanists, young professionals and others – that would survey downtown and send in recommendations to Center City Commission.

After all, we walk the streets. We know downtown block by block. We know every special spot and every ugly wart. We know every unsightly sign put up by MATA, we know every landscaping mistake and we know every place trash accumulates.

Why not appoint us as special hit squads that’ll issues reports on the state of downtown and recommendations for improving things? We would demand downtown improvements, a design ethos and for regular reports that could be shared with elected officials on what has to be done for the city’s core to be healthier and more competitive.

This Week On Smart City: Making Cities Work And Fun

2009-11-06T15:47:00.001-06:00

This week on Smart City,Ed Glaeser is our first guest, and he is always asking the question, "What makes cities work?" He is a prolific researcher at Harvard University's Department of Economics, and he has challenged the wisdom of the ambitions of shrinking cities to get bigger.

We'll also speak with Randy Gragg, who is the former Architecture and Urban design critic for Portland's daily newspaper, The Oregonian. He has been a close observer of that city's evolution to what is widely considered to be one of the nation's most successful cities. He is collaborating on a fantastic mash-up of art, architecture and urban design called City Dance in downtown Portland's public fountains designed by Lawrence Halprin.

Smart City is a syndicated, weekly hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life: the people, places, ideas and trends that affect us all. Host Carol Coletta, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, talks with national and international public policy experts, economists, business leaders, artists, developers, planners and others on the pulse of city life for a penetrating discussion on urban issues.

Smart City is broadcast at 6 a.m. Saturday and Sundays on WKNO-FM, but it is also webcast and podcast so you can listen to it anytime you like. For the webcast, times for the broadcast in other cities and to sign up for the podcast, visit our website.

DOE Caught Cheating On Test Results

2009-11-04T16:27:00.006-06:00

Before yesterday is dubbed "Black Tuesday" for the sobering announcement that Memphis City Schools is doing a dismal job educating our students, let's see it for what it is: a day to celebrate.

We have a friend who says that Memphians love to pay people to lie to us - we're doing great in economic development, downtown development and school reform - but clearly this is not a Memphis phenomenon, because the Tennessee Department of Education has conducted the largest fraud in state history with the seductive news year after year that our schools are among the nation's best.

The first step in real change is to face reality. Finally, yesterday, that's what we did.

The facts were not pretty. They were not sugar-coated. There was no way to pretend.

Finally.

Revelation And Reaction

And that's one of the best things that happened with the revelation that Memphis students got D's in math and reading and F's in social studies and science. It's a precursor to a day in the not-too-distant future when essentially every school in the city district is put on the state's failing list.

Memphis City Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash immediately embraced the results as fodder for his agenda, including more days in the school year, and we were encouraged that he didn't try to explain it away or lay it off on his predecessor's benign neglect (which he could have easily done). We were encouraged that he did not use the day for political theater but to talk about the kids in classrooms.

Meanwhile, Tennessee Department of Education officials should be in ICU for whiplash. After being the perpetrators of the department's long-time, large-scale propaganda campaign to obscure the facts about student performance and to block accountability for DOE's pathetic leadership for better schools, its officials now act like the rest of us have mass amnesia.

In the educational equivalent of a burglar who returns to your house and offers to sell you an alarm, assistant state commissioner of education Connie Smith said: "We are going to get an A in truth in advertising. Proficient will be mastery."

Buck Stops Where

There are so many people culpable in turning Memphis students out into the workplace with the false promise that they were competent in the basics. That's one of the most disturbing parts of public education: the tendency for students' futures to be treated as political fodder. Because of it, for years, the Department of Education - and sometimes Memphis City Schools pre-Kriner Cash - held celebrations of the results when they absolutely knew they were lying to the public.

To follow the dots a la Harry Truman, the buck inevitably stops at Governor Phil Bredesen's desk. In the ninth inning of his terms, he started pushing for the changes in reporting that he knew were needed on the first day that he took the oath of office. Well, thankfully, he's finally seen the light, pushed ahead by the business and philanthropic insistence that the status quo was simply not good enough.

Clearly, there are moral issues in not giving children the quality education that they need to succeed in today's economy and to succeed in life as parents and citizens. But sweep away the moral issues and there's nothing so powerful as the self-interest that dictates that all of us should have in making sure that our city and our state have the smartest men and women in our workforce, the kinds who attracts the jobs, not the other way around.

So, forgive us if we are celebrating the fact that we finally are being told the truth by our public officials in the state of our educational system. It sure beats those phony parties that the Department of Education had each year - complete with balloons and cakes - to feed us the lies that guaranteed them their jobs but shortchanged students who deserved better.

For context, the following is a post from April 14, 2007:

Tennessee Department of Education Is Generous When The Report Card Grades Itself

The release each year by the Tennessee Department of Education of its State Report Card is accompanied by celebration and rhetoric about improving schools, but it’s the educational equivalent of the Detroit Tigers popping the champagne corks after this year’s World Series.

There’s really not much they should be cheering about.

In recent years, DOE has gotten really adept at churning out press releases about the improving school scores in Tennessee, but they’re more about hype than hope. All in all, the students of Tennessee aren’t performing much better than 14 years ago, and in a word, the Report Card is a farce.

It’s one thing to spin the facts. But this is something else altogether.

Government Spin

All of us expect a little spin from government, and to be truthful, all of us like to interpret situations in our own best light, but in this case, the state deliberately misleads the public. After all, surely no one believes – particularly the administrators in Nashville - that almost 90 percent of Tennessee students in the fourth and eighth grades are proficient in math and reading as shown on the TCAP (Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program).

A report written earlier this year by Kevin Carey of Education Sector dramatically showed how much our Department of Education is playing loose with the facts. When compared to the other 50 states, Tennessee Department of Education claims that we are among the top 5 in the U.S. in eighth grade math and reading, fourth grade reading and math, and high school reading.

It’s an incredible claim, especially when a more objective national test of student proficiency paints just the opposite picture for Tennessee. In that test – the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) – Tennessee ranks #40 and its percentage of proficient students is more in the average range of about 25 per cent. In case your math proficiency has been certified by DOE, we point out that this is a difference of about 65 percent

So, how does Tennessee fare so well in its own tests?

It’s Simple In Its Execution

It’s simple, our state lowers its standards to jack up the results. For example, eighth grade students who answer 40% right in the state’s math test are considered proficient. Just three years ago, they had to answer 51% of the questions right to clear that bar.

At least, it now makes sense why nobody in a fast food restaurant in the state can make correct change these days. They’re getting high marks if they’re only getting 40% right.

But in the interest of fairness, it’s probably unrealistic to expect anything else from DOE. After all, if you were given the power to evaluate your own performance every year, wouldn’t you do whatever it takes to give yourself high marks?

Essentially, that’s what happens here, because the much-vaunted No Child Left Behind allows each state to develop their own tests and to define their own levels of proficiency. Faced with loss of federal funding if they don’t make progress under No Child Left Behind, they have strong incentive to massage the results.

To be fair, Tennessee isn’t alone in playing games with the numbers. At least 40 other states are doing the same, which means that No Child Left Behind in the end is the poster child for unintended consequences. Passed by Congress as the way to let the public know if its schools are improving, it does just the opposite by presenting statistics every year that are virtually meaningless if you’re trying to determine if schools are better.

Putting On A Pretty Face

In his report, Mr. Carey puts states on a “Pangloss Index,” named for the character in Candide who, despite all evidence to the contrary, always argued that all was well. On that index, Tennessee’s results rank it as the 11th best state in student achievement when compared to the other 49 states.

Meanwhile, NAEP ranks Tennessee as #40 in student achievement, and more disturbing, since 1992, test scores have been relatively been flat except for fourth grade math.

Since 1994, fourth grade reading scores have moved all the way from 212 to 214; fourth grade math scores have climbed from 211 to 232; eighth grade reading scores have moved a grand total of one point, from 258 to 259; and eighth grade math has gone from 259 to 271.

Curiously, the state Department of Education doesn’t schedule any press conferences to announce these scores, which come from the only national student test that allows us to actually compare students’ performance across state lines.

The Time For National Standards

All of this begs the question of why we don’t have a national standard that allows us to have comparables as part of No Child Left Behind, but in the interest of states’ rights, when the federal law was passed, each state was given the power to interpret their own standards and progress.

As Memphis City Schools Superintendent Carol Johnson said in The Commercial Appeal series: “If every state is going to create its own assessments and tools of what is proficient and advanced, then what’s the point? We’ve got to figure out what is proficient as a nation.”

She’s right, because what’s happening now is perpetuating the cruelest kind of hoax on states like ours. At a time when the economy depends on our ability to produce knowledge workers for the new economy, we’re deluded into thinking we’re making progress. By the time that it becomes clear that we’re not, it will be too late, and we don’t know about the rest of Tennessee, but here in Memphis, we simply don’t have time to waste.

As long as Tennessee is able – and most of all, willing – to set the bar low so proficiency is high, the public is given a false sense of security that the people in the Tennessee Department of Education are taking care of business.

Asking The Tough Questions For A Change

Hopefully, now that Governor Phil Bredesen has breezed to victory and says that education will be his top priority in his second term, he’ll ask the tough questions and demand more out of DOE. He prides himself on his experience as a businessman but what businessman, much less governor, could make wise decision about investment or success if someone is cooking the books.

Tennessee had its own standards in place before No Child Left Behind was even passed in Washington, D.C., and its stated intent back then was to make sure our schools produced students who could compete with students from Singapore and Hong Kong. Over time, this attitude has eroded, with political spin trumping public accountability.

Some things are so important that they should rise above the normal day-to-day politics in Nashville. Surely this is one of them.

Lessons From Great Mayors

2009-11-03T22:24:00.002-06:00

We’ve been writing about great mayors because Memphis has never had one.

With A C Wharton now in the mayor’s office with a mandate for action, he – like most of his predecessors – has an opportunity to be a great mayor. There is little resemblance between Shelby County Government and City of Memphis Government, but his terms as county mayor should give him a head start in setting his vision and the agenda to achieve it.

There is no job harder in any city than its mayor’s. There is no decision that goes unnoticed and there is no decision that is not magnified with the intensity of the faithful watching the color of the smoke coming out of the Vatican chimney. And yet, done well, there is nothing that compares to the impact on the future than a city mayor.

We’ve spotlighted seven mayors in the past week or so who transformed their cities, often righting them in the midst of challenges and setting a strong course for a better future. So what are the lessons that we can learn from these great mayors?

Story-telling

The City Narrative Matters. One essential lesson is that these mayors articulated and embodied the narratives for their cities, and in so doing, they developed cohesion, sense of community and a shared purpose. Effective leaders tell stories, stories that we all of us can see ourselves in.

This may all sound too ethereal, but it is nevertheless grounded deeply in the real world, because a city’s narrative creates sense of place and meaning. “Vibrant communities have a brand narrative that is a compilation of origin, creed, context, symbols and action that attracts people and commerce and consumes resources,” said branding expert Patrick Hanlon.

“Vibrant communities stand for something. Vibrant communities have a lexicon that their members understand. Finally, vibrant communities have a leader…(who) ultimately is responsible for weaving together these strands of civic pride and responsibility.”

Here’s the thing: Memphis doesn’t have a narrative. There is no common story that ties us all together into a community with shared values, symbols and rituals. There is no common narrative that describes what we stand for and what we believe in.

Lessons

The mayors we profiled seem to understand this, and their stories and their symbolism created a thread that stitched together the fabric of their cities. Mayor Wharton has expressed an understanding of the role and importance of a narrative and story-telling, and because of it, we expect that he will give this narrative brand the attention that it needs.

So what are the other themes that can be taken from the examples of these seven mayors?

Start with a global perspective. Cities compete in a global marketplace of ideas and business, and because regions are the competitive units in this marketplace, these mayors emphasized regional collaboration and set out to end turf wars and self-defeating competition. As Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper said: "Denver doesn't compete anymore with Seattle or San Diego. We're competing with metropolitan Shanghai and metropolitan Bombay. If we don't begin working together at a much higher level, we'll find that not just our grandchildren's jobs but our children's jobs will have gone away."

Know your budget. Every one of these mayors insisted on frank assessments of their city's fiscal state as the baseline for all strategic decisions. Job one was to understand the city's books, and job two was to make sure everyone else understood them, too. The foundation is to be honest and transparent in all financial matters.

Listen. These mayors traveled all over their regions to hear from fellow mayors, businesspeople and constituents. They never forget that they are public servants first and foremost.

Choose your battles. Each of the mayors started with a signature issue -- economic development, improved services, infrastructure upgrades, financial integrity, civic design – that laid the groundwork for broader success.

Never Stop Building Your Team. These mayors hired the best people to head up crucial operations. For example, Mayor Hickenlooper charged his transition team with finding the best people in the nation to head up schools, law enforcement, and planning. Politics didn’t matter. But when he talked about Denver’s progress, he credits his partners, his predecessors, his employees, his advisers, his wife, his parents – everyone but himself. This is no accident. It’s part of his strategy of keeping his team together.

One Word: Leadership. A team of brilliant young data analysts and hard-charging senior managers never substitutes for hands-on executive leadership.
Running in place. Marginal improvements in performance numbers from much harder work may obscure the fact that the system being used is antiquated. Often the entire process needs to be redesigned from the ground up, and a decisive leader can change as much with a memo as he can with an ordinance.

Great Mayors: New York's Michael Bloomberg And Bogota's Mayor Enrique Peñalosa

2009-11-01T20:50:00.002-06:00

It’s hard to brag on a guy who’s spending $100 million to run for a third term that was supposed to be prohibited by law, but despite that, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is counted among our great mayors.

Our last addition to our list of great mayors is former Bogotá Mayor Enrique Peñalosa whose bold aspirations inspired an unimaginable leap forward by his city.

Separated by half a hemisphere, both mayors’ accomplishments are anchored in their emphasis on quality of life. In New York, it took the form of smart transportation and a 127-point plan to make the city sustainable. In Bogotá, it was transportation, education and the public realm, and it’s hard to remember anyone who made more progress on as many fronts.

More to the point, if Mayor Peñalosa’s “no excuses” attitude in a Third World city could work, it’s pretty hard to suggest hat we should not set our sights higher in Memphis.

The Right Focus

But if we’re looking for inspiration, we could do a lot worse than emulating his radical improvements to the city and its citizens, giving priority to children and public spaces and restricting private car use and building hundreds of kilometers of sidewalks, bicycle paths, pedestrian streets, greenways, and parks.

Two accomplishments particularly interest us because of the intransigent bureaucracies that stand in their way in Memphis. He planted more than 100,000 trees (MLGW continues with its same Depression era thinking that treats trees are irritants) and he created a 21st century bus-based transit system (as for MATA, don’t get us started).

Most of all, he proved how a great mayor can transform a city's attitude from hopelessness to one of pride. "We need to walk, just as birds need to fly. We need to be around other people. We need beauty. We need contact with nature. And most of all, we need not to be excluded. We need to feel some sort of equality. (Bogotá's) pedestrian infrastructure shows respect for human dignity. We’re telling people, ‘You are important.’

"Every Sunday we close 120 kilometers of roads to motor vehicles for seven hours. A million and a half people of all ages and incomes come out to ride bicycles, jog, and simply gather with others in community. A bikeway is a symbol that shows that a citizen on a $30 bicycle is equally important as a citizen on a $30,000 car."

Beautifully Said

His advice to other mayors: start with a vision, “an understanding of what alternatives there are.” “People don't go to the suburbs because they're dumb. It's because they are looking for something. You must help people understand that they can have more of what they want by giving a little less preference to cars.

“We are living in the post-Communism era when we have immense confidence in private entrepreneurs and individualism and distrust any form of government intervention. Adam Smith is reigning triumphant. He told us that each citizen behaving selfishly yields the best good for society.

“This is not always true. If you have a shipwreck and everyone tries at the same time to grab the lifeboat, everyone will drown. You cannot allow a developer to do anything they want, whatever it does to his neighbors or the rest of the city. There is not a mathematical rule that will tell you exactly how many pedestrian streets, or how far people should live from a park or sports field, or how tall a building should be. These standards are a collective creation. How do societies create collectively? They do this through an institution called government.”

He urges mayors to pay attention to the power of good urban design and architecture. “Every detail in the city should shows respect for human dignity and reflect that everything human is sacred. And I do believe that if people have to walk in the street, avoiding parked cars, or next to some horrible surface parking lot, or they are mistreated by poor quality transportation systems, it's very difficult to ask them to be good citizens, to keep the streets clean, or even pay taxes. If a city shows respect, and more than that, loving care for its citizens, people will behave in kind. I do believe it, because I've seen it happen. It was beyond my wildest dreams the way the attitudes changed in Bogota, from being despondent and convinced the city was doomed, to civic pride and hope that the future can be better. If the physical quality of the city is poor, the quality of life there also will be poor.”

Up North

With this in mind, parks are especially powerful because they are equalizers of society. “We almost always meet under conditions of social hierarchy. At work, some people are bosses and others are employees; at restaurants, some people are serving and others are being served. Parks are the gathering place for community. They create a sense of belonging. Everybody is welcome regardless of age, background, income, or disabilities. This creates a different type of society.”

Meanwhile, in New York City, Mayor Bloomberg was expected to spend his energy on control of the school district and fighting crime, but he surprised many of his fellow citizens when he gave just as much emphasis on global warming, parks and sustainable government and neighborhoods.

He enacted "PlaNYC: A Greener, Greater New York" to fight global warming, protect the environment and prepare New York for the projected 1 million more people expected to be living in the city by the year 2030. “We now know beyond a doubt that global warming is a reality. And the question we must all answer is, what are we going to do about it?" he asked, urging cities to fight climate change by reducing carbon dioxide emissions, using cleaner and more efficient fuels, and encouraging public transportation.

He took the $6 billion deficit that he inherited when he took office and turned it into a $3 billion surplus without slashing programs that help the poor, or improve health care, or ensure a social safety net.

Happiness Matters

He made HIV, diabetes and hypertension top priorities, extending the city's smoking ban to all commercial establishments and implementing a trans fat ban in restaurants. He strongly supports New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, the largest urban healthcare agency in the United States serving over 1.3 million New Yorkers and Opportunity NYC, the nation's first-ever conditional cash transfer pilot program designed to help New Yorkers break the cycle of poverty in the city. Also, he instituted $7.5 billion municipal affordable housing plan, the largest in the nation, aimed at providing 500,000 New Yorkers with housing.

The most important measurement of whether a mayor is succeeding, according to Mayor Peñalosa, is the happiness of the public. He is no doubt right, and using this measure, the Bloomberg years delivered a level of happiness only hinted at by the Giuliani years.

In our next post, we’ll explore the lessons of great mayors that have special meaning for Memphis.

This Week On Smart City: Models For Civic Activism

2009-10-31T12:19:00.004-05:00

In Cincinnati, a clumsily written ballot measure would effectively strangle any rail project in the city and Joe Sprengard is fighting to strike it down. We'll talk with Joe about forming Cincinnatians for Progress and how he built a political movement in that city.

And we'll revisit my conversation with Alex Steffen. Alex is a journalist and author who runs the organization World Changing.com. The site practices what he calls "Solutions based journalism" on the environment and has become the go-to source for forward thinking solutions on climate change and sustainability. Alex joins us to tell us about this new vision for journalism and how to build a brighter future.

Smart City is a syndicated, weekly hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life: the people, places, ideas and trends that affect us all. Host Carol Coletta, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, talks with national and international public policy experts, economists, business leaders, artists, developers, planners and others on the pulse of city life for a penetrating discussion on urban issues.

Smart City is broadcast at 6 a.m. Saturday and Sundays on WKNO-FM, but it is also webcast and podcast so you can listen to it anytime you like. For the webcast, times for the broadcast in other cities and to sign up for the podcast, visit our website.

Great Mayors: San Francisco's Gavin Newsom

2009-10-29T23:58:00.003-05:00

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is a mayor in the tradition of Denver’s John Hickenlooper.

Coming from a restaurant background, skeptics about his potential as mayor were outspoken and prevalent. And yet, he defied all expectations and two years ago, he got 72% of the vote in his re-election campaign that exploited a record that had attracted national attention.

When he was first elected in 2003, Mayor Newsom was seen by many as a young, inexperienced businessman who had made his political name by promising to slash welfare checks to the homeless. He was expected to be part of the “downtown crowd” who elected him and to continue the blatant patronage of his political mentor, Mayor Willie Brown.

Investing His Popularity

By the time of his re-election campaign, one of San Francisco's youngest mayor still fights the image of a silver spoon liberal, but along the way, he ended up being politically courageous and progressive, dynamiting the culture of cronyism and influence-peddling in City Hall. His most dramatic moment was when he put all his political chips on the line less than two months into his term when he ordered city government to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples.

Few mayors are more wonkish than Mayor Newsome, who can cite “best practices,” mindlessly quote a blizzard of statistics, and cannot resist his affinity for new programs of the week. While he sometimes falls short on execution and he needs to develop a thicker skin, he cannot be faulted for thinking big, like universal health care for all citizens of San Francisco.

It is the good will from same sex marriages that propelled him into easy re-election that healed much of the bitter divisions that had characterized his hometown. To follow up, he walked the picket lines with locked-out hotel workers and developed a health care plan for 82,000 uninsured residents. Both actions angered business leaders.

Getting Priorities Right

Mayor Newsom delivered on his promise to make the city “greener” by planting more than 17,500 trees and pushing for rigorous green building standards. He helped to strengthen the economy by luring biotech companies and lobbying successfully to bring the state's new stem cell center to the city, and worked to cut bureaucracy and make government more accessible by establishing a 311 line that connects callers to a live operator who provides information about city services.

The mayor considers his efforts on homelessness to be one of his crowning achievements, with more than 2,000 people being moved off the streets and into housing under his watch, according to statistics provided by his office.

While his admission of a drinking problem and the betrayal of a political aide by having an affair with his wife, it’s hard to see his apologies as much political baggage in a town known for its liberal attitudes.

Results

Instead of trying to gain mayoral control of the school district or allow the state to take it over, like some mayors have done, Mayor Newsom has worked with the district to improve public schools. This collaboration has led to San Francisco schools being recognized as among the highest-achieving urban schools in the nation.

While school districts throughout California are laying off teachers, San Francisco is giving teachers a raise and helping to fund important programs like school Wellness Centers and after-school study programs. San Francisco has already implemented universal pre-school, and Newsom is now working in partnership with the California State University system to help lower drop-out rates and promote even greater student achievement by guaranteeing a place at San Francisco State University and initial tuition support for every public school student who works to meet the entrance requirements.

The Environmental Protection Agency has rated San Francisco #2 in the nation in terms of energy-efficient commercial buildings – nearly equaling Los Angeles, a city four times as large. The city has one of the most aggressive local solar incentives in America and among the highest recycling rate in the nation.

One Of The Best

It has lowered carbon emissions well below levels called for in the Kyoto Protocol, and verified these numbers with third-party data. Newsom has helped attract more than $500 million to clean up and convert former industrial and military sites. And through comprehensive job training, he is working to make sure that the growing green economy includes those who were once locked out of the old industrial economy.

While the bond rating of the State of California was reduced to one of the lowest in the nation, San Francisco’s bond rating was increased.

Mayor Newsom has been called “one of the best mayors in America” by Newsweek because he has not been afraid to make bold reforms. San Francisco has implemented comprehensive government accountability reform and increased public service through innovations like a central 311 line to access government services.

Lessons

Under Mayor Newsom’s leadership, the San Francisco Police Department met its mandated staffing level for the first time, while keeping young people out of state prison and moving them into job training to reduce recidivism. Meanwhile, technologies like “Shot Spotter” and crime mapping have been keys to a 20% drop in crime since March, 2008 (homicides are down 60.7% in that same time).

For us, the lessons of Mayor Newsom’s leadership are that there is a political payoff to staking out the high moral ground, to rooting out corruption wherever it is found, to admitting mistakes quickly and to emphasizing action and decisiveness.

Most of all, he understands that the culture of City Hall is one of the biggest enemies to a candidate of change, because bureacrats adopt the language of the new mayor but don't change their behavior, instead trying to wait him out.

From policies to shake up the police department to removing costly cronies of the previous mayor, Mayor Newsom has come to realize how hard it is to change attitudes and the productivity of the public sector, but he realizes that he must do it nonetheless.

Great Mayors: Charleston's Joe Riley

2009-10-27T22:03:00.003-05:00

Mayor Joe Riley has been a great mayor for so long he’s often overlooked these days.

Few who see him would cast him as a political powerbroker. And yet, he has reshaped this city to such an extent that it’s essentially unrecognizable from the poor, racially torn backwater that had lost hope in the future in the 1970s.

No city – and its success – is more associated with a single mayor than Charleston, South Carolina. It’s not just that he’s been mayor for 34 years. It’s that he strides over the progress of his city like a force of nature, which is impressive for someone who embodies the highly-educated Southern gentleman.

These days, it’s hard to remember that he was a young Turk when he was elected, and that’s why it’s impressive that his energy for improving his city has never flagged and that his particular leadership for high quality public realm, built environment and the physical bones of his city continues unabated.

Walking The Walk

In a phrase, his philosophy is to pursue a clear vision while keeping watchful attention on the small details. And in this regard, there is nothing that escapes his attention, from creating neighborhood councils to selecting the materials for public improvements.

Mayor Riley vigorously turned Charleston around by obsessing on the strong sense of place that characterizes his city. He preserved the city’s historic qualities and improved them with new parks, developments and attractions in character with the classic 18th and 19th century architecture that is his city’s brand.

“You have a personal relationship with people. You pick up their garbage. You make them feel safe. You try to help them when they are in trouble. It’s a chance to do things directly for people—for the poorest person in town as well as the rich.”

When Charleston was hit by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, he ordered an all-out evacuation. Mayor Riley and city staff helped people to safety and they stayed behind to protect the city. Despite the massive destruction of the hurricane, he never looked back, giving birth to a program to make Charleston even more beautiful than before.

Details, Details

Once again, his attention to detail became his city’s competitive edge, because it again showed what distinguishes a good city from a great one.

Under his leadership, Charleston has seen an impressive decrease in serious crime over the past two decades, the city has been a national leader in innovative police practices, especially in the field of community-oriented policing.

Mayor Riley has championed public-private partnerships to stimulate new development and restoration in historic downtown Charleston, including the dramatic rebirth of King Street, Charleston’s main street, from Saks Fifth Avenue on King Street to the development of Charleston Place, a major hotel and retail shopping complex, to the creation of the award-winning Visitor Reception and Transportation Center.

Charleston’s scattered-site housing program received a Presidential Design Award and its housing and community development initiatives have also won four HUD Blue Ribbon Awards for Best Practices.

Design Matters

Mayor Riley created Charleston’s Waterfront Park and pursues an ambitious plan to give the public access to the water’s edge. He led development of internationally known Spoleto Festival USA, Charleston Symphony, Charleston Ballet Theater, and his plans include a new symphony hall on the waterfront.

Early in his administration, he created the Office of the Ombudsman and meets monthly with small groups of residents to share information and discuss neighborhood concerns. In 1999, the mayor established an annual Neighborhood Presidents Roundtable, which brings all of the neighborhood presidents together to share success stories and to receive leadership training as well as information on city projects.

As Charleston’s historic core gentrified, Mayor Riley insisted that lower-income residents be part of the revival. Long before other cities began toying with new designs for public housing, Charleston was winning architecture awards for its scattered-site homes and even a transitional shelter for the homeless. Riley has always believed that low-income housing works better, both for neighborhoods and for the residents, when it doesn’t look like public housing.

Mayor Riley has no formal training in architecture or urban planning. He’s honed his flair for design simply by walking, observing and reading. It’s crucial, Riley says, for all mayors to master a few principles of urban design because so many blueprints come across their desks.

Getting It Right

That’s why he established the Mayors’ Institute on City Design. In the past 18 years, some 600 mayors have attended two-day seminars where they discuss urban design issues facing their cities with experts and other mayors. They leave the seminars not only brimming with ideas for current projects but also as confident clients who know what to demand of architects and planners.

Mayor Riley has shaped Charleston in countless other ways. He diffused racial tensions by working closely with the African-American community and appointing the city’s first black police chief, Reuben Greenberg, who pioneered the concept of community policing.

When Hurricane Hugo slammed into Charleston in 1989, Riley won wide praise for getting the city cleaned up quickly and back on its feet. He managed to develop a robust tourist economy without turning Charleston into a garish theme park.

Riley snagged for his city the renowned Spoleto arts festival, which makes Charleston the world’s culture capital for 17 days each spring, and he is currently championing a plan to build the International Museum of African-American History.

People First

As Riley seeks reelection to an unprecedented ninth term as mayor, it is also easy to see Riley as a living argument against term limits. Charleston is a monument to his consistent leadership and firm belief in the importance of civic space. “Americans spend a great deal of time on their homes — the front yard, the back yard, the private zone,” Mayor Riley said. “But the public realm, what all citizens own together, has a collective value that is essential to the quality of life of a community.”

His advice for improving quality of life and economic health of a city:

“"You need to make the heart, or center, of the city attractive, safe and lively. People help nourish and sustain the city. In the restoration of a city, you need to be sure that you restore that sense of people wanting to be active. It's not just about the tax base or the jobs. What the top cities in the world have is a happy, active public realm-the arts organizations, festivals and events that allow people to celebrate their city and love their city."

Great Mayors: D.C.'s Anthony Williams

2009-10-26T21:57:00.001-05:00

When Anthony Williams was elected in 1999 as the fourth mayor of Washington, D.C., the city was in crisis, racked with corruption and teetering on the financial brink. As a result, his most pressing objectives were to restore the public’s confidence in their city government.

In fact, when he was first elected, the District of Columbia government was under the control of the federally-appointed District of Columbia Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority. The city topped the list of cities with the most employees per 100,000, and as a result, the workforce was bloated and costs were extreme.

By “right-sizing” the workforce and restoring fiscal accountability, Mayor Williams moved quickly to balance the city's budget and bring proven management practices to the operation of the government. His work put the city on track for the return to self-government as the District delivered a surplus of $185 million in fiscal year 1997. The cumulative fund balance swung from a deficit of $518 million to a surplus of nearly $1.6 billion, and during this same period, the District’s bond ratings went from “junk bond” status to “A” category by all three major rating agencies.

Getting It Right

Meanwhile, Mayor Williams launched an aggressive campaign to lure investment back into the District of Columbia, using innovative financing and tax incentives. The economic recovery and transformation of the District of Columbia remains one of the most dramatic turnarounds of any major American city.

Driven by a growth in local revenues, income and sales taxes, the District had the resources to improve services, lower tax rates, improve the performance of city agencies and invest in its infrastructure and human services. After years of declining population, the District of Columbia recorded growth in population. Chief among accomplishments was establishing the city as a hub of African-American professionals.

The District’s crime rate went down dramatically, new vibrancy came to downtown areas, major league baseball returned to Nation’s Capital and sweeping plans for development along both sides of the Anacostia River were begun.

Perceptions Matter

When Mayor Williams left office, gone was the public image of political anarchy embodied by his predecessor, Marion Barry, and in its place was a reputation of the District of Columbia as a fiscally responsible city where public servants were held accountable and a focus on the big picture produced major change.

Williams came to the job with technical skills needed. As chief financial officer for the state of Connecticut, the Department of Agriculture, and the Washington, D.C., he knew how to balance the books.

But he also brought skills that come with working in the inherently chaotic public sector, where authorities overlap and personalities matter as much as numbers. He knew how to wrestle for control of bureaucratic territory; he knew how to use the resources at his disposal to leverage his ideas; and he knew how to build alliances and move an agenda forward.

Knowing When To Lead And When To Follow

So when he became mayor, Mayor Williams knew that it wasn’t enough to simply control the budget. He had to win public support for structural reforms and innovations, and with his financial background, it’s no surprise that he came up with a formula for how to do it: seventy percent follow and thirty percent lead.

“Look at it this way,” he said. “You’re the pre-eminent leader of your city, and you’re also the butler. And I don’t say that in a pejorative way. You are a public servant. Seventy percent of the time, if you say jump, I say, how high? If the toilet overflows in your house, I need to be at your house figuring out what the problem is. There is no problem too small for the mayor. And there is no one in the government lower than the mayor for these purposes – you are there to be responsible to your people, seventy percent of the time.

“The other thirty percent of the time, you are there to lead,” he said. “You’ve got to figure out, what are the one or two or three issues where you’re going to lead, and what are the other issues where you’re going to follow. You need to figure that out, and you need to make that balance of short term versus long term.”

Facing Facts

Coming into the job, Williams knew what he had to follow on, and what he had to lead on. He had to follow the lead of a public that demanded better schools, cleanliness and crime-fighting. And he had to lead the public when it came to the steps needed to upgrade government and start transforming the city.

He said his agenda was grounded in a basic idea: the challenge of the modern American city is to recover from generations of decline.

All American cities have gone through the same stages, Mayor Williams said they expanded in the nineteenth century, stagnated after the Depression, and declined in the postwar era as America moved to the suburbs on President Eisenhower’s new interstates. Federal programs designed in the 1960s and 1970s to arrest that decline – “urban renewal” and the like – didn’t help much, Williams said. “Whatever we did with urban renewal and whatever came after it, none of it really substantively changed the direction of cities.”

Raising Expectations

To survive today, cities need to make themselves attractive and competitive, combining sound bookkeeping with creative development strategies, he said. For his city, the mayor had the vision of a revived metroplex drawing investment from around the nation and the globe.

But to win support for any long-range development strategies, Williams knew he had to shore up support with a short-term agenda that addressed citizens’ most basic needs. So he set out to fix the basics.

He improved customer service, improved the city’s website, he cleaned the streets and put more cops on the beat and he shortening lines waiting for city services. When he made unpopular decisions, he framed them as steps towards better public service. He took on the labor unions, he shut down a hugely inefficient but still popular public hospital, he helped facilitate new development and he focused on baseball and riverfronts.

“You know what I say when people ask me about my greatest accomplishment as mayor? It was not necessarily fixing any one thing,” Mayor Williams said. “It was raising the expectations of my people.”

Great Mayors: Atlanta's Shirley Franklin

2009-10-25T21:49:00.002-05:00

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin is widely recognized as one of America’s great mayors, taking office at a time when her city was demoralized, government was seen as part of the problem and city government was racked with corruption.

When she leaves office in a few weeks, she will have restored trust in government by taking no prisoners when it came to ethical government, to forging partnerships and to using city services as leverage to produce regional cooperation. Most impressively, she will leave as Atlanta distinguishes itself as one of the few cities attracting people back into its city limits.

As a long-time city administrator in Atlanta, there was no learning curve for her when it came time to get back to the basics with city services. She put policy first and said politics and sound policy should be kept separate. She said: “I'm an unintentional politician. I've always been interested in the policy and not in the political strategy."

Instilling Pride

She decided to run for mayor because she was discouraged by the “lack of public trust that seemed to be pervasive. It was in the black community, the white community, the newcomers, young people, older folks. There was a sense that government couldn't do it right."

She had little name recognition when she kicked off her campaign for mayor, but eventually she raised $3.2 million and ran on a reform platform, releasing copies of her income tax returns and posting campaign contributions on her website. "You make me mayor, and I'll make you proud" was her campaign theme.

Once elected, she gave equal attention to developing a clear message, to focusing on ideas and building coalitions with other elected officials. After election, she created more than two dozen public-private task forces to evaluate city functions, but what she ultimately did was what was unusual: she followed the recommendations.

Advice For New Mayors

She spent two years hammering the need for a modern sewerage system, and voters overwhelmingly approved the $3 billion upgrading of the system. More importantly, she used her success as the platform for reform on issues such as homelessness, school improvements and fiscal integrity for the city.

As for the issues of race, when she took office, the first question in Atlanta was what will the black community think and what will the white community think. Because of her emphasis on right over race, the question changed to what was the right thing to do. Evidence of her impact is that the majority African-American city is poised to elect a Caucasian mayor.

As a result, Mayor Franklin successfully implemented a multi-million dollar affordable housing program, expanded the nation’s busiest airport, and established regional plans for economic development, homelessness and open space.

So what is Mayor Franklin’s advice to city mayors? According to her comments to Economy League of Greater Philadelphia, success is about strategic focus, private sector partnerships, and high standards.

Strategic Focus

Once elected, Mayor Franklin didn’t take on everything at once. She focused on three goals: balance the budget, fix the sewers, and pass ethics reform legislation.

The first two were legal requirements. The third was a central campaign promise. For her first few years, the mayor said she talked about almost nothing else.

“You can do a hundred things, and that’s fine, but when you go from neighborhood to neighborhood and every time you’re out there you’re talking about something else, people don’t really understand,” she said. “And it’s harder to judge you. If I don’t get water and sewer done, you know that’s a problem.”

Private Sector Partnerships

Mayor Franklin credits the private sector with a major role in her successes. “The city has a history of public-private partnerships going back a hundred years,” she said. “There is hardly anything that we’ve done in Atlanta successfully that has not been a joint effort with the private sector since day one.”

The process Mayor Franklin relies on is a simple one: involve the private sector early. Typically, she’ll create working groups and ask them to consider possible fixes to a given problem.

Then, when it’s time to raise money and implement a solution, she’ll have strong support in place. “I’ve used this private sector model with outside committees 24 or 25 times,” she said. “Every time it’s successful. Because there’s broader buy-in for what we implement if we start with the private sector.”

High Standards

Franklin’s advice: don’t lower them.

“If you need $100 million, tell people that’s how much you need,” she said. “I may only get to $25 or $50 million, but at least we’re not patting ourselves on the back too soon. We don’t say, we got $25 million and we’re done.

“We say we need a billion, and we got the first $100 million, and by golly somebody out in the audience should help us get the other $900 million. That’s the approach we take.

“I’m not one of those people who ran on ‘no new taxes. I ran on efficiency and effectiveness. I did not run on, ‘You will never have to pay your way.’ Because I think that’s a huge mistake.

“There’s nothing like being mayor of a city that’s broke. So I would say to set your target based on what you really need to get it done, and then rally those people that have a big enough view of the world to come to your aid so you can add to it incrementally.”

This Week On Smart City: Civic Change

2009-10-24T19:41:00.003-05:00

This week on Smart City we'll talk to the creator of one of my favorite websites, Walkscore.com. Matt Lerner is the Chief Technology Officer of Frontseat.org, a company that builds software for civic life. He'll tell us about making software that makes the world a better place.

And we'll talk to Sadhu Johnston. Sadhu is completing his tenure as Chicago's Chief Environmental Officer where he's been making Chicago a better place. He'll tell us about the challenges in implementing real change in the city, and how cities are co-operating instead of competing to make a real difference in climate change.

Smart City is a syndicated, weekly hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life: the people, places, ideas and trends that affect us all. Host Carol Coletta, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, talks with national and international public policy experts, economists, business leaders, artists, developers, planners and others on the pulse of city life for a penetrating discussion on urban issues.

Smart City is broadcast at 6 a.m. Saturday and Sundays on WKNO-FM, but it is also webcast and podcast so you can listen to it anytime you like. For the webcast, times for the broadcast in other cities and to sign up for the podcast, visit our website.

Birmingham Mayor Objects To His City's I-269

2009-10-23T10:59:00.003-05:00

Watch this 10 minute video. Replace Memphis every time they say Birmingham. Substitute I-269 every time they say Birmingham Beltline. They have the same Chamber, the same project, the same inner-city desires and the same need for transit. Fascinating and frightening.

A recent report on Blueprint America for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, hones in on a specific six-lane interstate highway projected for Jefferson County’s Northern Beltline, encircling Birmingham, Alabama. The highway, which is slated for completion in 2025, is receiving criticism from locals—as well as Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford.

“We have built enough interstates to kill our inner-cities.” Langford said in the video interview with Blueprint America correspondent Rick Karr. “Yes, we can get from point A to point B but now what we are doing is cycling traffic around because of the grandiose idea that ‘we need more interstates.’ No, we don’t need more interstates—we need high-speed public transportation. But we’re always spending our money in the wrong places.”

Modern planners see highways as a thing of the past, considering that in many places they have been detrimental to the development of cities by creating vast regions of sprawl. So why bother building more?

“It’s an entirely political process.” said David Burwell on Blueprint America. “No one wants to turn off that federal spigot of money.”

Great Mayors: Denver's John Hickenlooper

2009-10-22T20:33:00.003-05:00

Our list of great city mayors always starts with Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper.

A geologist and restaurateur by profession, he’s been a remarkable mayor who built record approval ratings throughout his entire region and invested them to produce breathtaking results – nationally praised homeless program, a regional light rail system, growth plans, downtown development, and more.

Most of all, he build a management team that is the envy of most cities, and he did it by taking a distinctly nonpolitical view of it. His criterion for talent was simple: proven leaders in their field who would demand excellence and results. For the head of parks or schools, he asked his transition team to identify the best in the nation and send him a couple of recommendations without any consideration about who gave him money or who worked for his election. The outcomes have proven him right.

It seems to us that hallmarks of his transition period are that it focused on talent and he kept the process tight -- six weeks.

The Most Precious Resource: Time

Another hallmark from the launching of his administration was that time matters. He moved assertively because he had a window of opportunity to reinforce the message of change that the voters had demanded at the polls. Often, the first 60 days set the narrative for a new mayor for his entire term.

It comes from the intense scrutiny of every action that the media, and subsequently the public, define and repeat a narrative, and Mayor Hickenlooper’s approach shaped and reinforced the narrative that he wanted for his administration. Incidentally, the consolidated government over which Hickenlooper is mayor has been a powerful platform for setting a bold vision and executing the strategies to make it happen.

Here a report on Mayor Hickenlooper’s advice to the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia in its Profiles in Leadership: America’s Great Mayors programs.

LESSONS FROM A BREWPUB:
The John Hickenlooper Guide To Civic Success

We started our Profiles in Leadership: America’s Great Mayors series to answer a simple question: what does a great mayor look like?

We weren’t expecting to find out that, sometimes, a great mayor looks like a brewpub manager. But John Hickenlooper is used to surprising people.

He surprised his friends and family in Narberth by morphing from an awkward, unambitious kid into a dynamic, successful businessman. He surprised his bankers by turning a risky brewpub venture into a catalyst for a neighborhood’s development. He surprised everyone in Denver by beating the pants off of a field of well-established politicians and becoming mayor.

And he surprised our audience by explaining that restaurants and city halls aren’t that different. “I think that any candidate is greatly improved by having spent a few years running a big, popular restaurant,” he said. “Whether it’s the restaurant or a big city, you never have enough money. You have a diverse group of people you’ve got to weld into a team. And the public is always ticked off about something.”

In 2003, Hickenlooper rode a wave of ticked-off voters to victory. Public frustration with Denver’s political establishment had opened the door to an outsider candidate like him. Hickenlooper seized the opportunity not by railing against his opponents but by presenting a positive vision for the city. He emphasized the need for teamwork. He vowed to improve city services and balance the budget. He promised to end the old-school game of political insider-ism and put the best possible person in every city job.

So far, he has delivered enough that his re-election is virtually assured. He balanced the budget despite declining revenues. He passed key civil service reforms. He reached far beyond his circle of friends and supporters to find qualified, diverse appointees. He helped end years of city-suburb political warfare, paving the way for a groundbreaking regional transportation initiative. TIME Magazine has called him one of America’s top big city mayors, and he faces no significant competition for his second term.

How did he do it? He turned to the lessons he learned on the brewpub floor.

Lesson One: Listen

As a candidate, Hickenlooper listened to local businesspeople and found out that tax revenues were more likely to shrink than to grow. That allowed him to craft a smart budget that helped him win early endorsements from the local papers. He listened to leaders in the towns and suburbs surrounding Denver. That helped him end years of animosity and start money-saving, region-growing regional projects. He listened to average Janes and Joes all around Denver, and that helped him grasp the importance of improving city services and restoring faith in government.

And from the minute he launched his campaign, he listened to his own gut instincts. “At that first meeting, we’re sitting there with a bunch of political consultants,” he recalled. “There’s six other candidates- it’s almost like a made-for-TV movie – there’s the Greek former police chief, the Latino former city auditor, the African American state senator – all the way down the list. And one of the people said, ‘You’re at 3 percent in the polls. If you’re going to distinguish yourself, you’ve got to pull down one of these frontrunners.’ And my wife and I looked at each other and said, ‘Well that’s exactly the direction we’re not running.’

“We never did opposition research. We never did a negative ad. We never attacked. We tried to run a campaign where we said, ‘We’re going to hire the best person for the job for every single job in the city.’ We were going to focus on being transparent, inclusive, and collaborative in a way that no one in the city has seen.” The message worked: Hickenlooper won 65 percent of the final vote.

Lesson Two: Know Your Real Budget

One of the first things that candidate Hickenlooper did was make the rounds of local businesses. Based on what he heard, along with other research, he decided that instead of tax growth, Denver was about to see a significant decrease in tax revenue; so he made up a budget, took it to the newspapers, and won early endorsements.

The next thing he knew, he had jumped to 33 percent in the polls, with his nearest competition at 15. “I still remember my wife reading the details,” he said, “and she was not terribly happy about this. She lowered the newspaper so just her eyes were above it and said, ‘You never told me you were going to win.’”

But he did win, and his projections proved correct. But he arrived armed with the mandate he needed to make tough budget cuts.

Lesson Three: Know your Real Competition

When Hickenlooper opened his brewpub in a half-forgotten downtown neighborhood, his employees thought he was crazy when he put ads for other local restaurants in his restrooms. “The other restaurants couldn’t believe it. Our staff came up to me and said, what are you doing?” he recalled. “I said, they’re not our competitors. You’ve got to look at our self-interest in broader way. They’re really our allies. Our competitor is the TV set. We’ve got to work together to get people off the couch and out to enjoy life.”

That attitude helped revitalize what’s now known as LoDo – for Lower Downtown – and Hickenlooper brought it to the mayor’s office. One of the first things he did was throw a party in his loft for every regional county commissioner and their spouses. “I gave a two-minute speech: ‘The history of divisiveness, and us trying to get benefit at your expense, is over. And from now on, the City of Denver will do everything we can to help the suburbs,” he recalled. “I got a huge round of applause. There was this tremendous hunger there.”

Similarly, he reached out to the Republican governor, who’d had epic battles with Hickenlooper’s Democratic predecessor, Wellington Webb. “On my first day in office I walked across the green. I spent about an hour and a half with him, and I said, ‘I guarantee you I will never embarrass you for political gain. We agree on about 90 percent of the stuff. It’s crazy for us to get in fights over these other things."

Why reach out? Because just as a successful brewpub needed a successful LoDo, a successful Denver needs a successful Colorado. “Denver doesn’t compete anymore with Seattle or San Diego,” he said. “We’re competing with metropolitan Shanghai. And metropolitan Bombay. If we don’t begin working together at a much higher level, we’ll find that not just our grandchildren’s jobs but our children’s jobs will have gone away.”

Lesson Four: Never Stop Building Your Team

Don’t ever expect to see Hickenlooper pat himself on the back. As he talks about Denver’s successes, he credits his partners, his predecessors, his employees, his advisers, his wife, his parents – everyone but himself. This is no accident. It’s part of his strategy of keeping his team together.

Restaurants depend on a team of diverse people with many backgrounds and skill sets, all of whom have particular needs if they are to get their jobs done. Cities depend on the same thing. When he came into office, Hickenlooper made sure that he brought in a staff of appointees who were not only highly qualified, but diverse and representative, with connections to all parts of the city’s social and political culture. He appointed one of his competitors for mayor as a leader in his transition. He established transition teams that could reach far beyond his personal circle to find qualified candidates for appointment. He made a highly visible effort to put a team in place that Denver’s citizens could trust.

And he never stops building up his teammates, listening to their needs in private, and praising them in public whenever he can. He praises the city employees who helped him trim Denver’s budget. He praises the suburban officials who helped make transit reform a reality. He happily declined to put his picture up in the Denver airport, substituting pictures that celebrate regional landmarks.

“Symbolic stuff really matters,” he said. “You end up coming out better in the end. By taking your own picture down, it’s as if you had a bigger picture up there.”

Sound County Policy On Free Lots Remains Homeless

2009-10-21T21:31:00.004-05:00

Simply put, there is no basis for the Shelby County Board of Commissioners’ approving county government’s gift of 140 lots to Buehler Homes.

It is simply wrong on so many levels. Politically, it’s essentially the majority invoking their will on a district whose direct representative to Shelby County Board of Commissioners opposes the transfer. More to the point, that commissioner, Henri Brooks, is convincing in her concerns and compelling in her objections.

And yet, the county commissioners ignore the elected leader from North Memphis and instead take a wild gamble that these homes will not become anathema to neighborhood revitalization like so many that have gone before.

Responding to Real Plans

In the end, the biggest problem that we have with the decision of the board of commissioners is that they made it in a vacuum. We find it hard to imagine a scenario in which county government would give away 140 lots in Cordova or Midtown or University District without at least finding out about plans for those neighborhoods and without specific and detailed official public input.

After all, it’s not Shelby County Government that will deliver services or will be in charge of neighborhood revitalization efforts in the area where the new Buehler Homes are located. That’s City of Memphis. So far, we haven’t heard even a whisper of a question about how this fits into any ongoing programs funded and directed by the primary government for this area – city government.

And the commissioners’ complicity in undermining urban neighborhoods is deepened by their failure to advocate for development of the comprehensive plan for Memphis and Shelby County that is way overdue. Without a clear plan of what you are trying to achieve, a sense of what is needed and a master plan of what should be done, our community is seduced into a hodgepodge of ideas and projects.

The Real Problem

The greatest indictment of the Buehler gift is that it is next to impossible to find a professional planner or architect in the entire city who says it is a good idea. To the contrary, they point to it as the symbol of what’s wrong with decision-making about the future of neighborhoods and about the emphasis of good design overall in Memphis.

At the board of commissioners, there was of course the normal rhetoric about answering the housing demands of our neighborhoods. They need to drive into some of them. Right now, about 20% of all Memphis houses are vacant, and that number has more than doubled since 2000. Or put another way, there are now about 53,000 vacant houses in Memphis and they are inarguably seen as cancers on their neighborhoods.

We’re certain that Shelby County Government has seized many of them for non-payment of taxes, and it would seem that the vacant houses, not the vacant lots, that should get priority. We’d support Buehler getting some of them if the company would renovate them and make them presentable and habitable. Our neighborhoods have serious needs, and there is none more pressing than dealing with the vacant housing that can quickly deteriorate and become hang-outs for exactly the kind of people the neighborhoods don’t want.

Better Ideas

Meanwhile, Sustainable Shelby talks a lot about urban gardening and farming. Perhaps, county government should walk the talk and use the lots for an innovative program for inner city residents to grow crops and set up co-ops. Who knows? Different kind of thinking could get a different answer, one that could even have national implications.

As the saying goes, if you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. As long as county government thinks that it’s objective is to get rid of lots no matter what, it’s destined to make short-sighted decisions. Everything in a city is connected, and unless you look at an issue within the larger frame, you really haven’t looked at it at all.

Shelby County Government is in the prime negotiating position, so why not leverage Buehler Homes’ work inside Memphis to improve neighborhood character with renovated existing housing? If he can improve those county-owned vacant homes, we’re all for giving them to him and waiving taxes for five years, because at least in that way, he’s fulfilling a serious civic priority and neighborhood need.

It’s Policy, Stupid

Buehler Homes is not a social services agency. His business model makes him money and more power to him for that. But if his business model is to include the gift of public property, his product should respond directly to a serious public need and an official neighborhood revitalization plan.

In our form of government, the legislative branch sets policies that the executive branch carries out. Unfortunately, the vote on Beuhler Homes was about everything but sound public policy. It was treated as a political transaction. It was treated as a public relations exercise.

But it all obscures the truth. The board of commissioner’s decision on the 140 lots was anything but good policy. Usually, good policy is made in context and with an assessment of all available resources. In this instant, that context would have been a full understanding of neighborhood revitalization plans of City of Memphis and other relevant entities. It would also involve an inventory of resources and services as well as identifying the pressing needs of the area.

A Modest Proposal

Rather than do any of that, the board of commissioners has effectively plopped down houses all over North Memphis with no regard for any existing plans and without any response to a well-crafted strategic plan of action. It’s haphazard and it’s not strategic for neighborhoods whose futures have always gotten short shrift and given long odds.

It would seem prudent and logical that before Shelby County Government gives away any more lots inside the city limits of Memphis, it would adopt two overriding policies:

One, no county-owned property will be given to any person or any company that owes delinquent property taxes (Buehler Homes’ bill is just south of $1 million).

Two, no county-owned property will be given to any person or any company without consultation with City of Memphis to determine if the county’s action is consistent with programs that are under way.

Most of all, we hope that future decisions like this won’t be treated as if they’re about a political end game rather than about reaching the wisest possible public policy.

Brown-outs Short Circuit Civility And Logic

2009-10-20T21:09:00.008-05:00

Here’s our advice to Memphis Councilman Shea Flinn:

When confronted with the rantings of Councilman Joe Brown, just say: Councilman, I simply refuse to go into mental combat with an unarmed man.

Those are the immortal words used by former City Councilman Fred Davis to a colleague decades ago when his colleague’s argument crossed the boundaries of simple logic and good manners.

We needed Mr. Davis at Council today, because if ever there was a time when it was clear that Councilman Flinn’s adversary was completely unarmed, it was at today’s meeting.

Brown-outs

And even his fellow Council members, who’ve heard any awful lot of circular reasoning and race-baiting from Councilman Brown, were shaking their heads over his flight at warp speed into a parallel universe. One wag has taken to calling such moments “Brown-outs,” or short circuits that shut down the system.

To punctuate his outrage over the Council’s consideration of Memphian Steve Ross as a member of the Memphis and Shelby County Metropolitan Government Charter Commission, Councilman Brown shouted at Mr. Flinn: “I'm a real black man. I hope you're a real white man."

It’s enough to discourage us from thinking that Memphis Mayor-elect A C Wharton even has a chance to spread his gospel of “One Memphis” to the Brown apostolate of division and scarcity mentality.

Scarcity Thinking

In the Joe Brown worldview, there’s only one way to see the world: If you’re winning, I must be losing. In that worldview, there’s only one thing to do: to pull you down to my level of dysfunction and mediocrity.

The first casualty of this approach is the fundamental civility and candid, calm debate that is the essential grease for sound public decision-making. And yet, the greater casualty is the public involvement that is the essence of our system of government.

Yesterday’s outburst against Mr. Ross sent the unmistakable and clear message – the one Councilman Brown undoubtedly wanted to send – that all people really aren’t welcome in public discourse.

Defining Diversity

When Mr. Brown talks about the importance of diversity, he clearly doesn’t mean diversity of opinions. To the contrary, nominees to any city board or commission who express a different point of view do so at their peril. Councilman Brown’s regular canings of good people suggests that he’d be just as comfortable as a criminal judge in Singapore as a public servant in the U.S.

There was the former City Council member, a solid advocate for civil rights, who was called a racist by Councilman Brown. There was the citizen who was told he was stupid. There was the staff member berated and vilified. Then, there was yesterday’s question about whether Councilman Flinn is a “real white man,” whatever that means.

Steve Ross needs no defense from us, particularly since he proves on his blog just how much he loves this crazy place and how much he has to offer in knowledge and insight for the charter commission. There is little argument that he is progressive and open and a fighter against fear and doubt, just what a charter commission members needs. He is also a firm proponent of the Thomas Jefferson advice: “An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will.”

Opening Up The System

While most of us lament the recycling of the usual suspects time after time on public boards, there’s little wonder that people aren’t beating down the front door of City Hall to volunteer. For most young professionals in particular, there’s just no reason to get into such a hostile sphere, and God knows, there is precious little mentoring taking place from the elected officials now in office, especially the old guard like Councilman Brown.

With little voice in public affairs and even less traction on political decisions, it should be no surprise that so many people simply decide that it’s just too hard to do good deeds in Memphis. Sadly, it also reinforces a common Memphis narrative: we are stuck in time where political patronage and paybacks are the ways we do business and newcomers need not apply. It is a damning narrative, because it creates low expectations here and serves as encouragement to move somewhere else.

It’s a shame, because there is no lack of impressive young talent in our city. If you doubt it, check out the FedEx world headquarters cafeteria at lunch some time. There are talented managers of every race, of every ethnicity and of both genders in abundance, and they are seen nowhere in the public life of our city.

New Blood

It’s just too hostile, and there’s just too little reward for the bruising welcome that normally awaits new faces in the public sphere. If we were in charge, we’d immediately enact a policy that 75% of all appointees to boards and commissioners have never served before.

We’d also require that either the director or deputy director in every city division is filled with a young professional. It may sound drastic, but we have to do something to inject new energy, imbed new ideas and import new experiences that can inspire new solutions. In addition, we need to begin succession planning, training more and more people with courage and creativity to move up and transform the City Hall culture.

But first, citizens who are willing to step up and serve city government have every right to expect common courtesy from City Council. It’s the least all Council members can do for the people who pay their salaries in the first place.

Sadly, all this bad behavior was rewarded when Mayor Wharton and Memphis Mayor Pro Tem Myron Lowery pulled Mr. Ross's nomination. It was just another day in City Hall.

Landslide Grounds New Political Landscape

2009-10-18T20:08:00.013-05:00

Memphis needed a mandate.

Yes, Mayor-elect A C Wharton got it, but it was the city that needed it.

We’ve been limping along for eight years or so with no sense that we had anyone in charge, someone with a compelling vision and the public credibility and ability to lead us out of the wilderness, someone who can cast off the civic lethargy that has gripped up for too long.

While Mayor Wharton doesn’t need to play Moses to our wandering tribe, he will have to play Obama for a city demanding change in short order. There is so much that has to be done now and there’s no chance of his doing them one at a time. He has no choice but for daily multi-tasking that will be the theme for the next two years and a skill every one of his directors will have to cultivate.

Waiting For A Great Mayor

That’s why Memphis badly needed a mandate.

Our city needs a reason to shift from despairing about things to becoming hopeful about the future. Our city needs someone who can summon up all of the resources in the public and private sectors to focus on the game changers that can transform our city’s trajectory. Our city needs momentum and nothing can jump start it more than a leader with the overwhelmingly broad-based support that gives him a unique opportunity to make long strides in a short period of time.

In other words, Memphis desperately needs a leader, a city mayor whose landslide gives him a special stature that means he can take charge of his bully pulpit with a no bull attitude. Memphis needs a city mayor who can ask for help from local business leaders and social entrepreneurs with the confidence that they will step forward.

In other words, it’s all about the kind of clout, authority and standing that gives a mayor the chance to be a transformative leader like Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin.

Memphis has had some good mayors, but we’ve never had a great one. Eighteen years Memphis Mayor Willie W. Herenton had his chance but in the end, it all unraveled as his behavior grew more erratic and his leadership more divisive.

Failing Grades

As a result, Memphis has languished for eight years and it shows. While Nero fiddled, Memphis was burning and its worrisome trends not only continued but they quickened.

Today, about 35% of Memphis workers are either unemployed or have not looked for a job in so long that they are no longer included in the unemployment rate. The number of people living in poverty in Memphis is equivalent to the population of Chattanooga, and the poverty rate in Memphis has risen 27.2% since 2000, and the poverty rate for adolescents has climbed 45%.

Memphis is losing an average of three middle-income families a day and five people a day with college degrees. Inside the 1970 city limits of Memphis, population is down 28% and density is cut in half, making public services more costly and meaning that public facilities are often located in the wrong places.

We’ve said it before and we say it again: Memphis has no margin for error.

To put it even more directly, we do not have five years to float unfocused and uninspired. We have to make strides. We have to do an awful lot of things right. But first, it requires Mayor Wharton to restore confidence for a government that most people believe is a central part of the problem.

THE Question

Ultimately, that’s why the most pressing question facing Mayor Wharton is this: where do I best invest the power of this mandate for the greatest change?

With so many clear needs, there are almost as many answers for what he needs to do first as there are activists. But on one thing, there is no confusion, and Mayor Wharton knows it. If the trend lines for Memphis do not change, our future is sealed and it won’t be pretty.

Mandates are magic. They breathe life into the system. They inject dynamism into the body politic. They arrest the kind of political grandstanding and sniping that come with lesser victories. They act to amass new resources and renewed energy behind a leader who can leverage them to change things.

While President Obama was right when he said we are the leaders we’ve been waiting for, it’s hard to find a city that’s making important progress that also doesn’t have a strong mayor with a bold agenda propelled by a clear mandate for something new and different. Like the president, Mayor Wharton’s task will be to lower expectations, always a necessity for anyone in politics, while juggling multiple political hot potatoes and producing evidence that change is taking place.

Killing The Status Quo

Here’s the harsh reality of politics: most winning elected officials are never more popular than they are on election night, so before the honeymoon subsides, Mayor Wharton has to make the most of it.

The best news for him is that the people said emphatically that they are willing to follow him, and by inference, that others who oppose him do so at their peril. With slightly more than 60 percent of the vote and an approval rating more than one-third higher, odds are that he can bring the executive and legislative branches back into balance in City Hall.

Over the years, Memphis City Council had no choice but to fill the void left by a disengaged Mayor Herenton and it has shown courage on more than one occasion while the mayor sat mute in his seventh floor office. But city government cannot operate on less than all of its cylinders, and the wear and tear of an administration that was rudderless and adrift has taken a terrible toll.

That is likely to be Mayor Wharton’s opening salvo – to send the forceful message that if people are defenders of the status quo and of the same old ways of doing things, they are in the wrong line of work. Also, we suspect he will send the message that the days of independent fiefdoms, turf warfare and directors freelancing – such as hiring fellow church members and making appointments without mayoral approvals – are over.

The Right Theme

He’s already made it clear that a top priority for him is to change the culture of city government. There is almost no goal that he can set that is more important or harder to accomplish. But it is without question the right one to have.

In fact, if all of the 34 planks of his platform were stripped down to the thread that held them all together, it was a theme of culture change.

For a large percentage of Memphians, City Hall has come to symbolize all that is wrong with their city – dysfunctional, lacking vision and no clear plans for progress – and it exhibits the attitudes that penalize our city’s progress – racial division, decisions based on who you know rather than what you know, territoriality and lack of alignment of our energy and our goals.

As the mayor of county government, Mayor Wharton no doubt often felt like a prisoner in the weak mayor form of government that Shelby County has. In that government, he really controlled about 25% of the county budget and employees, and like all county mayors, his visibility was based on his willingness to elbow his way into the spotlight and create his own events to get attention.

Honeymooning

There’s no mistaking that we can name the head of county government mayor and he can have as many employees and a budget as big as Memphis’, but in the end, it’s the city mayor who gets the headlines, the regular media coverage, the most public attention and has the largest megaphone.

That’s why the world as he has known it will change for Mayor Wharton when he takes the helm of city government. The Memphis mayor heads up a strong mayor form of government. He can change the goals and the direction of 6,000 employees with the issuance of a memo. He has the preeminent position of leadership in the city, he speaks with a voice that is amplified and dissected by the news media, and while his actions are analyzed and criticized by the talking heads, but no one has more control over the Memphis destiny.

There are the critics – subdued somewhat by the landslide on election night – who continue to believe that Mayor Wharton cannot succeed: he is not tough enough, he is not decisive enough or he is not willing to take the risks needed to effectuate change. He’s heard the criticisms before of course, and early on, he seems to be sending the modulated message that when stripped down says, “just watch me.”

And every one will be, particularly during his honeymoon period. The length of the grace period for new mayors is never preordained, and as a county mayor shifting to become city mayor, it’s possible that his will be shorter rather than longer, because the public does not expect there to be a learning curve for him.

Building Political Capital

There’s nothing like getting 61% of the vote to give you the currency you need to extend your honeymoon. And that message was not lost on City Council members up for reelection at the same time that Mayor Wharton runs for a full four-year term in 2011. If they are defined then as impediments to the mayor’s agenda, it could prove to be a high-risk venture.

Mayor Pro Tem Myron Lowery – who had done an admirable job as mayor pro tem - made the point on election night. He said the Wharton campaign had more money and a much better campaign organization. The possibility that those same weapons could be turned on critics or obstructionists is a sobering thought already whispered between a few Council members.

So, in the end, what should Mayor Wharton invest his popularity and support to accomplish? Here’s what we think his vision should be: to create a “no excuses” government known for its innovative programs, for its development of change agents, and for making the strategic investments that create, retain and attract talent.
Of course, underneath such a vision are an array of programs that have to be accomplished – from better parks and libraries to institutionalizing an office charged with developing talent; from streamlining city government by reducing the number of divisions and managers by one-third and the workforce by 15% to getting serious about creating a real digital government; from functional consolidation plans that never seem to find a successful end (such as fire and engineering) to looking for ways to add others like information technology (Memphis spends $20 million a year and Shelby County spends $11 million); from scaling back tax freezes to equalizing tax policy; and those are just a few.

No Rest For The Weary

There are pressing issues commanding attention after years of neglect, and many of them are about getting the basics right. After all, the public aren’t normally a demanding group. They just want government to get a few things right - safety, cleanliness, efficiency, responsiveness and a dollar’s worth of value for every dollar in taxes.

In addition, there are threatening issues on the horizon, chiefly the city government budget process that begins in only a couple of months. It would have been tough enough in normal times, but add in the school funding issue and it becomes an immediate test that could be a defining moment for the Wharton Administration.

Getting through that successfully could be the best honeymoon present of all.

This Week On Smart City: Shrinking Detroit and Exploding Mumbai

2009-10-17T22:00:00.002-05:00

Detroit is in the news again with Time Magazine launching a bureau of sorts from the city. But to get a real local's perspective, we'll talk with Katy Locker and David Egner of the Hudson Webber Foundation. It provides grants to improve the quality of life of the metropolitan Detroit community, and Katy and Dave will tell us about some of the amazing work they're doing to revitalize the city of Detroit.

On the other side of the globe, Mumbai is a city with an exploding population and a housing crisis that is leaving 9 million people without a home. Prathima Manohar is the founder and Editor in Chief of a blog called "The Urban Vision" that highlights the best practices from around the world and how they can be put to use in cities.

Smart City is a syndicated, weekly hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life: the people, places, ideas and trends that affect us all. Host Carol Coletta, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, talks with national and international public policy experts, economists, business leaders, artists, developers, planners and others on the pulse of city life for a penetrating discussion on urban issues.

Smart City is broadcast at 6 a.m. Saturday and Sundays on WKNO-FM, but it is also webcast and podcast so you can listen to it anytime you like. For the webcast, times for the broadcast in other cities and to sign up for the podcast, visit our website.

Skate Park: Why We All Should Care

2009-10-16T20:14:00.003-05:00

If you ever wonder why so many of us are passionate about the proposed Mud Island skate park, you can get a sense of it with this video.

Lessons From A "Special" Election

2009-10-15T22:51:00.010-05:00

It was in the late Sixties when our dorm walls bore a poster: “Suppose they gave a war and nobody came.”

In those heady days of political activism, it was hard to imagine that the poster today should say: “Suppose they held an election and nobody came.”

Voter turnout numbers in Memphis have been tumbling for years, and even though special elections traditionally attract lower turnout, it’s hard to synchronize the pent-up call for change with the voter apathy seen in today’s election for Memphis mayor.

The total votes cast today just barely exceeded 100,000, compared to 165,397 votes cast in a turnout hailed as lackluster in the 2007 city mayor’s race.

Too Nice To Criticize

Perhaps, it was the inevitability of the victory by Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton as the new city mayor. In the end, no opponent could ever lay a glove on him, and while criticizing him as too nice to be mayor, the other candidates never came to grips with the reality that voters didn’t want to see such a nice person attacked.

It seemed lost on them that once you set him up as the nice guy in the race, it’s really hard to then jump on him without looking like a heavy. That’s why Carol Chumney’s apparent desperation in the election eve debate merely came off as shrill, just as Charles Carpenter’s earlier shots merely sounded snarky.

Voters simply brushed aside criticisms of an elected official with the highest approval ratings of any politician in the modern political history of Memphis.

Meanwhile, if there’s anybody who gained from the election – and it’s hard to see how any one really did – it’s probably Myron Lowery, who in the next 7 to 10 days will revert back to his post as chairman of a Memphis City Council divided down the middle in their opinions about him.

Down And Out

Despite that, the tone of the Lowery campaign and his determination to make the most of his few months as mayor pro tem gained him a measure of respect (at least among Caucasian voters). Among African-American voters, he could never recover from the damage done as the deciding vote with the white Council members on several controversial issues and the neverending saga of City Attorney Elbert Jefferson that dogged his time in the mayor’s office.

Meanwhile, Mr. Carpenter’s campaign began with high hopes. Some pundits even suggested that although his campaign might be a long-shot, he would prove to be a strong candidate and position himself strongly for next year’s county mayor’s election. Any dreams of future office evaporated with his failure to get into double digits – or more than half way to double digits.

The election also put a period on the political career of Ms. Chumney, former Council member and state legislator. It seemed impossible during the campaign for her to find her stride and her repeated, clumsy attempts to cast herself as a victim of a glass ceiling for women politicians never gained traction with even a significant percentage of women voters. Just two years ago, she received 57,196 votes for city mayor. Today, she got slightly more than 10,000.

School board member Kenneth Whalum was reminded of another sad fact of life about Memphis politics. You can excite the youth vote, but you just can’t get them out to the polls, and as a result, his 2% of the total vote was much less than the 5% he had polled only four days before the election.

Residual Effects

If there should have been anyone as happy as the Wharton family, it should have been Shelby County Board of Commissioners Chair Deidre Malone and former state legislator Harold Byrd, who have announced their intentions to run for county mayor next year.

It was widely thought by some news reporters that this election would presage next year’s county election by positioning several candidates strongly for that race. Not so. If anything, the election doomed any serious attempt by any candidate to claim they have the kind of base on which to build a countywide campaign.

Another thing proven by the election is that the impact of controversial blogger Thaddeus Matthews is far more perception than reality. Despite relentless and careless fictions about anyone connected to Mayor Wharton, the Carpenter candidacy, if anything, sunk beneath the weight of his cheerleading.

It reinforced the lesson that some were slow to learn in last year’s campaign against Congressman Steve Cohen. Voters are slow to mobilize around smear campaigns and reckless slanders. The Carpenter campaign proved this again in conclusive fashion. Meanwhile, we are told that a Federal Communications Commission complaint is being drawn up against Mr. Matthews and his radio home, KWAM.

New Day

All in all, it was a “take no prisoners” display by Mayor Wharton, who proved conclusive that even a nice guy can put together one mean campaign. It may be too soon for such predictions, but it’s hard to argue with the view that Mayor Wharton is now the dominant political force and if he invests his honeymoon period well, he has the power to change the entire political landscape in Memphis, particularly its tone and civility, for the better.

He is the antithesis of Mayor Herenton, whose stated disdain for consensus-building makes him a strange person to send to Congress and its 435 members. There is no issue that Mayor Wharton does not believe that he can find consensus and common ground. That will unquestionably be put to the test in City Hall.

For us, however, what interests us most is that he’s positioned himself as the political powerhouse who can achieve his goal of ushering in a new generation of young political leaders and public servants.

In his last race for Memphis mayor, Willie Herenton said he had no choice but run because he had neglected to mentor a successor. While it’s hard to imagine Mayor Wharton suggesting that he should pick who will be the next city mayor, he is clearly sincere about the need to attract young people into key positions in City Hall.

Changing Expectations

If this election was about anything, it was about change.

While Mayor Wharton may have tallied 61%, 100% of the vote was for something different. With 25 candidates in the race, no one stood four square in support of Mayor Herenton. No one defended his record, his philosophy or his approach to his work.

Perhaps, that’s to be expected after 18 years of the same person as city mayor, but it was also a residual effect of the historic election of Barack Obama as president. Suddenly, all things seemed possible, even the once unthinkable – One Memphis.

Local Government As Performance Art

2009-10-13T20:37:00.002-05:00

Caught in a brutal vise of too much poverty, shrinking density and a broken tax structure, the next person to head up City of Memphis Government may need to be an alchemist, not just a mayor.

There are so many troubling trends taking place in Memphis, and they converge by necessity in the budget hearings of city government. Because of it, the acrimony and conflict of this year’s budget hearings are destined to become an annual event if nothing is done to dramatically change the key forces shaping our city’s future.

There’s the 20% bulge in children in Shelby County when compared to Nashville/Davidson County and its peer communities. It’s a regional anomaly, and when converted into public costs, it amounts to roughly $180 million a year. In other words, if we had the same percentage of students as Nashville, we’d be spending $180 million a year less in education alone (not including the costs of services to poor, at-risk kids).

Not Dense Enough

Meanwhile, the costs of delivering public services are going up because of the decreasing density of Memphis neighborhoods. Density fell 21% percent from 2000-2005, accelerating a trend that began four decades ago. When compared to 35 peer cities, Memphis is #5 in the greatest decline in density.

Today, there are 28% fewer people inside the 1970 city limits of Memphis as there were back then, and density is half what it was. While density is a key indicator of neighborhoods that work, it matters to taxpayers most of all. Public services are less expensive when they are serving high-density areas, and capital costs are almost 50 percent cheaper than low-density sprawl.

That’s why the strongest champions for high-density should be our local elected officials, using their bully pulpits to correct public misperceptions that higher density means lower property values; to persuade financial institutions not yet comfortable with funding urban-oriented construction; and to reinvent the local development standards that often discourage higher densities.

Upside Down Tax Policy

Finally, as a result of too many kids and too little density, we are paying the highest combined city-county tax rate in Tennessee. In the words of the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations: "Memphis has the highest combined county and city nominal tax rate in the state…Total local taxes are regressive, since each of the three taxes (property tax, sales tax and wheel tax) is separately regressive. Regressivity refers to lower income persons paying a higher percent of their income for taxes than do higher income persons."

Put another way, not only are our taxes too high but the poorer you are, the greater percentage of your income is spent on them.

Because of these facts, contrary to conventional wisdom and despite relatively effective financial management, our tax rate is destined to remain high and the trends combine to push it higher. For example, if we had the same percentage of student-age population as most major metros, our tax rate here would essentially be the same as the tax rate in Nashville, a city we regularly reject and covet simultaneously.

Getting Real About Change

The fact that a contrary public opinion is widely held is testament to the purposeful way that local government obscures information from the public. For example, we may well have entered a world of Web 2.0, but local government seems incapable of creating a digital environment that would have measured up to Web 1.0. It’s understandable that many people have concluded that the government websites here aren’t accidentally cumbersome and unhelpful, but they are a direct reflection of the prevailing government attitude of obfuscation.

If we were the next city mayor, rather than hire the usual corporations that would charge more than $500,000 to reinvent the city website, we’d give five local, innovation website developers $20,000 a piece and challenge them to define what a public website should look like in the 21st century. More to the point, they should create a website that let’s the sunshine into city government and that contributes to a shift in a culture that hides public documents and treats public records requests as if we don’t have a right to know what’s going on in the government we pay for.

Here’s the thing: every transaction, application and request that the public can make standing on the other side of a government counter should also be available online. Every report, every tax freeze given by government and every study paid for by taxpayers should be posted on the Web. Every government form should be downloadable on the city website and it should get serious about engaging the public and giving them a voice.

Transparency Is Not Just Campaign Rhetoric

If there’s a model for is kind of transparency, it’s the Missouri Accountability Portal on the state government’s website. It posts detailed information on expenditures by agency, category, contract or vendor and salaries for state employees.

But there’s so much more that can be done here to save money. For example, there are mechanic shops working on publicly-owned vehicles for various agencies all over Shelby County. Even within city government, most divisions have someone assigned to handle information technology. The opportunities for merging functions that are replicated over and over again – from purchasing to maintenance to human resources – can yield more than savings. It also contributes to the sense of teamwork and collaboration that are sorely lacking in local government today.

In a nutshell, the challenge for the next mayor of Memphis is to create a high-performing government based on and focused on performance – from budgets to salaries. Today, there’s just no real connection between a department’s performance and its budget and there’s no connection between an employee’s performance and salary.

Performance Matters

We’re not saying this is about overlaying private sector models onto the public sector. As a Harvard study concluded years ago, government is too different for these simplistic notions – not to mention campaign sloganeering – about bringing business to government. (And the truth is that everyone is in favor of the government acting more businesslike until it affects them.) Despite this, the notion that performance can’t be applied to the public sector is outdated and flawed.

First and foremost, it requires for a set of outcomes to be defined and to link them seriously to budgeting, evaluation and salaries. To its credit, City of Memphis yearly conducts the Memphis Poll to understand the public’s priorities and opinions, but we’re hard-pressed to see any meaningful way that the polling results are applied to budgets or service delivery.

In the end, it’s about the kind of focus and accountability that can transform the culture of local government, because that’s really the overall objective. It’s also been called the equivalent of changing a tire on a car traveling 60 miles per hour.

No Waiting Room

To compound the challenge, a significant part of the public workforce are Civil Service employees who know that they can ordinarily wait out a person that sets out to change things, whether it is Kriner Cash, A C Wharton or the next city mayor.

We can’t afford to wait anymore, and while getting the basics of government right, it’s even more about reversing trends that exacerbate all of this in the first place. That’s the toughest challenge of all, because it requires the repopulating of Memphis, and this won’t take place until the public feels that its tax dollars are being wisely spent and are creating the kind of city in which they want to live.

Great Streets

2009-10-12T20:20:00.002-05:00

The American Planning Association has posted its 10 great streets as part of its annual Great Places in America project.

Check out these 10 great streets, and let us know what Memphis street should be on this list. Or, give us your 10 great Memphis streets.

New Mayor Is In A Race Against Time

2009-10-11T19:04:00.003-05:00

One of the things the new mayor needs to do is just make people believe again in good government.

That was the observation by our friend and colleague Cardell Orrin in today’s Commercial Appeal. He accurately identified the most serious problem facing City Hall – that the people whose taxes pay for it no longer believe that it can be efficient, honest and effective.

Such is the legacy of the Herenton era and such is the need for dramatic and transformative action to prove that the culture of city government can be overhauled and the trajectory of Memphis can be improved.

In an age when political campaigns are routinely marathons, the campaign for city mayor has been a sprint. But if things have been rapid so far, they promise to become absolutely frantic once the new mayor takes the oath of office.

Culture Shift

Taking office is a big task for any new mayor, but it may prove Herculean for the first new elected city mayor in 18 years. Anytime new leadership takes over after 18 years of the same CEO, there is the pressing need for financial and organization audits that result in the “top to bottom” analysis needed to shake up the status quo.

It’s no easy task. Culture eats policy for lunch, and the culture in City Hall has a voracious appetite.

As we wrote a few weeks ago, we’d begin by focusing on agents of change, setting up a system to encourage and reward innovation, and an immediate plan to make City of Memphis an e-government.

Regardless, the new mayor must act dramatically, emphatically and strategically to send a clear, unmistakable message both inside and outside City Hall that a new day is being ushered in and business as usual is simply unacceptable.

Tough Timelines

The reason we say this is a Herculean task is because the new mayor has about 18 months to show results, because that’s when the campaign for a full four-term term as city mayor will start in earnest. That’s because Thursday’s election is to name the person to complete the rest of Mayor Herenton’s term, and the next election for a four-year term for Memphis mayor is October 6, 2011.

And yet, that’s not the most pressing schedule confronting the new mayor. More to the point, that person will have no time for a smooth, methodical transition to power that has become customary here. There’s so much to do and so little time to do it.

A new Memphis mayor will take office when the Shelby County Election Commission certifies the results of the election, and that is likely to take place about a week later. In other words, the traditional transition period in which a special committee makes recommendations to the new mayor would actually undermine the sense of urgency and the momentum for change that the public is demanding.

The short time between being elected and taking office also could mean that some of the Herenton directors may remain in place for awhile as the new mayor assesses them and vets possible appointees to the key offices of city government. There are roughly 400 appointed employees, but about 150 matter, including mayoral staff, attorneys and upper management.

Getting The People Right

That said, despite the need for more time to evaluate and recruit candidates, the new mayor will have to take aim on a few key appointments that require immediate attention, including chief administrative officer, the assistant chief administrative officer, director of human resources, director of finance, police director, city engineer and city attorney.

These are appointments that set the tone for the new administration and will be seen as the bellwether for voters looking for proof of a change in direction for City Hall.

The most crucial position of course is the chief administrative officer, because this person manages the day-to-day operations of the new administration, and when the CAO speaks, the public should hear the new mayor’s voice. Useful qualifications are management and organizational knowledge, the ability to inspire and lead others, a talent for building consensus and the skill to drive the new mayor’s agenda at Memphis City Council.

That last one won’t be easy. The dysfunction of the Herenton Administration created a vacuum that has been regularly filled by the City Council. It’s been a heady time for Council members because there has been no balance of powers, and it will be a challenge for a new administration to create a more productive, collegial approach to city services (not to mention defining the line between legislative and administrative functions).

Getting The Right People

The director of human services is pivotal to creating a new culture in City Hall, because a new mayor has to have someone in this position who can develop a plan to hire innovators and change agents. If anything has been clear in recent years, it has been that the hirings by the human resources division have done little to counter the overall dysfunction of City Hall and in some direct ways, it has in fact contributed to it.

The director of finance is always crucial, because it’s not enough for a new mayor to have a change-making agenda. The new mayor must make sure the budgets are aligned to accomplish it.

Meanwhile, city engineering has rightly or wrongly become the poster child for city policies that have fueled sprawl, rewarded the asphalt lobby and have contributed to unhealthier Memphis neighborhoods. It is vital that city government puts the creation of neighborhoods of choice at the top of its priority list, and it will take a concerted effort by a cross-section of divisions to make it happen, because until it does, the absence of a coherent approach will continue to feed the idea that Buehler homes are positive additions to our neighborhoods.

As for healthy neighborhoods, the building block is safety, and it’s hard to conceive of a scenario where a change is not made in the police director’s position. In the end, it gets down to the inescapable sense that the public wants a new approach and it’s hard to find a constituency calling for things to stay the same.

Watching The Signs

Finally, there is the city attorney, and in recent months, it’s a position that’s become a lightning rod for critics of the Herenton Administration although a number of African-Americans sees embattled City Attorney Elbert Jefferson as a scapegoat for the Herenton haters.

Regardless, it’s inevitable that a new mayor will want his or her own city attorney. The job is simply too important and too influential, and despite another grand-standing foray by Attorney General Bill Gibbons, it’s little more than piling on. There’s no one betting that Mr. Jefferson remains when a new city mayor takes office.

Here’s the thing: regardless of who someone votes for Thursday, the clear message is a deep longing for change. It’s equally clear that voters will be watching closely in the next few weeks to make sure the new mayor got the message.

Member Of The James Gang Saddles Up For Memphis

2009-10-09T16:34:00.004-05:00

We became acquainted with the James Gang in Iowa City, Iowa, when several of its members – Jesse Elliott, Gina McGee, Alex Johnson, Spencer Griffin, Elizabeth Azoff, and Michael Brooks - participated in the Memphis Manifesto Summit, which our company founder Carol Coletta conceived of and organized in 2003 with Richard Florida.

We were impressed then and remain impressed now. The grassroots group focuses on community-building by creating “endeavors” that connect creativity and service, and become the framework for individuals to pursue their own creativity.

Or put another way, it’s a nonprofit entrepreneurial center that works to start and grow community projects in arts, music, theater, humanities, technology, community activism, and business.

It’s an organization of smart, passionate people, as evidenced by its name in honor of William James, the father of American psychology, not Jesse James, the father of murderers as American myths.

Zach

The James Gang is known in Iowa City as thinkers, dreamers, activists, leaders, workers, and connectors. We need more of them so when we got the following email from one who is about to transplant to Memphis, we couldn’t help but smile:

My name is Zach Hoyt, and in less than a week I'll be a Memphian. I've been following your blog for the past year or so with great interest and thought you might be interested in the story of how an outsider came to the city.

A little about me: I'm 28 years old and have lived my entire life in Iowa, growing up in Des Moines and then moving to Iowa City to attend the University of Iowa and sticking around after graduation. I've worked since then as a real estate appraiser, first working as an independent commercial property appraiser and more recently working for Farm Credit Services of America, an agricultural lender.

I suppose I'm fairly typical of the creative class. I majored in film in college and have been an active participant in local music scenes since before I could drive. I'm also a computer geek who learned programming in high school and started an early community web site that went on to become the focus of the Des Moines underground music scene. For the past three years, I've also been heavily involved with community building efforts as part of a local nonprofit started by students and young professionals called the James Gang. I doubt you would remember, but Richard Florida actually brought a delegation of board members down for the Memphis Manifesto.

Welcome

I first visited Memphis on a whim in 2006. My wife Amy and I had won free plane tickets to anywhere AirTran would fly, and being huge music fans had always wanted to visit the home of the blues. The trip was in many ways typical: Sun Records, Beal Street, Graceland, etc. But we also took time to veer from the tourist trail, exploring different neighborhoods from South Main to Hollywood to Central Gardens and as far out as Germantown.

The trip was over quick, but left a definite impact. We were back a year later on an impulse, this time seeing even more of the city. My wife and I were both laid off last year around the holidays and it really gave us a kick in the pants to evaluate what we were doing with our lives. We drove down for a weekend in Memphis to blow off some steam and that is when things were really driven home.

Before, we had loved the city. There were cool neighborhoods, great music scenes, awesome local restaurants and businesses and just a unique vibe to the place. We were already considering making the move when we went down for that last trip, but it was pushed over the edge when we went from seeing the things there to meeting the people there.

We stayed out of the tourist places and went almost entirely to neighborhood haunts. Everywhere we went, we found warm, genuine people who were happy to share their love of their city with us. They welcomed us with open arms, tried to help us find jobs and generally made us feel more welcome and at home than we ever had in Iowa.

The Plunge

So now, 10 months later, we've sold our house, quit our jobs, and are diving head first into Memphis. We came on a whim knowing almost nothing of the city, and were smitten. We came a year later and became attached. We started tuning in, following blogs and flickr streams, reading the online versions of the CA and the Flyer and becoming more and more engrained in the city.

Now we're living proof of Richard Florida's hypothesis. We aren't moving to a city for a job, we're moving to a city because we love it, and have faith that by following our hearts to Memphis, we will eventually find work in some field or another.

This came out a little longer than I had anticipated, and I apologize for that. For us however, we're basically rebooting our entire lives because of this intangible feeling for this city, and to be able to share this with someone else who obviously loves the city is exhilarating. Your blog has been inspiring and I can't wait until I can get personally involved in helping to shape the future of Memphis.

How Smart Is Memphis?

2009-10-08T17:27:00.002-05:00

Which metropolis has the most intelligent residents? The Daily Beast crunched the data on the brainpower of America’s 55 largest cities, from first-to-worst -- collective brainpower. "More than sports prowess or political leanings or wealth or cultural accomplishments, this is the quintessential list for bragging point of a metropolitan area, the civic version of a playground taunt: I’m smart, you’re not," said Daily Beast.

So in terms of sorting out which cities walk the walk, The Daily Beast said it's decided to play scorekeeper and specifically, it's ranked the relative intelligence of every major American population hub, from first-to-worst.

Spoiler alert: We're #51. Nashville is #19 if you are into regional rivalry.

PS: We know the unending rankings of cities often mean little, but we still enjoy seeing them.

Notices From Academia

2009-10-08T16:47:00.002-05:00

We wanted to mention a couple of things going on that might interest you.

One, this semester's students of the Urban Revitalization Planning class at the University of Memphis are producing a new blog about Memphis. It is entirely the product of graduate students in City Planning and Architecture. You might enjoy the students’ views.

Also, Jennifer Sciubba, a professor at Rhodes College working with its new Environmental Studies Program tells us that they're hosting a speaker on Monday night who will talk about issues that should be right up our alley. Dr. Thomas Homer-Dixon will speak about his general theories on environmental issues (broadly defined).

We’re Looking For Myths That Need To Change

2009-10-07T16:54:00.001-05:00

In response to our post yesterday about the myths that chain us to old ways of thinking and block new solutions, we got responses with readers' own myths.

As a result, we're asking for you to give us the myths that hold back thinking and action in Memphis.

Here are the responses we've gotten so far:

Michael said:

Good article, but you missed one myth: "Build it and they will come."

This town is still under the spell of the developer heroes of the 1990 renaissance, believing they can do no wrong, that unfettered development will save the city, and that it will cost the taxpayers next to nothing.

Anonymous said...

One myth not addressed is the Memphis habit of looking for the magic bullet. It ranges from "Let's put a mall on Main Street to solve all our problems" to the more recent "Let's allow cars on that mall to solve all our problems." We see the magic bullet concept over and over: Chips Moman's presence will re-create a thriving music industry here and lead us to the promised land. An on-campus football stadium at the U of M will change everything. A river landing at the foot of Beale Street will be the answer.

What these and many other "solutions" have in common is that they invariably are the hobby horse of an individual or two who are never held accountable down the road, and they all involve a hobby horse that is funded by the public. Smart City Memphis urges us to look at the larger picture, but until we put names with follies and stop listening to those named, we will just continue to look for the magic bullet to slay our problems.

Aaron said...

I agree that we do have a propensity to look for the next magic bullet and I will be the first to say that the skate park project will not be a "cure-all" for downtown's ailments. I hope people don't see it as the magic bullet because it is not but it will provide a much needed recreational venue that we can add to our list of vibrant family-friendly places to visit and hang out, especially for our older children and active adults.

Taken together with many existing and ongoing efforts in our community to improve the quality of life of our citizens, perhaps small businesses will again see downtown as an opportunity to thrive. An issue, aside from population densities, that I have heard from a number of small business owners, will be for the mayor to kindly coax landlords to provide more flexible rental rates for new businesses. No more "take it or leave it" approach.

The biggest opportunity with a new administration coming in is for Memphians to dig in and get involved and make sure that developers no longer continue to capitalize on our apathy and cynicism.

For example, had there been little to no public support at the Mud Island Public meetings, I suspect the future of the River park would be following a far different trajectory.

Midtowner said...

There is also the myth that consolidation will be a panacea for Memphis.

Anonymous said:

I think if you build sustainable developments and connect it with passenger rail they will come.
http://memphis.code-studio.com/PDF/Plan_presentationFINAL_web.pdf

Job 1 For New Mayor: Blowing Up Old Myths

2009-10-06T21:08:00.009-05:00

Memphis is a mythic city.

There are of course the mythic musicians and entrepreneurs who created our greatest exports to the world – from B.B. to Elvis to Chilton and from Kemmons Wilson to Pitt Hyde to Fred Smith.

And yet, there are mythologies of a different kind. They limit Memphis’ options for progress, trap us in the same old conversations, and create conventional wisdom treated as facts.

That’s the most intriguing promise of a new Memphis mayor: the chance to think anew about old problems and to begin by blowing up old myths.

Mythologies

There’s the myth that we talk too much about race. Actually, we don’t; it’s just that we talk about the wrong things. The verbal blasts out of the Herenton City Hall were a lot about race, but never about discussions concerning the consequences of Memphis’ economic segregation, the worst among the top 50 metros, or about breaking the inextricable link between race and poverty.

There’s the myth that new suburban highways create new economic growth. More to the point, they fueled the greatest relocation in history of people to outside Memphis, cannibalizing existing businesses, driving up county government’s debt to bankruptcy level, and forcing Memphians to pay the lion’s share of infrastructure they didn’t need.

There’s the myth our African-American majority is an economic drag. Because distinctiveness is the basis for competitive advantage, Memphis needs to be a hub of black talent. If that isn’t at the top of our economic development agenda, we’re not really in the economic development business.

There’s the myth that the 103,000 students in Memphis City Schools are problems. Instead, our anomalous bulge in students is a strategic opportunity. As the U.S. workforce contracts and cities fight for fewer workers, we already have ours. But we’ve got to train them for jobs of the new economy.

Acting On Myths Instead Of Facts

There’s the myth that all Memphis neighborhoods are in chaos and in deep despair. And yet, for every neighborhood in crisis, there is a place like Prospect Park – proud, well-kept, and attractive. While we deal with the neighborhoods swamped by problems, we need also to shore up the islands of great neighborhoods.

There’s the myth that success in economic development is measured by the number of tax freezes we hand out. Rather, they reflect the need to create a more competitive city, because prosperous cities aren’t selling themselves on cheapness, but quality.

There’s the myth that downtown is booming. Despite the frequent use of the word, renaissance, to describe downtown, we still tend to define success by comparing Memphis against itself rather than against other cities. Our downtown still misses the vibrancy and activity that are so evident in other cities’ downtowns that have been reborn in the past 20 years. That’s why ideas like Memphis Art Park and the skate park on Mud Island are so important.

There’s the myth that annexation is always good. Memphis is now larger in area than New York City and eventually, it will be bigger than Los Angeles. Already, annexations have driven up the costs of public services and contributed to a deterioration of services in the pre-annexation area. The city government analysis needs to measure the impact of more land on the existing city and not assume that the neighborhoods and tax revenues will not decline.

Getting It Right

There’s the myth that consolidating city and county governments is bad for the county’s smaller cities. A large government lies in the future for them – either a new one or a Memphis government that expands by almost 50 percent and surrounds them without them having a voice in it. It all makes the town mayor’s mantra all the more ironic: “We hate Memphis City Hall and don’t trust Memphis politicians. Memphis is full of problems. So we want to leave everything just like it is.”

There’s the myth that Memphis and Shelby County Governments are wasteful while the smaller towns are efficient and economical. Actually, both city and county governments spend less on services per citizen than Collierville, Bartlett, and Germantown – from 32 to 48 percent.

There’s the myth that all we need to do is to tell our story better. More importantly, we need to create a city that gives us a different story to tell.

That’s why the most dangerous myth of all is the hoariest of all: there’s nothing we can do to change things. Meanwhile, in the 20 years that we’ve wrung our hands and complained, China has turned its whole economy around.

That’s why it’s time for a mayor – and for the rest of us – to take a “no excuses” approach to our own city’s future. Memphis is a mythic place, but to become great, it means that we have to some of the most stubborn myths of all.

This post was previously published as Memphis magazine's monthly City Journal column.

Getting The Focus Right: It's About Cities

2009-10-04T22:50:00.004-05:00

This may surprise you but we’ve got to say it: we’re tired of hearing about the paramount importance of regions and how regionalism is the road to a successful future for Memphis.

And we admit that we were some of the earliest people who talked about regionalism and the need for every one in the Memphis region to pull together and to establish a collaborative agenda.

It was about 20 years ago when we introduced the concept to our community, and a part of us has regretted it ever since. It’s not that we feel that we were wrong; it’s just that it seems more and more that the application of the concept has come at the expense of the city that lies at the heart of the region.

Yes, we know – and we’ve frequently said – that regions are the economic unit of competition in the global economy. There is no argument about that.

Boxed In

We know that solutions to some issues – say, water and air quality and greenways – are best served up in a regional context.

We know there are advantages – like Memphis International Airport – that are supported by and serve the entire region.

We also know that often solutions dressed in the cloak of regionalism are anything but sensitive to the urban core that is the beating heart for the area. The poster child to prove this point is seen in transportation decisions that are more motivated by moving packages through the region than keeping people in our city.

Because our corner of the world focuses more on creating high-quality roads for trucks and new corridors for development, there is always one more unnecessary project (think I-269) and the plethora of road expansion plans so traffic moves faster from 7:30 to 9 a.m. and 4:30 to 6 p.m. each workday.

Flowing Out But Not So Much In

In this way, regionalism can become the basis for so many faulty equations as more and more asphalt is laid as the answer to “economic development” and to transportation plans that define themselves as highways only. It’s the infrastructure equivalent of not only giving up on the city but firing a bullet into its prospects for the future.

Here’s the thing: regionalism across the U.S. is often more outward-focused than inward-directed. As a result, programs supported by the major city that focus on a stronger region are rarely reciprocated by the region’s suburban cities.

For example, it’s not unusual to hear Memphis and Shelby County officials call for regional progress and to urge regional strategies that embraces the best interest of area’s cities. And yet, there’s little of that kind of commitment flowing from the fringes back to the center.

That’s why in some regions, there have been complaints that regionalism is really just racism with a new face. And while we’re unprepared to embrace this level of cynicism, we are prepared to join in complaints that too little of regionalism is aimed at strengthening the urban core.

Getting The Focus Right

We’ve seen it most prominently here in the slow understanding that sprawl is a cancer that threatens our financial and social health. If we are serious about sustainability and becoming the kind of green city that can succeed in the new economy, we’ve got to get serious – not to mention, honest – about the forces (and the public policies that set them in motion) that put us in the condition we’re in today.

So, forgive us if in the midst of the euphoria about the creation of the much-needed and long overdue White House Office of Urban Affairs, we urge it to resist the siren’s call of regionalism for awhile and focus solely on cities themselves.

We know there are a lot of think tanks that hail the metro as the platform for White House actions, but for us, it’s the city that counts most and after a decade of being ignored by the federal bureaucracy, it’s time to give them targeted, concentrated attention.

In the past seven years, in the midst of a period of disinterest in cities, the troubling trends in Memphis quickened – children in poverty dramatically increased, more young professional talent left, economic segregation deepened and middle income families moved.

Regionalism Hasn’t Helped

Today, about 35% of Memphis workers are either unemployed or have not looked for a job in so long that they are no longer included in the unemployment rate.

The poverty rate in Memphis has risen 27.2% since 2000, and the poverty rate for adolescents has climbed 45%. Memphis is losing an average of three families a day that earn $35,000 to $75,000.

Meanwhile, Memphis is losing five people a day with college degrees. Inside the 1970 city limits of Memphis, population is down 28% and density is cut in half.

It’s a vicious cycle: people leave, property values shrink, taxes go up, low jobs growth, talent leaves, well, you get the picture. It’s a vicious cycle that, if not interrupted, escalates and at this exact moment, that’s where we find ourselves. And so do dozens of other cities.

Rationale: Regional Profits

And yet, there are still people and organizations calling for a blind allegiance to regionalism that treats cities as after-thoughts in problem-solving. That’s why we admire the work of CEOs for Cities so much (headed up by our colleague Carol Coletta).

It has an unflinching bias: nothing matters more than cities.

We agree wholeheartedly, because so often in the rush to “regional solutions,” the urban cores are frequently not even mentioned at all. As we said, it’s the dirty little secret of regionalism: generally cities give much more than they get.

That’s partly because so often the language of regionalism is co-opted by business forces, particularly real estate and logistics, that have only a passing acquaintance with the spirit of regionalism. More to the point, regionalism was often used as the rationale for political contributions and influence that chewed up $1 billion in tax money for roads and schools that opened up more and more greenfields for development.

From Rhetoric To Results

Mysteriously, there’s always more money for highways, and despite all the hyperbole about new roads as economic engines, there’s precious little evidence of it here, particularly with our jobs growth lagging behind levels of a decade ago. And yet, any suggestion that we should go slow with new roads is greeted with predictions of economic doom.

But back to our main point. It’s past time that we ease up on the rhetoric of regionalism and concentrate single-mindedly on addressing the challenges of Memphis, beginning with development of a manageable number of transformative strategies that can create neighborhoods of choice for middle income families and young families.

At the same time, our elected officials in Washington, D.C., should urge the Obama Administration to set the hearts of the nation’s regions – their major cities – as their first priority, rather than blindly chasing plans filed under the heading of regionalism.

In truth, there are no silos like the ones of the federal government. We applaud the administration’s discussion about increasing cooperation of its agencies to increase their impact, but if indeed the past is the best predictor of the future, it’s likely that the federal bureaucratic culture will relegate cities to the back burner.

Getting It Right

The officials may mean well, but the gritty problems of cities require innovation, a product that the no-risk environment of federal agencies fails regularly to deliver. That too is something that our federal representatives, notably Congressman Steve Cohen, need to advocate for.

As long as federal agencies are discouraged from the kinds of experiments that are demanded by these trying times (and experiments by their very nature often involve failure), the payoff at the local level will always be incremental and marginal.

Memphis, on the other hand, needs much more than incremental progress. And so do other American cities.

What makes Memphis special is that we have the gritty problems that confront cities much larger, and this makes us the right size to be a national laboratory for the federal government. Our size allows for experiments and for the results to be scaled up for serious measurements of their impact.

Until that is done, cities and the federal government will continue to have much in common. Both will be chasing the wrong goals faster.

This Week On Smart City: Slow Food And Smart Farming

2009-10-02T16:46:00.003-05:00

This week, Smart City is talking about food: How we grow it and what we make out of it. Featured this week is Memphis' own Pete Nelson.

First, the Slow Food movement is an idea, a way of living and a way of eating that emphasizes foods that are healthy for you and the planet. It promotes environmentally and socially responsible eating. Josh Viertel is the first president of the organization Slow Food USA and he joined us to talk about the story behind the food you eat.

And we'll also talk to Peter Nelson about growing opportunities to turn farm products into fuel and other materials connecting the farm to the city through bio technology. Pete has been involved in many links in the food chain from farmer to investor. He's now is partner with BioDimensions and he'll tell us about a promising aspect of America's farm economy.

Smart City is a syndicated, weekly hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life: the people, places, ideas and trends that affect us all. Host Carol Coletta, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, talks with national and international public policy experts, economists, business leaders, artists, developers, planners and others on the pulse of city life for a penetrating discussion on urban issues.

Smart City is broadcast at 6 a.m. Saturday and Sundays on WKNO-FM, but it is also webcast and podcast so you can listen to it anytime you like. For the webcast, times for the broadcast in other cities and to sign up for the podcast, visit our website.

Transitions: Three Great Men

2009-09-30T22:56:00.002-05:00

We come today to praise great men – three, to be precise.

Two of them, Tiffany Bingham and Vasco Smith, died earlier this week. The third, Jeff Nesin, announced last week that he would step down as president of Memphis College of Art at the end of the year.

Mr. Nesin – like many of his generation – feels the pull of responsibility for his aged parents, and because of it, he will be returning to New York. While we write often about the economic impact of 25-34 year-old talent, Mr. Nesin reminds us that talent isn’t confined to any single demographic group.

In November of last year, we received an email that asked what we would do to set a “creativity movement” in motion in Memphis. Our answer came quickly: “Appoint Jeff Nesin the Memphis czar of creativity.”

Artful Leadership

That’s because we don’t know anyone who more fully understands the importance of creatives, the culture of creativity and the creative economy than the gifted president of the Memphis College of Art; however, we also know that Mr. Nesin would immediately demur, suggesting that the movement would be best led by the people it seeks to serve – the creative members of our city themselves.

That’s what we’ve always admired the most about Mr. Nesin. He modulated his lively intellect with an accessible personality that inspired the people around him and most of all the students who chose to attend one of Memphis’ most underappreciated distinctive assets – the College of Art.

It’s hard to find another city of our size that has its own College of Art, and over the years, it has been a reliable source of artistic talent and creative expression. Under Mr. Nesin’s leadership, its impact was magnified as he doubled its enrollment, increased its financial and civic support and added more and more scholarships to open up new options for hosts of young people.

After 19 years with him at the helm of the College of Art, it is difficult to imagine Memphis without him. He was a ready source of fresh thinking and new ideas, but at his heart, he was an urbanist, and his ability to blend arts and culture into his understanding of cities will be missed by all of us.

Tif Bingham

Tif Bingham, one of the young Turks who brought Memphis out of its post-MLK assassination decline, died this week. Little more than 30 years ago, as Memphis seemingly spiraled out of control, a handful of well-educated, visionary entrepreneurs decided to apply their skills to civic affairs, and because of it, that period was a seminal moment in our city’s history.

Chief among them was Mr. Bingham, and because of him, Memphis in May was born and the Memphis Jobs Conference took place. He was a founder of the former - which broke down racial walls and opened up Memphis to the world - and he was chairman of the latter – which set the agenda for Memphis for roughly 15 years.

When we talk today about the kind of talent and leadership that Memphis needs to improve its trajectory, Mr. Bingham is the perfect model for it. Born into a general life of privilege, he felt the pain of the poor and fought for fair play and harmony.

When he brought these same sensibilities and uncommon honesty to the Memphis Chamber of Commerce as its president from 1979 to 1984, he made for a very different kind of Chamber executive. He wasn’t prone to kneejerk cheerleading although he was an unyielding supporter of his adopted hometown since 1960. He wasn’t given to the happy talk that’s prevalent in these jobs but he was given to the civility and consensus that welcomed everyone intoi important civic conversations.

Role Model

At a time when Memphis was desperate for some positive publicity, a number of city leaders – both public and private – went after the Miss Teen USA pageant for Memphis. They got it, but in the end, it came and it went, leaving few ripples in the water here and even fewer across the country. At a time when Memphis needed desperately to send a message about a city serious about coming together and producing change, he was honest enough to stand in front of the stampede chasing the beauty pageant, saying that it was not the best use of scarce marketing dollars.

In the aftermath of the crowning of Miss Teen USA, it was inarguable that he was right. It was the kind of resistance to groupthink and to jumping on the bandwagon of the latest, greatest big idea that made him so special and made him a role model for those of us who strive to remain true to our convictions while pushing for progress.

But in truth, we remember him as a role model in courage in a different battle altogether. After leaving the Chamber of Commerce, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, an unforgiving degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that often impairs motor skills, speech and other functions. Although speech often came with increasing difficulty, it nevertheless was always laced with kindness and concern for the other person.

While he was widely traveled – a genetic disposition inherited from the grandfather, the noted National Geographic explorer who discovered Machu Picchu and U.S. Senator Hiram Bingham – there was no place more special for him than his house on the rocky beach at Tenants Harbor, Maine. With lobster pots down the road, rhubarb pies sold at a house at the corner, with Andrew Wyeth scenery nearby along with the artist himself, there was a lilt that came to his voice when he talked about this special corner of the world.

We extend our sympathies to his wife Sandy and to his family for the loss of a gracious friend and gentleman.

Vasco Smith

Vasco Smith was many things – a lion of the civil rights movement, a dentist, a politician and a jazz aficionado who had few peers. More to the point, he was a loyal friend and a fascinating conversationalist.

There was a time when he and his wife of 56 years, Maxine, were anathema to a large segment of white Memphians struggling mightily to hang on to a world of segregation and deprivation for African-Americans. They were vilified, they were ridiculed in the media and they were threatened with murder.

And yet, he never wavered, and as he and Mrs. Smith relied on each other for strength in the face of such hatred, their already strong bonds grew even stronger. They were inseparable and singularly dedicated to each other, and we know that today it is difficult for her to imagine a world without her life companion.

We were fortunate to call Mr. Smith a dear friend, and despite what many people thought, he was a friend to the city that he so dearly loved. Judging from some of the comments posted to his obituary in The Commercial Appeal, racism is alive and well in Memphis, and our only regret that it outlived Mr. Smith himself. That said, at least today, its comments come under monikers that hide identities because today, as a result of Mr. Smith’s legacy, these kinds of people hide in the shadows where they hurl their racist comments anonymously.

The Movement

Mr. Smith could be a firebrand, but it was always rhetoric with a reason. Once he was able to move from outside government calling for equality to an elected official of government itself, he was often able to deliver his blistering indictment of a white-dominated county legislative body with a wink. Once, after increasing his decibel level and his emotional delivery, he turned in his chair, winking and saying, “I bet that gets things moving.”

And, as usual, it did, because although he was inside government, he was still doing what he had always done: speaking truth to power (or the power structure). As he once explained it, if the civil rights movement had taught him anything, it was that often the rhetoric had to be overblown. “If I want to move these folks to the middle, that means I have to move way over there so that when they compromise with me, they end up where I wanted them in the first place,” he said.

Some memorable days were created any time we could with libation in hand, spend a few hours listening to Mr. Smith playing jazz records at his house. He was a veritable encyclopedia of jazz and his record collection was without peer in Memphis. And so was he.

In a world desperately in need of role models, here are three of our favorites – Mr. Smith, Mr. Bingham and Mr. Nesin.

Note: We’d like to make the modest suggestion to our daily newspaper that comments should not be allowed on some articles. What possible comfort could Mr. Smith’s family find from reading his obituary online and coming face-to-face with some all too familiar hateful comments? These coarse voices are becoming all too familiar on The Commercial Appeal website on articles of all kinds where some intellectual illiterates drag race into everything.

Skating Toward A Better Future

2009-09-28T15:24:00.005-05:00

With the Mud Island Land Use Study - Phase Three Public Meetings wrapping up this week, there may be questions about the final recommendations, but there can be no questions any longer about the potential of a skate park on the Mississippi River isthmus.

There have been a lot of suggested activities for Mud Island, but it’s hard to gaze over at the generally staid river park and not imagine the beehive of activity that would be produced by a first-class skate park that is the largest in the U.S. Best of all, it would dynamite national public perceptions of a slow-moving riverfront, shaped more often by photos of riverboats and times gone by than by active, young families that speak to our future, enlivening an area desperately in need of animation and activity.

We commend the Division of Park Services for finally trying to close the skate park gap that exists between our city and its peers. According to the Trust for Public Land, the top 10 cities for skate parks have from 1 to 1.8 skate parks per 100,000 people. In other words, for Memphis to get in the top 10, we need to open up minimum of 6 skate parks and more likely 10.

That’s why plans to build a skate park in the Glenview neighborhood and as part of the proposed plans for the Fairgrounds are welcome announcements, but they do nothing to mitigate the importance of a signature venue as a downtown welcome mat for Memphis. (Your last chances to weigh in on the plan for Mud Island are Tuesday at 5:45 p.m. at Memphis Botanic Garden and Thursday at 5:45 p.m. at Harbor Landing on Mud Island.)

Getting Ahead Of The Game

Eight years ago, we were in Louisville and the mayor there wanted to show off the things that showed how serious his city was about its future. He took us to two places that he considered proof positive – the new, improved riverfront and the new skate park within a stone’s throw of the riverfront.

It was middle of a weekday and the place was alive with activity. The mayor said that it was open around the clock, and it was never empty. Most of all, it sent the message, he said, that Louisville was serious about attracting young talented workers and in creating a new, more progressive brand for itself (shortly thereafter, his fellow citizens approved the first large city-county consolidation in 40 years to punctuate his point).

The skate park had just served as the site for a nationally televised X-games competition, and the mayor was still basking in the glow of this validation of his leadership to get the facility built.

A friend of ours says that Memphis is always on the cutting edge. Unfortunately, it’s the one 20 years ago.

A Marker For Talent

In this case, we have a chance to get it right a lot earlier if we can come to grips with the wisdom of the proposed skate park on Mud Island. Clearly, in the public process run by the Riverfront Development Corporation (RDC), no group has been more passionate or armed with more facts about the impact of its project.

From where we sit, the business community ought to be leading the fight for the skate park – and the vision of the tip of Mud Island teeming with the kind of activity that we saw in Louisville. In the great scheme of things, we suggest that the presence of the skate park could pay bigger dividends than all of the big projects that we pursue in the name of “talent attraction.”

These days, any Chamber that isn’t anchoring its work in the creation, attraction and retention of talent isn’t really working on economic development. That’s why we’ve seen so many cities invest in skate parks as a convincing way to send new messages to today’s highly coveted 25-34 year-olds.

Hopefully, we won’t do what we often have done – add it after everyone else has one. It would be the outdoor recreation version of Hard Rock Café. By the time one located here, it seemed that everyone had one, but still, we acted like we had just landed an NFL team. We did, however, get an NBA team, but, come to think of it, it was after there were about three dozen of them.

Not Either-Or

At any rate, the skate park is a relatively low-cost way to do something before it’s old hat. But we need to do it now, and we need to do it in a high-profile place like Mud Island, where it sends an unequivocable message about our city, where it animates a downtown that critically needs it and where it becomes a hub of vibrancy 24/7.

In addition, we believe the Memphis Division of Park Services understands that this is not a question of either a large-scale, prominent skate park downtown or a number of smaller skate parks throughout the city. Actually, we need to be doing both. And soon.

We confidently predict that there are more skaters than golfers and tennis players, and city government provides courses and courts.

Here, we often seem so obsessed with studying and planning and less committed to implementing and executing. And an idea like the skate park on the south tip of Mud Island – a source of animation, a magnet for families, a repositioning of the park as a vibrant, dynamic hub of activity and a use that can bring all sides of the controversy over the future of our riverfront together – just seems too good to pass up.

Just Do It

If other cities can do it, we just don’t know why we can’t. In many other cities, there’s just a stronger predilection for action. They are simply hard-wired to take action and to do something.

In today’s highly competitive global economy and with our dire economic indicators, time is the only thing we don’t have enough of. Let’s decide on three things we need to do to compete and go do them. When we’re done, let’s pick three more and work on them. We put the Mud Island Skate Park on our first list.

Skateboarding is among the top four outdoor activities of Americans with 64 outings per participant, according to information gathered by Skatelife Memphis. Meanwhile, skaters are willing to travel 10 or more hours to their favorite skate parks, and it’s hard to imagine one destined to be more special than one located on the banks of America’s greatest river.

In number of participants, skateboarding has now passed baseball, according to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers, and Sports Illustrated has called it “the great influence on American youth culture in the 20th century.”

An Easy Call

We’ve not met anyone in years who we admire than Dr. Aaron Shafer, the St. Jude Children’s Hospital researcher who has spearheaded this project from a personal dream to one now supported by a broad constituency. His work on the skate park is a reminder for Memphis as it tries to do better in attracting young professionals: sometimes, it’s not the mega-project, but the smaller projects – the ones generating activity and vibrancy – that offer the most immediate returns on investment with this coveted demographic.

Dr. Shafer’s diagnosis is that the skate park would go a long way to keeping people like him in Memphis, and that’s as powerful a reason for building it as we can think of. To his credit, however, Dr. Shafer’s ultimate motivation is at-risk children and his dream is for a wholesome environment where they can exercise and where a $3 million skate park can bring them into contact with role models and mentors.
In a city where consensus is about as scarce as Grizzlies’ victories, the plan for a skate park on Mud Island is about as close as it gets.

All in all, the notion of building the skate park at the southern tip of Mud Island – the geographic equivalent of the city’s toe in the water – would be a dependable source of vibrancy and a magnet for skating families. It’s as close to a no brainer as any project we’ve seen for downtown Memphis.

Buehler Homes Taxes County Commissioners

2009-09-27T22:36:00.004-05:00

Every once in awhile something makes its way to the agenda of Memphis City Council or Shelby County Board of Commissioners that simply defies imagination.

The resolution on Monday’s board of commissioners’ agenda to give 140 county-owned lots to Beuhler Homes for rental housing is one of them.

There are so many reasons that county commissioners should at least go slow – if not vote against – a plan that seems to have more questions than solid assurances. Perhaps, the best way to do it would to be to take the time to carefully analyze the implications of this plan rather than respond to the politics of it.

So far, the push for the 140 lots has raised eyebrows but the political urgency behind it has raised even more. There seems to be a “take no prisoners” strategy to get it passed which in itself does nothing so much as spark more questions.

Payment Due

Opponents contend that the company is the equivalent of a public-sanctioned slum lord and advocates claim it as a company committed to constructing affordable houses in the urban core. In other words, there are a lot of concerns that need to be answered about Beuhler Homes.

Commissioner Mike Ritz raised a huge reason when he pointed out that the company owes $1.1 million in overdue property taxes. At a time when so many people say that government should operate like a business, it’s hard to fathom a private partnership getting off the ground if one of the partners had that kind of encumbrance.

One Central Garden resident put it succinctly in her email: “Why take properties from people who can't pay taxes and give it to someone who is not paying his property taxes?” It’s a fair question. At the least, it would be prudent for the board of commissioners to have a signed, enforceable agreement from Buehler Homes for payment of its delinquent taxes before it considers doing anything with the company.

We’re not sure what Commissioner Steve Mulroy meant when we referred to making “some sort of moral statement,” but in truth, the only kind of statement that matters is a “paid in full” statement from the county trustee’s office.

Core Questions

The question by Commissioner Henri Brooks – who has been faithfully driving a core city initiative – proved there are concerns even more important than the monetary ones, citing the low-quality standards by Buehler Homes and complaints from many in the neighborhoods where they are located.

To address this, the company said it improved its designs as a result of negotiations with a design review process set up by the board of commissioners. However, the designs bear scant improvement over the houses that have, in Commissioner Brooks’ words, disregarded the interests of the inner city. Hers are cautionary words since she actually represents part of North Memphis where the lots are located.

Buehler Homes has given a lot of promises to get county approval of its lots, but if the past is the best predictor of the future, it’s hard to feel too much optimism that things will fundamentally be any different.

That legacy is stark testimony to the ambivalence that county government has shown for the more than 20 years that it has been enabling Buehler’s housing business. After all that time, Buehler Homes isn’t ever named as an example of the kind of urban infill that strengthens neighborhoods and the urban fabric. More to the point, it’s regularly pointed to as an example of the kind of disregard that is often prevalent whenever the client is the working poor, whether it is public transit or urban housing.

Plugging In CDC’s

There is hope of do things differently, and community development corporations are showing how it can be done. Back when Buehler Homes’s relationship with county government began, CDC’s were few and far between. Fortunately, that is no longer the case, and the most inventive, effective strategies originate there.

Because of the evolution of the CDC’s, it seems reasonable that decisions about the best use of county-owned lots should directly involve them. Perhaps, this takes the form of the CDC’s vetting the proposed uses, or even better, that the county asks them to develop ways that the lots could be used as leverage for their revitalization plans.

As proposed now, the use of these 140 lots is entirely up to the discretion of Buehler Homes, and in this way, the rental housing to spring up there could be in direct conflict with the aspirations of its residents and the plans of the CDC in that area.

It’s a serious disconnect. Even if county government is not interested in the opinions of the CDC’s, it would seem logical that county government itself would at least not take action on 140 lots unless it had its own over-arching neighborhood redevelopment plan – one that answers what kind of neighborhoods county government wants to create, what tool box of county incentives – including its lots – could be created to stimulate healthy neighborhoods, what is the consensus vision of the neighborhood and its CDC and what could county government do to work with city agencies who are much more engaged in the life of Memphis neighborhoods.

A Better Way

Ironically, Buehler Homes moved to the county board of commissioners’ agenda while an item that supported legislation to allow the county to donate tax sale property to CDC’s for commercial purposes foundered. There are 250 of these ordinances in other communities, so we’re hard-pressed to understand why there’s foot-dragging here, but hopefully, approval will be given in coming weeks.

Meanwhile, supporters of the land transfer from county government to the Buehler Homes suggest that anything is better than what exists now, but that’s one step (a short one) away from the “anything goes” approach that plagues declining Memphis neighborhood.

There should be a better way. It should involve development of a master plan for the neighborhood in conjunction with University of Memphis planners, a CDC and neighborhood residents, the assembly of all city and county incentives, a city-county neighborhood design review team and involvement of civic resources like the CD Council, UrbanArt Commission and the AIA chapter.

In other words, it’s past time to quit talking about how important our neighborhoods are and do something to help them. It’s time to make them a priority and to concentrate our energy, focus our resources and engage our imagination to do something that sets national standards.

The Right Call

One thing for sure: there will be people at Monday’s board of commissioners meeting to urge a different way of doing business. The CD Council has expressed its concern about “Buehler’s track record of building unattractive and low-quality housing.” Another member said that if the company is given the 140 lots, it “totally undercuts the efforts of real transformation in our inner city/often historic neighborhoods.”

It’s likely that some North Memphis constituents and neighborhood redevelopment leaders will oppose the resolution Monday or at least ask for it to be evaluated within a larger context. We can only hope that the board of commissioners listens.

Walking In Memphis (The North Riverside Version)

2009-09-23T22:23:00.005-05:00

In response to our post earlier this week about the uninviting welcome that greets visitors to Memphis from the Riverside exit off I-40, a reader sent his photographic take on that stretch of grim landscape.

He emailed: "Check out the walk that tourists have from the welcome center to Mud Island, where many of them go. It starts with a view of a sea of parking lots, then uglier than sin garages and a Mud Island park in need of some tender loving care, from the streaked pylons holding up the tram to the ugly tin foil, etc., that greets visitors from the west. The whole area needs a facelift. Take a look."

First Impressions From North Riverside

2009-09-21T19:30:00.004-05:00

Art Park Paints A Better Picture Of Memphis

2009-09-20T23:40:00.002-05:00

My morning commute delivers me many days to downtown Memphis from the Riverside Drive exit of I-40. It’s the antithesis of the experience that greets me two miles away south when I enter downtown from the other end of Riverside Drive off I-55.

There, the spectacular view of the river and downtown unfailingly lifts my spirit and evokes my pride in our city. Meanwhile, the other end of Riverside Drive is unwelcoming, shabby and depressing.

It is a rare day that I don’t drive onto Riverside from the north that I don’t think of the Memphis Art Park. Coupled with a skate park on Mud Island, it has the power to redefine a riverfront desperately in need of vibrancy and to shake off the pervasive feeling of lethargy that greets visitors.

Turning Around

Beale Street Landing is an important piece in the puzzle and will change things at the foot of Beale, but in its own way, Memphis Art Park’s opportunity to shake up the area between Union and Floyd Alley and Front and Riverside has equal, if not more, potential. After all, most visitors to Memphis end up in this area looking at the most photographed location in our city – the Mississippi River.

They look eagerly for something to do – even if it’s just to buy a Coke or ice cream and enjoy the view. Often, they’re looking for anything to pass the time while they wait for a riverfront trolley whose posted schedule is irrelevant. (Q: When will the next trolley arrive? A: When you see it coming.) The idea of eating lunch in a restaurant where they can view the river is as alien as the Riverfront Development Corporation and Friends of our Riverfront issuing joint press releases.

Visitors are looking for something interesting to do – an activity, something with the opportunity for a personal experience, something that offers them the feeling of doing something special or finding something unexpected in a city know for its creativity but that often works hard to keep it under wraps.

When Memphis decided to turn its back on the river, it did so with a vengeance. But that’s a common tale for cities on American rivers. Riverfronts were rowdy, dirty and commercial, so cities didn’t place much value on them as iconic landmarks or competitive platforms for the future. They were simply ignored.

The Wrong Message

But we know better now. So it’s nothing short of astounding that the northern entrance to Riverside remains as dismal today as it did 30 years ago.

Driving off I-40, we are greeted with chain link fences that do little except to send the message that this must be a city with a lot of crime and little design ethos. The chain link fence on the west lines a parking lot and the chain link fence on the east follows the trolley line (and makes visitor’s walk from the Welcome Center to the Mud Island tram circuitous and indirect).

If this entrance into downtown is anything, it is a juxtaposition, killing the chance for a strong first impression.

Across from the Tennessee Welcome Center is an austere, crumbling oatmeal-colored, bunker-like parking garage whose better days are long past, and a large motor home seems perpetually parked there. There’s brief respite passing between Confederate and Jefferson Davis Parks, and about the same time that Mud Island comes into view on the right, there’s promising work taking place on the left as the old Custom House is being converted into the University of Memphis law school (and thanks to the Hyde Family Foundations, the face to the river is being made greener and more attractive).

Eyesores

But the boost doesn’t last long. Immediately past it are the ignored rear of the old Cossitt Library, another godawful garage facing the river and a parking lot and more fencing behind the first station – all of which would be transformed by Memphis Art Park. Finally, at Union and Riverside, where you expect a breath-taking experience, the high ground – Wagner Place - is lined with commercial garbage dumpsters and hundreds of parking spaces where green space and seating overlooking the river would be gifts to downtown.

Greater momentum for elimination of the prevailing ugliness on this section of the riverfront should be a cause that all of us could rally around. For now, we’ll start with Memphis Art Park.

Its creator, John Kirkscey, reminds us about what’s best about Memphis: the ability of one person with a dream and an entrepreneurial and creative spirit to inspire others to rally around him. Already, the Center City Commission has expressed support for the Art Park, joining an awful lot of people who live and work downtown and who work and enjoy our arts and culture scene.

The $30 million project would transform the heart of the riverfront (which dearly needs it), and it would become the most visited, most vibrant place in a downtown (which dearly needs it). A few years ago, when CEOs for Cities asked corporate CEOs what they most wanted out of a city, they said vibrancy.

Something Better

Unfortunately, vibrancy in downtown Memphis is few and far between, pretty much centered in the area of Beale Street, and it generally cranks up about the time that many people are going down for the night. Memphis Art Park would become another important anchor of vibrancy as the fire station, the parking garage and the Cossitt Library became a beehive of creativity, contributing to a culture of creativity that cities need today to succeed.

There are places for emerging artists, musicians, dancers, actors and filmmakers who could be celebrated and enjoyed. In Mr. Kirkscey’s words, “Memphis Arts Park would be a cultural beacon on our city’s doorstep and announce that Memphis is a distinctive arts destination.”

His conceptual plans – fleshed out by David Schuermann and Joey Hagan of Architecture, Incorporated – call for rehabilitating the library into a multi-purpose arts facility, including studios, film rooms, music rooms, gallery/exhibition/event space and a community arts resource center. It would also have a sculpture garden overlooking the river.

Best of all, the Art Park reimagines the Monroe garage so that it has murals, lighting, colored scrims, a green rooftop park and art plaza and a pedestrian bluff walk. Finally, the fire station headquarters – which has been slated for replacement by City of Memphis Fire Services – would become a community cinema, a performance venue, gallery and event space and a plaza for outdoor events. There also would be a grand staircase and fountain at Union and Riverside.

Planning The Dream

Fortunately, Mr. Kirkscey and his advocates are remaining nimble so alternates are being considered and suggestions are being welcomed. Already, a number of local organizations have expressed their interest in being part of the project, and hopefully, local government and local philanthropies will join hands to jump start the project.

To his credit, Mr. Kirkscey is doing more than offering up a dream. He has developed a 60-page plan complete with design ideas, costing, architectural renderings, operational philosophy and examples of successful similar projects in other cities.

At this point, we need to admit that we have a personal bias in this issue. Our office is a half block from the river on Union and faces the moribund fire station and the concrete walls that meet the sidewalk beside it.

It would be so good that when visitors to Memphis walking down Union to the river ask us what they can do, we could point across the street to a lively, active art park that reflects the best of what our city has to offer.

This Week On Smart City: Brick City And Blog Cities

2009-09-18T15:32:00.003-05:00

Smart City is talking to the executive producers of the Sundance channel series Brick City. Brick City is a five-part documentary series that fans out in Newark, New Jersey, to capture the daily drama of a community striving to become a better, safer and stronger place to live. The show follows the lives of the citizens of Newark including its mayor, Cory Booker as they work to re-make their city.

And we'll have a conversation with the mind behind the blog The Urbanophile. Aaron Renn is a leading urban affairs thinker and strategist in the midwest and his blog, The Urbanophile is a must read for people who are about cities. We'll talk to Aaron's about everything from city branding to the urban pecking order.

Smart City is a syndicated, weekly hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life: the people, places, ideas and trends that affect us all. Host Carol Coletta, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, talks with national and international public policy experts, economists, business leaders, artists, developers, planners and others on the pulse of city life for a penetrating discussion on urban issues.

Smart City is broadcast at 6 a.m. Saturday and Sundays on WKNO-FM, but it is also webcast and podcast so you can listen to it anytime you like. For the webcast, times for the broadcast in other cities and to sign up for the podcast, visit our website.

Answers Are Blowing In The Rhetorical Wind

2009-09-17T21:12:00.006-05:00

On a day when some of us are remembering the life of Mary Travers, it’s certainly not a time to condemn protesters and demonstrations, since she was inspiration for so many of them.

But we wouldn’t any way. What the city and the country need are more people willing to take to the streets to have their voices heard, and the fact that we disagree with the tea partiers does nothing to dampen our opinion that their protesting is good for democracy. In the market place of ideas, we predict that these protests will in time fade because of the risks attached to the excesses of its leadership, but that’s no reason to dismiss everybody with condescension, despite the unforgivable racist signs and comments by some of the participants.

But that’s the way it always is. In the midst of anti-war protests, there were always a couple of people who took it too far with their signs and their rhetoric. In gay pride marches, there were a couple of people who give every one else heartburn and get the message of the day askew.

In the end, the public’s good sense generally wins out, and the change takes place somewhere in the middle. It may take awhile, but screeds, irrationality and hateful name-calling kill off protesters’ chances to be heard and to have traction with the mainstream. Whether it’s the anti-tax Tea Party-goers, the birthers, or the town meeting health care hecklers on the right or the over-the-top sloganeering and the social media self-organizing of the left, it’s just too little these days about creating consensus on important public issues and too much about shouting each other down.

Change Changes Things

That’s the most frightening aspect of recent events. While invoking the names of our Founding Fathers and harkening back to supposedly inviolate American principles, protesters seem to look past the notion of e pluribus unum that sums up the supposed guiding principle for our nation’s crazy experiment in democracy.

We live in the world of talking heads who say one thing today and another tomorrow, and with little media fact checking, we are left searching for meaning in a swirl of hyperbole, situational politics and rhetorical blasts that stoke the base but burn up the chance for honest discussion. The Glenn Becks of the world create and then cover Tea Parties with a solemnity that suggests that he’s an objective bystander. (Of course, when President Bush was being portrayed as Hitler, he was aghast and enflamed, a condition he has apparently been cured of now.)

It is a frightening time for many people. Everything they thought was certain about their world feels upside down. A black man is president, gays are getting married, a wise Latina woman is on the Supreme Court, health care insurance will change, white men will become the new minority and Latinos will transform the country. They are left with little to do except to stand and scream as the tide overtakes them.

In a country where disillusionment is the coin of the realm, it’s also a highly combustible currency, and most of all, it shouts down reasoned debate and reasonable discussions about serious issues that are crucial for our future. The right has no exclusive claim to this behavior, and there are some on the left who are frustrated that President Obama is not moving quickly enough and is defending some of the policies of the Bush Administration that they abhor.

Ready To March

But, we hesitate to join the chorus at this time. It’s difficult at times to grasp the difference between campaigning and governing, between creating a base for election and creating a middle ground for your policies. Absurdist plots about a secret socialism conspiracies by the far right and continuing suggestions by the far left that President Bush is a war criminal do nothing so much as to divert us from the pressing tasks at hand. We seem so easily diverted by panem et circenses that are offered up reliably by to take our eyes off the ball.

Maybe, Aldous Huxley was right. It is indeed a Brave New World.

If it is, somehow, with in it, we have to find the means to rise above our identity as part of a special interest group and move beyond our own wedge issue to talk about what binds us together as a people and to find the common ground on which we all can stand.

As for us, we’ve wondered for eight years why more Americans weren’t out in the streets protesting tax policies that concentrated wealth among the well-connected and financial elites, many of the same people who now get multi-million bonuses after being bailed out by taxpayers less than a year ago.

Economic Dogma

For example, while some still genuflect at the altar of “tax cuts as magic answers” and passed more in 2001 and 2007, it’s incredulous to us that anyone is still willing to accept them as sound economic policy. In the past eight years, median household income declined to the lowest level since 1997, poverty climbed more than 50% and the number of insured Americans declined every year. The two terms of the Bush presidency were the only two in recent history in which income declined through eight years, and it predated the recession by seven years.

To our point, it may have taken six years, but the American people sorted it out. No one had to tell them that the recession began in 2007 although it took the Fed longer to figure it out. In the end, the on-the-ground understanding of an economy gone wrong resulted in the abysmal levels of support for the way the economy was being handled by the administration and voters delivered their inescapable message on Election Day.

So now, tea party-goers are incensed by the notion that health care reform could cost $1 trillion over 10 years, but we don’t remember complaints from them when the Bush Administration added that same amount to the deficit (without counterbalancing cuts) with its prescription plan for the government-run health care program that is Medicare. President Bush did veto the plan to expand health care to cover children, which contributed to the 21% increase in the uninsured during his terms.

In other words, we have a definite point of view, but we believe most Americans are like us: They’re willing to talk to anybody willing to find the common ground where all of us can gather to discuss the underlying challenges before us as a people. One thing seems widely held: It’s a tough time to be an average American. As our paychecks evaporate, the political bloviation condenses on our eye glasses, keeping us from seeing the political opportunism happening right in front of us.

Hate Bait

Former House leader Dick Armey, who helped lead the Republican Party into the wilderness, is now working hard at FreedomWorks to build tea party turnout while turning out the same kind of “line in the sand” messaging that he mastered in Congress. He intones that “liberals don't care what you do as long as it's mandatory,” although he led passage of numerous bills aimed at institutionalizing his personal values into law. The same kind of self-parody is equally lost on Moveon.org which sees every single Republican idea as a slippery slope toward fascism.

Our favorite protester, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said: “All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.” What’s lost most in the present climate of fear and loathing is not just civility, but a sense of mutuality that should bind us altogether in search of answers.

Some of us here are old enough to remember the unbridled hatred for President John F. Kennedy and Dr. King and its painful results. As Dr. King often said, there is room for debate and there is room for disagreement. There just is no room for hatred and objectifying the other side.

He said: “Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love."

Maybe there is indeed a way to get to the Promised Land where we renounce the pandering and the hate-mongers, where we agree that every one should have a voice and where we find ways that we can get back to the barn-raising values that have defined this country for so long.

Nashville Took Different Road With Merged Governments

2009-09-16T21:29:00.005-05:00

In the coming months, there were doubtlessly be lots of numbers batted back and forth as our community decides what it’s going to do about merging city and county governments.

Memphis regularly competes against Jacksonville, Nashville, Indianapolis and Louisville for business investments and new jobs, and they all are outperforming our city. They also just happen to have consolidated governments, which are hailed by their business leaders and their mayors as a seminal reason for their success.

Most bruising to our civic ego, however, are comparisons with Nashville. And to make matters worse, former mayors of Nashville – from Bill Purcell at Harvard University to Governor Phil Bredesen - said they counted themselves as lucky that Memphis never consolidated governments so it provided stronger competition.

The former mayors said that the reduced red tape, the simplifying the government structure and added responsiveness that came from a single vision and a single mayor were major competitive advantages for Nashville.

At the exact point that Nashville was passing consolidation and setting a different course for the future, Memphis was rejecting it. It's often pointed out here that there was a point where Memphis and Atlanta were comparable, and that while the Georgia capital made so many right decisions - from race to economic development - while our city decided to play it safe. The results are graphic and dramatic.

The same can be said about Memphis and Nashville except that our city was always "Big Shelby," the dominant force, the major economy and the big brother to the smaller, countrified city that was Nashville. And yet, it too made wise decisions that would shape the course of its history, and listening to historians there, a key one was the combining of Nashville and Davidson County governments.

Accepting this assessment, it’s instructive to compare a few key indicators for where our two cities are today:

High-performing city index
#144 – Memphis
#22 – Nashville

Most economically segregated
#38 – Nashville
#1 – Memphis

Jobs Growth, 2002-2007
#46 – Nashville
#117 – Memphis

Wages Growth, 2002-2007
#39 – Nashville
#110 – Memphis

Net new income, 1998-2007
#15 – Nashville
#134 – Memphis

We’ve written a lot about consolidation in the past four years, and without question, we’ll write even more in the coming year, but as this important discussion begins, it’s these numbers that we’re keeping in mind.

City Council Acts On Urge To Merge

2009-09-15T19:21:00.005-05:00

And we're off.

Today, Memphis City Council, which gets regularly beaten up by so many people, showed uncommon leadership in unanimously approving the creation of a charter commission. Hopefully, that commission will blow up all preconceived notions of what government is supposed to look like and will start all over to build a totally new government for our county.

With this vote, City Council set aside the misinformation being spread on the campaign trail for city mayor by the anti-consolidation candidates who are blind to the need to do something to shake up our government, our community's trends and our future.

City Council joined the Shelby County Board of Commissioners in signaling the go-ahead for a process that should be open, wide-ranging and imaginative. It should begin with an educational program to get everyone up to speed on what city-county consolidation could be if we dream big enough.

Put Out The Welcome Mat

It should be a process that welcomes all voices and all opinions. It should be about listening to the public and soliciting their opinions and it should be about giving people from all over Shelby County a seat at the table.

If there is a foundation to build this process on, we think it is that most people in our community want to have this conversation, to have a chance to talk about what better government could look like and ultimately to decide it at the polls.

To that end, and proving that hope springs eternal, we hope that the town mayors will show a willingness to engage in the debate rather than trying to shout it down.

The Moment

Just imagine.

If we are successful in creating a new government that most people can endorse, we could eliminate the inevitable moment in every meeting where someone says, "If only we were consolidated, we could..."

It’s the “consolidation moment,” the time when someone holds up the merger of city and county governments as the answer to all that ails our city.

Frequently mentioned in these merger moments is the poster child of all things virtuous when it comes to Memphians’ perceptions of consolidation – Nashville. But these days, Louisville is more and more added to the mix.

Power Of Popularity

But Nashville and Louisville did have one thing in common that proved pivotal to passage of consolidation – wildly popular political leaders who set consolidation as their priority and put all of their political chips on the table to get the merger passed by the voters.

In Nashville in 1962, it was the dominating influence of Davidson County Judge Beverly Briley. The Nashville Mayor, Ben West, was distrusted by voters outside of Nashville, who came to see the referendum as a vote of confidence for either Briley or West. That was critical, because consolidation in Nashville, like Memphis, had to be passed in a dual vote of Nashville voters and non-Nashville voters.

It's why Shelby County Mayor AC Wharton - complete with intimidating poll numbers and war chest - is possibly the pivotal figure in our long-time quest for consolidated government. And with Mayor Herenton out of office, the merger proposal is free of the personality politics that dominated this question in the past.

Modernizing Government

In Louisville, the political realities were just the opposite of Nashville’s. In Kentucky, consolidation is passed when a majority of all voters in the county approve it, so there’s only one vote total. There, the wildly popular former Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson – with a 90+ percent approval rating – led the fight for consolidated government and became its first mayor.

Unlike many cities, there was no crisis or scandal in Louisville that served as the catalytic event for consolidation. Instead, it was all about creating a modern government structure that would make the city more competitive, more entrepreneurial and more successful.

There were no claims that consolidation would result in big savings and instead, the business and political leadership made it a vote of confidence about the future of their hometown.

Keep It Vague

The pro-consolidation campaign spent about $2 million while anti-consolidation forces ran a shoestring campaign that was regularly derided by the news media.

Like Memphis, Louisville had been pursuing consolidation without success for decades - 23 years there. Voters turned it down in 1982 and 1983. In 2000, consolidation passed 56% for and 44% against.

The most striking lesson for Memphis in the Louisville vote is the reminder of how simple our governmental structure is. The most obvious contradiction to the widely held perception that we are hopelessly complicated here is this: There are 8 governments in Shelby County; there were 118 local governments in Jefferson County.

Back to Nashville, it was the first Tennessee city to put consolidation on the ballot after passage of the 1953 constitutional amendment that allowed merged governments. That same amendment set up the dual majority requirement that has been the formidable hurdle that has to be cleared here for success.

We’re Not Alone

By the way, the last consolidation votes in Memphis were in 1962 and 1971. In one of those votes, the merger failed because it was voted down outside of Memphis, but in the other, it was voted down both inside and outside of Memphis.

By way of reference, the civic frustration caused by failed consolidation votes is not limited to Memphis. It failed at the ballot box in Knoxville in 1958, 1978, 1983 and 1996. Chattanooga voted it down in 1964 and 1970. It also was voted down in Jackson in 1987, Clarksville in 1981 and Bristol in 1982 and 1988.

Besides Nashville, it’s only passed in two other counties, Lynchburg/ Moore, in 1987 and Hartsville/Trousdale in 2000, with respective populations of 4,700 and 2,400.

It is nonetheless something we need to pursue, because Memphis has to do something dramatic to change a trajectory that is headed in the wrong direction, something dramatic to shake off a largely negative national media image and something dramatic to make local government as sophisticated as the economy that our community seeks to compete in.

One Last Fact

Let's get to one of government's favorite points - the proverbial bottom line.

Today, Memphis languishes in the bottom rungs of most economic indicators that matter, and as important, our national image languishes just as much as we are portrayed as divided, conflicted and in an economic freefall.

As a result, we need nothing less than a fundamental game changer for our community - something dramatic, something that serves notice that we've set out in a new direction and something that shows that we are committed to a bolder, more competitive future.

The passage of consolidation will do that, and that alone is enough of a reason to support it.

Music Video Pays Tribute To #37

2009-09-14T13:46:00.004-05:00

Here's a video recommendation from our good friend, Ken Neill, publisher of Memphis Flyer and Memphis magazine. It's a musical perspective about the health care debate.

Top Urban Thinkers

2009-09-14T13:42:00.002-05:00

Planetizen has announced results of its crowdsourcing experiment to rank the most influential urban thinkers of all time. Congratulations to our colleague Carol Coletta for making the list at #49.

Here's what Planetizen said:

The poll was active for one month, from August 7th to September 7th, 2009. We would never claim that this is a definitive list; voters were given free reign to submit and vote for whomever they liked. Our only caveat is that we cleared out a couple of submissions that were clearly in jest, such as "Jesus" (although I'm sure someone could make a legitimate argument for his influence on urban planning).

The other significant issue with this list that will surely be raised is the lack of women: only 7 out of the top 100 are female. This is countered somewhat by the impossibly wide lead by which Jane Jacobs takes the top spot. Those women who are included are an impressive crew, but of course, their are a significant number of women making a big difference in urban planning issues that aren't on the list.

The thinkers that are here are a fascinating bunch, ranging from planners of the past like Baron Haussmann, the civic planner that changed the face of Paris in the 19th century, to active thinkers of today like Scott Bernstein, President and Co-Founder of the Center for Neighborhood Technology. And to be honest, there were a handful of names that we didn't know. We hope that you'll also find a lot to chew on in these biographies, and we invite your comments.

Broken Government Calls For Change Agents

2009-09-13T22:09:00.005-05:00

The listening tour on merging governments was based on a central premise: the business models for Memphis and Shelby County Governments are broken.

There may be disagreements about seemingly everything related to merging city and county governments, but surely there is no dispute about this.

After all, county government traces its roots back to the days of ox carts on English mud roads and the vestiges of these origins are seen in the structure that remains in place today. Until the 1970s, Shelby County Government still had squires heading the legislative branch and three commissioners and chairman of the County Court over administrative functions that conflicted and overlapped. The county mayor’s office was created in 1976 to correct these problems, but a government filled with fiefdoms answering to various elected officials and a plethora of boards remain.

About a decade earlier, City of Memphis streamlined its structure to eliminate a similar multi-headed administrative structure. Until then, commissioners headed up various parts of the city administration and one them served as mayor. In 1966, the commission form of government was replaced with the mayor-council form, and today’s city government is largely unchanged from that time.

Culture Change

In other words, city government was last modernized back when all prime time television began broadcasting in color. And yet, that same structure operates today in a world measured in nanoseconds and in instantaneous communications unimaginable back then. It’s hard to think of any organization other than government that has been so resistant to the kind of transformative change that is needed to cope with the changing realities over those years.

At a time when Memphis itself needs leap frog strategies to shake off its low rankings in key economic indicators, the change should start with improvements to city government itself. Hopefully, city-county merger will be approved after a comprehensive education campaign in the coming year, and even if it is, it will be several years transitioning to it.

As a result, the new mayor needs to begin immediately upon taking the oath of office to overhaul the culture of City Hall and to improve its operations. Contrary to conventional wisdom, city government does not spend more money per capita on its services than the other governments in Shelby County. In fact, it spends less than most of them.

Despite that, as the city government efficiency study pointed out, there are some fundamental changes that can save millions of dollars. In other words, on the first day, the new mayor should begin to implement the recommendations in a study that was quickly put on a shelf in the mayor’s office with all the others pointing out ways to improve operations.

Change Should Be In The Air

On the second day, the new mayor should order that Memphis will throw out its website and its technology planning and start over. This time, the objective should be to develop the best 21st century e-government, to put every government report online, to develop a website that allows citizens to do everything on line that is done at a counter and to get serious about the application of GIS mapping that brings with it more accountability. There’s a point at which it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the websites of local government are intentionally unnavigable and impenetrable. It’s just too hard to make websites that have as little value to their visitors.

On the third day, the new mayor should set up an innovative program to identify and empower changes agents who can shake up things and becomes forces for change throughout city government.

In other words, the new mayor’s first three days should be devoted entirely to culture change. There’s no more powerful message that the mayor can send, because so much of that person’s success will depend on a City Hall culture that has been leaderless for years.

It’s impossible to imagine any company whose CEO has left after 18 years that would not engage in a top-to-bottom evaluation of the organization and its services and would not draw up an actionable plan to generate new energy and new focus on its core business.

That’s exactly what the new mayor needs to do.

No Risk, No Pain

It’s hard to imagine that the next mayor won’t face the Obama dilemma. There’s so much that has been left untended, there’s so much that has been done wrong and there are so many challenges pressing for attention. So the mayor needs to set priorities carefully, because it’s easy to be pulled off message and off target.

While government is always tough and frustrating on agents of change, a city government with the same mayor for 18 years is especially so. As a result, there’s the widespread feeling now that the best way to get ahead is to adopt a no-risk approach to your work. It’s largely a fact of life in the public sector at every level that if you take no risk, it’s the safest way to move up.

Of course, innovation requires risk. New ideas require risk. But, there is no reward for taking a chance and striking out in government. It’s not a laboratory. There’s no R & D. There’s often not another chance to experiment, because the punishment for mistake can be high, so the safe, take no chances approach works best for lifers.

That has to change, because it’s a zero sum game. Government ends up with a lot of people who learn to play the game, people who learn to play it safe and people who learn that it’s best to just say no. Taxpayers end up with a government that innovates too little and costs too much.

Volcanic Designs

So, for us, the challenge for the next mayor is not just to pick creative people to fill the chief administrative officer and directors’ jobs. It is also to develop a change agent program for City Hall.

Such a program requires three things: a thoughtful design, the careful recruitment and development of personnel and close integration between the change agent team and the areas targeted for transformation.

There are two options for the new mayor for such a program – centralized or decentralized. The centralized team answers directly to top management and the other leaves the change agents in their respective areas with a reporting relationship to a change agent leader. We’d vote for the second approach for city government for a variety of reasons

We’re not saying that there are no potential change agents in city government. In truth, there are, but they lie dormant like volcanoes, looking for the right conditions to have any impact. There needs to be a mix of existing employees willing to flourish as change agents and new employees with specific experience that’s needed – like human resources, technology and communications.

Key Change

All of this reminds us of how important a mayor’s role is in driving change. It is so easy to settle for incremental improvement when it’s transformation that is needed. That’s why just like in the private sector, there is no substitute for CEO leadership.

If there are applicable lessons from the private sector, they are that the CEO is key to making the change meaningful, because people will work hard for causes they believe in, so it’s up to the leader to inspire workers that they are involved in something important. Then, there is the behavior of the CEO, who needs workers to emulate it and whose own personal commitment to the objectives drives change. Finally, the CEO needs to appoint a dedicated management team that also embodies the change they hope to produce.

That’s because there’s no message as strong to city government employees as understanding the personal story of the transformation as explained by the mayor. In this way, it’s not about powerpoint presentations, but about “management by walking around” and clear explanations of why change is necessary (including stories of the mayor’s own experiences).

As countless business research has shown, there is absolutely no substitute for a CEO directing energy toward the right targets and making the transformation relevant and meaningful to every worker.

It’s tough in business. It’s even harder in government. But it is nonetheless absolutely vital. That’s why it has to be top priorities for the next mayor. `

Our Region: Built To Last?

2009-09-10T14:51:00.001-05:00

Here's the winner The Congress for New Urbanism contest. This short film explores the connection between New Urbanism and environmental issues, all of which is especially pertinent to Memphis and our region. Click here for film.

Code Red: A Time For A Change

2009-09-09T22:27:00.006-05:00

Reform.

It’s one of those words used so often by politicians that it’s almost lost all meaning. It’s right up there with world-class, state-of-the-art, public-private partnership, new paradigm, and summit. For once, reform is precisely the right word to describe the new development code now being written for Memphis and Shelby County.

That's because the new Unified Development Code is about more than good land use. More to the point, it is about good government.

That’s precisely why the next six months is a time to be on high alert from pressures by special interests who have all but owned the local zoning apparatus for more than a decade. They controlled the process to the point that one boasted that on any given day, he could deliver seven votes (a majority) in either local legislative body, another has co-signed car loans and given rides on his private jet to elected officials, and both have been involved in real estate dealings with the same politicians who vote on their zoning cases.

The Catch

Therein lies the Catch-22. This new way making land use decisions requires the approval of the Memphis City Council and Shelby County Board of Commissioners.

Sometime in the coming months, these 26 legislators will be asked to pass the new Unified Development Code written by nationally respected planners Lee Einswiler and Colin Scaff of Austin for the Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development. The new Code would reform what is most wrong with the present system, replacing the current politicized process with one where politicians set policy and professional planners decide on zoning requests.

The subverting of the present system stems largely from the misuse of PD’s (Planned Development) and the takeover of the Land Use Control Board by developers. Designed to replace existing zoning districts with innovative development, PD’s were intended to be rare and allowed because of important public benefits, such as increasing open space or protecting the environment.

Instead, in Memphis and Shelby County, unlike the rest of the nation, PD’s are the rule, not the exception, and normally, the underlying zoning isn’t even changed, so there is land with agricultural zoning that is covered with cookie cutter development.

Subverting The System

To make matters worse, local PD applications are treated as special exemptions, because that section of the law has weaker requirements for notifying the public and neighborhood groups. Their clout was weakened even more in the mid-1990’s when Mayors Herenton and Rout - ignoring pleas from neighborhoods for more representation - loaded up the public board that votes first on zoning applications, the Land Use Control Board, with employees, friends and even relatives of developers, to the point where even today, only one member represents neighborhoods.

With this takeover by developers in the late '90's, the percentage of times the board overturned its own professional staff's recommendations about PDs climbed to 70 percent - and in only one year.

Creations of Memphis and Shelby County’s fatally flawed zoning process is all around us. The sewer extension to the Gray’s Creek basin was driven by politics and built without a plan in place. The plan for Germantown Parkway was never adopted as official government policy and amendments began before the ink was dry, giving birth to seemingly endless succession of derivative strip malls and traffic-clogged streets. Future Hickory Hills cover the landscape of the unincorporated areas of Shelby County, where they are testament to politically-based zoning that allows a quality of housing so poor that it requires reinvestment before mortgages are paid.

Meanwhile, construction of Highway 385 on the eastern fringe of Shelby County nears completion, and incredibly, once again, there is no limit to what developers can do there.

The Difference

So, what difference could the new Unified Development Code make?

* It could correct the questionable governance issues in the system now.

* It could throw out cookie cutter rules that tend to urbanize the suburbs and suburbanize the city.

* It could give incentives for mixed income, mixed age and mixed use neighborhoods so people can age in place.

* It could remove disincentives for investing in the urban core.

* It could create more open space and preserves trees. It would give incentives for higher densities that support retail, churches, and services.

* It could encourage development that is less auto-oriented and more walkable.

A Reform Vote

In other words, it is a revolutionary idea for Memphis and Shelby County, ending an era of “slash and burn” profiteering and swinging the pendulum strongly toward smart growth and good government.

It may be hard for some City Council and Board of Commissioners to reform local system and wean themselves from the steady stream of campaign contributions that flow from the development industry, but it's a vote for reform that every neighborhood group will be watching.

Taking The Best Road To The Future, Figuratively And Literally

2009-09-07T20:51:00.006-05:00

It doesn’t take much reading of this blog to know that we are deeply concerned by the pursuit of highways at the expense of our urban core’s health, priorities influenced too much by the usual suspects and the tendency for the asphalt lobby to determine the quality life of our community.

That may very well be about to come to an end, because the Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development – through the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) – is about to launch a process unlike any undertaken to set transportation priorities – the Mid-South Transportation and Land Use Plan.

This new approach makes our comments last week almost prescient when we said that despite the imbalance of the governing body of the organization, the MPO staff makes the best of a trying situation.

But this new way of producing the long-range transportation plan is better than that. It’s a break from the past and sends the message that DPD is lean, mean and dead serious about a plan that is developed better, with public participation that is stronger and with options for the future that are wiser.

Fortunes Foretold

It’s worth mentioning that the staff members were instrumental in the development of the Sustainable Shelby report which will be released this Thursday, September 10, at 5:30 p.m. at Bridges, 477 N. Fifth. The report is unique -- not only is it the region’s first sustainability plan of action, but it is the first plan issued on DVD, complete with a poster and audio interviews.

But back to the transportation plan: there has been a tendency in long years past for it to be more of a perfunctory process. At times, there was almost the feeling that the projections were merely being updated but the goal was the same: to build more and more lanes of traffic.

This new, improved year-long process – named Imagine 2035 – will take a 25-year look in the crystal ball for the region, including land use, population growth (and relocation), and more. Best of all, there is a deadly serious effort to engage the public using Facebook, a website, a blog and kiosks. In addition, MPO is looking for ways to involve people like the action-oriented local chapter of the Urban Land Institute and the Coalition for Livable Communities representing 100 neighborhood groups.

Most encouraging of all is that the platform for developing this transportation plan is about a regional vision and scenario planning. In this way, it can become a force in moving a region known for talking the talk to one walking the walk. That’s why it’s good that a crucial part of the plan is about determining community values and then developing a plan based on those values and regional conversations about our vision for the future.

Scenarios For Future

We are particularly partial to scenario planning, and in our work with Leadership Memphis, its class members developed some intriguing scenarios for the city and the region (we'll always like the one about making Memphis the "FedEx of cities). It was a much abbreviated process but working with Peter Bishop, a Houston futurist who leads scenario planning processes for Fortune 500 companies, it pointed out how scenario thinking can produce entirely new ways of seeing the future. As a result, we’re looking forward to its use in this planning process.

This new way of planning is a breakthrough, because it reaches beyond the special interests to the public interest, and because of it, there is a way to raise questions about how to make I-269 positive for the entire region (read Memphis) and what transportation is needed for the shrinking city that is Memphis (and is likely to include Shelby County in this 25-year window).

DPD and MPO deserve kudos for this different – and much-improved - approach to priority-setting and regional planning. It is unquestionable that it won’t be easy, but it is pivotal that it succeeds if we are to have a clear roadmap to the future and to determine what is just the right amount of transportation to remain true to our values and to ensure an overall positive quality of life for the next generation.

Changing Course

In this way, this new approach by MPO planners seems to be moving in the direction set out in the platform of Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton in his campaign for city mayor. His “transportation and connectivity” plank said:

“The Wharton Administration will adopt a ‘complete streets’ philosophy for all transportation plans and neighborhood redevelopment programs policy so every street plan has to include alternative transportation options for safe, attractive, and comfortable access for pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, and public transit.

“It emphasizes bike lanes, wide shoulders, crosswalks, and street plantings. In addition, transportation decisions for the Wharton Administration will not be focused on cars but on healthy urban neighborhoods. To complement this approach, Mayor Wharton will urge the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) to move from acting as a planning organization to become a more visionary agency acting on the shared values of the community and what we want Memphis to be and asking the tough questions about sprawl.”

All of this is music to our ears and the ears of any one concerned with a more livable city and healthier neighborhoods. As the front runner for election as Memphis mayor, a city bully pulpit could give him more clout to change things than his county office, and barring a major upset, he could get the chance to profoundly change the way that our city – and our region – addresses transportation issues.

Strong First Steps

We asked him what he meant by his ambitions for MPO to become a “more visionary agency acting on the shared values of the community,” and he said that rather than finding out that federal funding is available for this many roads, that many bridges and that much resurfacing, he hopes the federally-mandated transportation planning agency will instead look beyond what money is available to whether the project in the end contributes to the long-range vision of the region and the benefit of its citizens.

This transportation planning process sounds like it’s a strong first step in that direction. Best of all, staff members of MPO have developed ties to local “green” groups, the biking community and to the Community Development Council, all of which have the ability to turn out the public to speak on smart growth, sustainable building patterns and wise land use policy.

In the end, this serious citizen engagement and regional visioning could well be more important than the plan itself. Stay tuned.

Labor Day Musing

2009-09-06T14:30:00.001-05:00

Fair Enough

We’re willing to support the Delta Fair and Music Festival – it’s a few minutes drive from most of us – but only when its organizers either put up or shut up about how unsafe the midtown Mid-South Fair was. It's time to produce the statistics to prove the point.

And we’re assuming that out in the green fields of Agricenter International, the fair has no vandalism, car break-ins or other nuisances. Apparently, unlike midtown Memphis, out there, all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.

Trouble Over Bridging Water

Newspaper coverage often makes for interesting juxtaposition. In one article in The Commercial Appeal last week, Airport Authority chairman Arnold Perl said a third bridge over the Mississippi River is needed because it would be economically devastating to the region if the I-40 (and I-55) bridges were knocked out by a catastrophe like an earthquake.

The headline on another article that same day: Seismic work will reduce lanes on I-40 bridge.

Making Our Own Talent

Reid Dulberger, manager of Memphis ED, was right when he said recently that once the recession is over, Memphis will have a talent shortage.

"We're going to be in a position much like the late '90s," he says. "Before the tech bubble burst, if you were in information technology, you wrote your own ticket. I don't know if the market will swing that dramatically, but it will swing in that direction."

He's right and it reminds us of how serious we need to get about developing our own talent, because unlike almost all of the 50 largest metros, we are not lacking the raw material. That’s because we have an aberration in our demographics here when compared to our competitors – we have a bulge in people younger than 21 years old.

In other words, while Mr. Dulberger is working hard to supply current businesses with the workers they need now, all of us need to get deadly serious about how we can move this bulge in young people into college-educated adults who can compete for knowledge economy jobs. If we can do this, while other cites are begging for workers, we would have ours.

Queries

If the founders of the nation had been conservatives, would we still be part of England?

Is it possible for either political party to be consistent? When the majority becomes minority and vice versa, they simply exchange talking points. They say the same things that their opponents used to say, and they do it without even a hint of irony, apparently depending on the rest of us to have 20-second attention spans.

Do most people have a clue what socialism really is?

What is the problem with Texas? Apparently, the anger and hostility that characterized the JFK era is still alive and well.

We thought it was good when President Bush I spoke to students, so we’re baffled about why it’s now such a big deal. Or is it because of the onslaught of talk radio and TV since the Bush era?

If the town mayors are so sure their citizens despise consolidation, why do they seem so scared of having a vote?

Is there any way that City Attorney Elbert Jefferson can now foresee an outcome that works to his benefit?

This Week On Smart City: Love And Goodness

2009-09-06T14:26:00.001-05:00

As that old Captain and Tenille song says "Love Will Keep Us Together" but Smart City is finding out how love can also be a primary economic driver for cities. My guest Larry Beasley is the founder of Beasley and Associates, an international planning consultancy. Larry will tell us about planning cities based around an emotional response.

And we'll find out how to make the world a better place with Jonathan Greenblatt. Jonathan runs the organization allforgood.org and he'll tell us about the new venture which he describes as a Craigslist for social good.

Smart City is a syndicated, weekly hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life: the people, places, ideas and trends that affect us all. Host Carol Coletta, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, talks with national and international public policy experts, economists, business leaders, artists, developers, planners and others on the pulse of city life for a penetrating discussion on urban issues.

Smart City is broadcast at 6 a.m. Saturday and Sundays on WKNO-FM, but it is also webcast and podcast so you can listen to it anytime you like. For the webcast, times for the broadcast in other cities and to sign up for the podcast, visit our website.

Nothing To Fear But The Fear Of Facts Themselves

2009-09-03T20:37:00.002-05:00

Shelby County Board Chairman David Pickler has scheduled four more meetings to spread his myths about single source funding of public education.

His fear offensive is being seen by many people outside Memphis for what it is – disingenuous, misleading and one-sided. Seldom have been numbers mangled as much or facts warped as cleverly as Mr. Pickler has done in his presentation.

Meanwhile, a reader emailed us to suggest that Memphians - who pay twice for schools while every one else in Shelby County pays once - should show up at these dog and pony shows on September 21 at Bartlett High School; September 22 at Millington High School; September 29 at Southwind High School; and October 5 at Arlington High School.

After all, Memphians pay roughly 65 percent of the costs of county schools, and Mr. Pickler should have to answer questions from the people who pay most of his bills.

Here’s some of ours:

1) What is fair about Memphians paying twice for public schools if no one else does?

2) Why shouldn't public education be funded the same way through the entire county - from the largest tax base, county government's?

3) Why is it that you are always the one who finds impossible to be a collaborative partner in any effort to improve our community?

4) Why do you portray this as a “we versus them” issue when all of us are county taxpayers and we all should be treated the same by county government?

5) Why is it wrong for Memphians to ask to be treated just like “county” residents?

6) Can you spell “fairness?”

Great Beaches Labor Day Surfing

2009-09-03T18:34:00.008-05:00

Some folks are picking our their beach reading for the Labor Day weekend, so in case you're where there's wi-fi, here are some ideas.

We continue to live vicariously through Revolutions Bike Shop's Anthony Siracusa on his pedaling adventure. He made it to Amsterdam today, and you can read his account on his blog as he explores the way that bicycling connects and shapes a city’s character.

Speaking of bicyclists, Cort Percer, who works at the Peddler on Highland has a biking blog of his own. We especially enjoyed his post that included Live From Memphis video about Revolutions Bicycle Shop. Thanks to his mother, Suzanne Allen, for recommending the blog and the video.

The Memphis Music Magnet project continues to take shape under the direction of Charlie Santo and the University of Memphis' outstanding Graduate Program in City and Regional Planning. The neighborhood revitalization project in the Soulsville neighborhood is a fascinating experiment in place-making, using arts and culture, history and creativity as the instruments for the rebirth of the area. A new website updates us on the project's progress.

In support of our call for a guerrilla bike lane movement, Mary Fryman sent us information about a bike accessory that leaves chalk marks on the road behind bicyclists. It's a way to reclaim part of the road as shared space as cyclists mark their territory, and it's a great adjunct to the night-time bike lane accessory.

We remain impressed by the progress that Margot McNeely has made with Project Green Fork. It seems that it was just a few months ago that she had begun her pilot project to certify Memphis restaurants for their sustainability practices, and now, there are a dozen and growing. If only she could get some support from City of Memphis with a real commercial recycling program, the full impact of the program could be felt.

Mike Hollihan sent us the link to a fascinating talk by Stanford economist Paul Romer about his concept of "charter cities" that can break free of poverty and old rules. It's provocative and timely. By the way, Mr. Hollihan's work on the Main Street Journal website makes it a regular place for us to get an overview of the important news in Memphis.

Finally, if you haven't visited Live From Memphis lately, there's always something new and provocative there from Christopher Reyes and Sarah Fleming.

Aerotropolis Redux

2009-09-02T17:53:00.004-05:00

It’s hard for any of us these days to maintain context in the midst of information overload and instant communications.

So, we are naïve in thinking that readers are able to place a specific post into an overall context on the blog that can go back years.

Take aerotropolis, for example.

It was in June, 2006, that we made our first post suggesting that our community should give a priority to an aerotropolis plan, and it was December, 2006, that we saluted the Greater Memphis Chamber for doing so. While we may think that people know that we were talking about an aerotropolis long before most people here, it’s clear we are wrong.

Context Matters

One of our local heroes – and a friend to die for as well – called today because she said our post two days ago about the aerotropolis wasn’t fair or complete. There’s no one in Memphis we admire more, and because she’s involved in aerotropolis, we’ve had a comfort level in the development of a plan that builds on Memphis’ distinctiveness.

Perhaps, we don’t remind people of the total context often enough. Again, just because we said it three years ago doesn’t mean that anyone remembers it now or necessarily read it then. More to the point, the people guiding this project – and so many in our city - are largely volunteers, and if anything, Memphis needs more DIY efforts, not less. As we say to distraction, we’re sure, our concerns here generally are that we emphasize transportation here at the expense of all the other elements that make cities successful. That does not mean that we are opposed to aerotropolis (unlike I-269), and we thought we’d made that point earlier this week.

And while we’re at it, it’s worth saying that in criticizing the appalling imbalance on the Metropolitan Planning Organization (a fact highlighted in a Brookings Institution report of MPOs across the U.S.), we are not criticizing the staff people who do their best to serve this city in such a taxing environment. And when we are frustrated about the quality of public decisions, we are not ignoring the difficult conditions in which those decisions are made and how our city’s regressive tax structure pits every one against each other for crumbs from the table.

We hear from a lot of people as a result of these posts, and we are grateful to them for taking the time to email or call. We heard from them when we defended the town mayors from charges of being racist, and it was said that we were too kind to them based on their obstructionism to government merger. We heard from one person who said we were too hard on David Pickler. We heard from people that said we went soft on Senator Paul Stanley after his confessional. We heard from people who said we hated kids because we commended Memphis City Council's decision on schools. We hear from people who say we’re brilliant, and we hear from people who say we are terminally stupid.

Our Stakes In The Ground

If you read this blog much, you know that we are resolute on several issues – walkable neighborhoods, balanced transportation policy, new approaches to economic growth, the devastating effects of sprawl, the overriding importance of talent in our future success, DIY grassroots city-building, visionaries who are working throughout the city, the need to get the conversation right here and the imperative to address the facts honestly and opinions candidly.

But there's something else. As we have written, no one is one-dimensional – oh, well, with the exception of Dick Cheney maybe. No, no, before you email, we’re just kidding. Along with our resolute opinions, we have another that says absolutely that no one is one-dimensional, and while we may criticize a policy or critique a program or suggest an alternative, it is not intended to be a slam at someone unless we clearly say it is.

In answer to the people who email and say that we need to name names and call a spade a spade, it seems like a good time to reiterate why we do it so rarely. We want to talk about policies, and too often, much in Memphis is defined in terms of personalities, and as soon as someone’s name is mentioned, people take sides based on their opinion of that person.

We were also reminded today that perception matters, and that people can and do read the tone of our posts differently from the tone in which we think they have been written and that people often overlay their own emotions and opinions on them. That clearly was the case with the aerotropolis post, in which we thought we were mainly reporting on Council members’ comments and the overall challenge of finding Memphis’ unique niche in a world seeking the same “airport city” objective.

It’s About Alignment

Also, we report that we were told today that aerotropolis is about more than economic development and transportation, and that the committee is paying equal attention to livability issues, neighborhood redevelopment, urban core jobs growth and city marketing. We were delighted to hear it.

At any rate, we appreciated the call today as we appreciate the number of emails and calls we get each week. And we repeat something we haven’t said for awhile: if you want to write a guest blog, please send it to us. We’re trying to have a conversation, not a conversion.

Here’s the June, 2006, post about aerotropolis:

Would someone in city or county governments please buy copies of the current issue of Fast Company for members of the Memphis and Shelby County Industrial Development Board?

While you are at it, mark the article, “Rise of the Aerotropolis,” which tells of the airport-cities that are being created around the globe. It’s an article of special interest to Memphis as world headquarters for FedEx, the corporation that invented global commerce as we know it.

The article makes some compelling points:

• Over the past 30 years, the value of air cargo has risen 1,395 percent, compared to the GDP’s increase of 154 percent and the value of world trade’s increase of 355 percent.

• Today, 40 percent of the total economic value of all goods in the world and 50 percent of American goods are shipped by air.

• Virtually everything associated with the value-added economy – technology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices – is transported by air.

Airport-cities

The aerotropolis is a new thrust for urban planning in several world cities, notably Asian ones, where, rather than banish airports to the outer reaches of cities, airports are moved to the center where cities are built around them. American cities are seen as falling behind in the development of these centers, because of our NIMBY sensitivity and zoning restrictions.

But perhaps, just as FedEx created world commerce, it can create a new future for the area around Memphis International Airport as a competitor for the aerotropolises developing in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok and Dubai. Rather than becoming a force driving sprawl like it is in these places, perhaps the distinctive U.S. brand of the airport-city could be invented here in Memphis.

According to the article, Memphis already has a rudimentary version of the aerotropolis along with Dallas and Ontario, California, with Denver and Detroit planning developments right now.

Architect of the aerotropolis concept is John Kasarda, a University of North Carolina business professor, who sees it as the logical evolution of globalization writ within a city context. While parts of his crystal ball forecasting into the future conjures up the unfeeling, robotic, gray world captured in so many apocalyptic films where people become mere dispensable cogs in the unrelenting global economic machinery, a uniquely American version of the aerotropolis is not only possible, but preferable to those in far flung parts of the globe.

Absolutely, Positively

But what does this have with the IDB? Here’s the part that made us think of tax freeze policies.

The article says that “the closest thing to an aerotropolis in America today is Memphis International Airport, home for 25 years to FedEx,” adding that Memphis has led the world for 14 years in a row as the airport with the most air cargo, outdistancing powerhouses like Amsterdam and Tokyo.

Delivering the Memphis Regional Chamber’s sales pitch for it, Fast Company points out the distinct advantages of being located in Memphis where companies have midnight or 1 a.m. drop-off deadlines for FedEx, compared to 9 p.m. on the East Coat and 4 p.m. on the West Coast.

In a nation too often defined by a bi-coastal perspective, Memphis has a competitive advantage unmatched in the world – FedEx’s drop-off deadlines and the extra hours of production given to companies here.

Proximity Matters

Joe Ferreira, FedEx’s managing director of hub-area business development, is quoted in the article as saying that she “routinely juggles the requests of as many as 40 to 50 companies jockeying for space around Memphis and smaller hubs.”

“Proximity matters more and more to them,” she says, and Memphis offers an ideal combination of inexpensive, semiskilled labor, acres of turnkey warehouse space and the junction of three states all fighting for their business.

“But the biggest driver,” Ferreira says,” is the growing urge that when we want something, we want it now. And as soon as one company relocates here or to any of our hubs, the next thing that happens is that three or four of its competitors come calling.”

Fast Company says that “while Memphis might qualify for a proto-aerotropolis, with the FedEx hub providing just enough gravity to keep its customers from spinning out of orbit into Mississippi or Arkansas, few other American cities are even remotely ready to build their own analogues.”

Magnetic FedEx

So, once again, we’re told the obvious: FedEx is the ultimate economic magnet for Memphis. Its gravitational pull attracts smart companies that understand that by locating here, they get a competitive advantage found nowhere else, the competitive advantage of a longer, direct connection with the global economy made possible by the inventors of overnight air cargo delivery.

So, with this unmatchable competitive advantage, the obvious question for the IDB is why is it still handing out tax freezes as if we aren’t good enough to attract business otherwise?

City Engineer Weighs In On Walkable Cities Post

2009-09-02T15:51:00.003-05:00

Memphis City Engineer Wain Gaskins posted this comment to today's walkable cities post, and out of respect for him and his salient point about the role of zoning, we wanted to give it equal billing here:

As with many of the blog posts, engineering gets far more credit that we deserve. It is important to note that the Engineering Division does not do zoning.

We address issues created by zoning and follow zoning regulations when reviewing impacts on the public infrastructure. Engineering reviews the plans submitted by the developers.

I do not recall the Engineering Division designing cul-de-sacs in neighborhoods which is allowable by the subdivision regulations. We like connectivity of streets.

We assure that sidewalks are a part of the public improvements. We would have lobbied for a sidewalk wider than the one shown in the picture at the top of your blog to accommodate the volume of pedestrians. We can only make sure the sidewalk is there for use.

Planning and zoning determines if there is anything to walk to. Engineering is supportive of the upcoming UDC and has already started applying some if its principles prior to it being adopted. Engineering doesn’t decide if there is a mixed use of commercial, retail, residential, etc. We do look at street design/layout with safety in mind and that does include emergency vehicle access based on the requirements of the public safety divisions.

Engineering is not promoting bike routes over bike lanes as suggested in your blog. We are promoting whatever is the best fit for a particular corridor. This includes bike lanes, wide outside lanes, shared lanes, or none of the above.

We are always looking to improve while following regulations, laws and guidelines that are always evident to others.