I’d like to offer two:

1.  Memphis has too many blighted and abandoned buildings that need a champion to either refurbish or repurpose, or take down.

2. Memphians need to make sure we get our share of federal and state dollars floating around that would stimulate job growth and new revenue for the City.

Every now and then, those two concepts come together, as is the case with the 20-story abandoned hotel at 969 Madison in the Medical Center.  Abandoned for more than 15 years, many Memphians have no memory of it ever being a productive piece of real estate.

At one time, it was a vibrant hotel with a 400-plus space parking garage below.  Today, it sits at the northeast edge of the UT-Baptist Research Park, being developed by Memphis Bioworks Foundation.  My office in the 20 South Dudley Building sits almost next door.

Imagine the impact that building could have on the Medical Center if it were to return to use as a hotel.  One of the tallest buildings in the area would look better, scores of new jobs would be created (construction jobs at first and permanent hospitality jobs upon completion), there would be a host hotel for all of the people visiting patients or doing business within the Medical Center, and UT Health Science Center would have a hotel next door to campus.  In short, it is just the kind of catalyst to keep the development of this area of our city moving forward.

Anyone in the hotel business will tell you that now is a tough time to talk about development.  Recessions are not kind to travel plans.  So, that is where concept number 2 comes into play – wise use of Federal dollars to accomplish an important goal.

The City of Memphis and Memphis Bioworks Foundation recently received of a $2-million grant from The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as a part of funding for the hotel redevelopment and refurbishment.

The grant comes through the federal Brownfields Economic Development Initiative (BEDI), which targets abandoned or vacant buildings that have some kind of environmental contamination. The money is used for the cleanup as well as the revitalization of the structures.

According to HUD; these Brownfields which are often perceived as unproductive eyesores in their communities hold tremendous potential as sites for community revitalization.  Since 1998, HUD has made an investment of $171 million in BEDI grants and $761 million in companion Section 108-guaranteed-loans in 138 communities. These funds have leveraged another $1.2 billion in other public and private funds.

The total project cost for the hotel on Madison is $33.8 million.  The HUD grant is just one step in the process toward funding of the hotel development.

As a next step, the city of Memphis will seek an additional $4 million in Section 108 loan funds.  Of the total $33.8 million projected cost of developing the hotel, private equity will cover approximately $6 million of costs. New Market Tax Credits (another Federal program) will provide $8 million and traditional debt make will make up the balance.  While the hotel project still has some pieces that need to fall in place, it is a great example of public private partnership coming together for a common goal and of targeted application for dollars that we can bring into the community. The City will also benefit from the new jobs, sales tax, and other tax revenue that is projected to be over $800,000 per year.  From Memphis Bioworks perspective, we hope this is just one of many projects we can join city leaders in as we all seek to get our City’s fair share.

We seem unable to shake off one of our most serious examples of civic lethargy:  our tendency to take our most famous international export for granted as we talk about attracting and keeping creative workers – music.

Meanwhile, the rich get richer.

Up I-40, Nashville Mayor Karl Dean continues to drive new thinking about his city’s music industry, even to the point of gutsily suggesting that perhaps the county vibe was turning off creative types that the city needs.   In response, he appointed the Nashville Music Council, a group of 50 high-profile musicians and industry leaders, with the audacious goal of making Nashville “the friendliest, most supportive city in America for creatives.”

One of Mayor Dean’s goals was even more heretical: to expand the annual CMA Music Festival to include genres other than country.  Some of the other recommendations sound eerily like they may have been borrowed from Memphis Music Foundation, but on balance, the show of solidarity and focus on creative workers using music were impressive.  After all, most of the music business centers on creative work such as writing, producing, performing, designing, and marketing, and it breeds the chemistry and connectivity that offers lessons for the creative economy at large.

The Largest 15 Music Cities

Of course, Nashville is the 800-pound gorilla.  It has the highest concentration of the music industry in the U.S. and Canada and it is more than three times bigger than the second place city, Los Angeles.  The 15 cities in U.S. and Canada with the highest music industry location quotients are:

1)      Nashville

2)      Los Angeles

3)      Montreal

4)      Toronto

5)      Vancouver

6)      New York

7)      Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA

8)      Madison, WI

9)      Atlanta

10)  Quebec City

11)  Winnipeg

12)  Austin

13)  Ottawa-Gatineau

14)  Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT

15)  San Francisco

Creative industries in the U.S. like music tend to be driven by clustering and economies of scale and scope.  One of the most important themes of new thinking about creative cities centers on authenticity, which is elemental to the character of our city but like music gets more lip service than action.

An Edge Strategy

As our colleague Carol Coletta has written, “Creative capital – new ideas and innovations, new designs, new ways of working and playing – is the fuel for the 21^st century economic engine.”  It’s the availability of talented people who are the keys to success in this economy, not raw materials or access to markets.

There are defining characteristics in a cultural scene that can make it attractive to creative workers: boundary crossing, definitions of culture and the promotion of inter-connections.  That’s because there is multi-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary artistic and cultural expression; informal arts activities like public art, street festivals, gallery walks and farmers’ markets; cross-pollination between for-profit and nonprofit with people active on both sides of the street; and routine request for creative workers to be on task forces.

Our city has a way to go with better representation of young professionals and creatives on boards and planning task forces.  There were some promising signs with the large committee considering the future of Beale Street as some folks from “the edge” and people not often seen on these types of public groups were mixed into the usual suspects.

It’s worth remembering the admonition of John Seeley Brown when he spoke to Leadership Memphis several years ago: “Innovation always comes from the edge.  If you want innovation, don’t look to the center.  That’s where you find conventional thinking and people invested in things as they are.”

Place Matters

That’s certainly been the case with the entrepreneurial and musical history of Memphis but somehow over the years, we lost sight of the reality of innovation.  We’ve even rewritten our history to suggest that we embraced our famous music performers and recognized their genius from the beginning.

That’s the thing about creatives.  It’s not just that we need them for our city to thrive economically.  We need them to shake up the status quo, to provide new thinking and to shake off the vestiges of the ways things have always been.

Fundamentally, however, we must build a creative place.  We should promote adaptive reuse of buildings to house creative companies; we should take culture to the streets and turn arts programming inside out; we should develop districts and neighborhoods that are Cultural Empowerment Zones with incentives and sweat equity options; we should develop design and development guidelines to encourage creativity and leverage the distinctiveness of neighborhoods; and more.

We have to push ahead until we find the tipping point, the point at which the rhetoric about young professionals, entrepreneurs and creative workers is transformed into solid, actionable things we can do.  We seem to have become experts at incorporating the vocabulary of new ideas, but without changing our behavior.

Getting the Outsiders In

The damage from this is even greater than it would be in most cities, because in a city that prides itself for its authenticity, it’s the inauthentic behavior of rhetoric over results that discourages the very people we’re trying to enlist and encourage and the creative ecosystem that we are desperate for.

In Cities in Civilization, Peter Hall writes for 1,168 pages about how particular cities suddenly become exceptionally creative and innovative. He said some urban centers flourish, decline and reawaken periodically. He concentrates on about 20 cities from the Golden Age of Greek civilization to London’s glory days of capitalism in the 1980’s.

One of the featured cities is Memphis from 1948 to 1956. Calling our city “the soul of the Delta,” he writes about the collision of musical styles that produced rock and roll and transformed American music forever. He makes the case that Memphis’ burst of creative genius resulted from the combination of advances in technology, the rise of independent record labels and the impact of “outsiders.”

We tend to see all of this creativity as just a chapter in our history and we see it largely through a rearview mirror.  The truth is that it has lessons just as potent for us today, beginning with seeing music as a vehicle to our creative economy.

What sustains great organizations over time? Great talent. And what do talented people want? Most want influence, money, personal fulfillment, and the chance to make a difference. But more and more, talented people also want a great place to live.

The answer seems obvious, but the phenomenon is fairly recent. In the past, the attractions of working for the right company often trumped the desire to live in a great place. No longer: A landmark study by the Chicago-based CEOs for Cities released in 2008 found that 64 percent of highly mobile global knowledge workers said they were more likely to choose a job because of where an organization was located than because of the organization itself.

The reason is not surprising. Talented knowledge workers — people who have choices — know that companies can no longer guarantee their own survival, much less offer their employees a safe harbor in an unpredictable economic environment. To secure a prosperous future, individuals need to put themselves in settings that enhance their ability to build both the relationships and the skills they will need to support themselves over the course of a lifetime. Less dependent on companies than they were in the past, knowledge workers have increasingly come to recognize that putting place first works to their advantage.

Business leaders have been slow to recognize the key role of place in attracting talent and stirring its innovative potential. As a result, many companies continue to over-focus on building internal capacity rather than seeking to strengthen the regions to which they need to attract skilled people. Given the shift in what top people are looking for, leaders who follow the conventional strategy may end up shortchanging themselves in the talent sweepstakes and also undermining the long-term economic viability of their resource base.

To read more, visit Strategy + Business.

The dog days of summer in Memphis are always hard enough, but this year’s bitter injection of race, rage and resentment has made it nothing short of debilitating.

Only Herman Melville conceived of a force of nature as relentless and obsessive as race in Memphis, our own great whale regularly surfacing to the detriment of community and civility and leaving ripples that wash over everyone,  whether they like it or not.

Perhaps, as race becomes thematic to more and more political debate nationally, it was inevitable that it would ratchet up to a point that is almost deafening here.  Then again, it’s not as if our racial rancor needs much gas since the embers always seem to be smoldering.

The tenor and the tone of this summer’s rhetoric have been a three-alarm blaze that sometimes burns away reality, if not reason, as the racial extremes shout over the majority that cares more about figuring out how to improve our community’s future than continuing to engage in the same old racial rituals that damage our civic resolve to join hands to attack the problems that will show no racial preference if they are not reversed.

Old School

If all of the diatribes on both sides – as seen in the old school politics of the Shelby County Democratic Party and the old style racial code words bandied about by suburban Republican leaders – amount to anything, it is the equivalent of a political dysfunction family.  Its under tow is so familiar that it takes under people who should know better. 

A few years ago, a poll by The Commercial Appeal concluded that 70% or so of us believe that race relations are improving.  The real mystery is why we keep allowing the other 30% to dominate our conversation, particularly in light of their propensity to drag us into a quagmire of race-baiting and race-hating.  Then again, we’re hard-pressed to think of anything that would be as significant a contribution to improved civility as disconnecting The Commercial Appeal comments, which consistently traffics in bile and bigotry.

There was a time when all of this was merely a sideshow that the rest of us could ridicule and ignore.  It’s getting harder and harder to do so, because the price of this behavior makes our community pay such a price.  This isn’t to suggest that the issues that are cloaked so completely in racial terms don’t demand our attention and serious debate.

There’s no excuse for the aftermath of elections to regularly include legitimate questions about the competency and transparency of the Shelby County Election Commission.  These are questions that are best resolved by the cold facts without the overheated rhetoric, and it’s worth remembering that the snafus have happened whether Republicans or Democrats were in charge.

Us Versus Them

All of us should be concerned about these problems and demand assurance that our elections are fair and honest.  We just don’t think casting this automatically in racial terms is as effective as it would have been to develop an argument that shows how all of us, regardless of party or philosophy, have a stake in elections that we can have confidence in.

The debate about consolidation is crucial and urgent, and reasoned debate between proponents and opponents serve the public interest.  That said, the racially-tinged rhetoric by Democratic Party leaders and suburban Republicans quickly degenerate into “us versus them” posturing with the suburbs saying they don’t want Memphis out here and the Democratic Party talking more about power over the white power structure than the public good.

These are real issues, as are school funding, tax policy and sustainable growth, but we’ll never get to the toughest questions that we need to work together to solve if we can’t move past the old grudges and fears.  We’re not saying that the past isn’t important and we’re not saying that history isn’t instructive, but right now, at this exact moment, our community needs to be singularly focused on the future. 

It is an environmental of victimization that stalls serious problem-solving, and worst of all, it makes racial discord the dominant characteristic in a city that needs to be known for much more than conflict and controversy. 

Moving Out

It takes only a few conversations with young professionals here to understand that the constant racial barrage contributes to an average rate of five per day who move away.   Every young professional that remains here, regardless of their race, can tell stories of half dozen friends who have given up on Memphis and moved away.

We were reminded of this last week when a lifelong Memphian, a young Caucasian doctor, and his wife moved away.  They had adopted two African-American babies that were literally left on their doorsteps, but they could not tolerate any more public comments about their family. 

Then, there was the Caribbean mother who was thinking of moving to Memphis to be with her daughter, but after visiting, she decided to move somewhere else.  Her comment: never had she been anywhere where she was made so aware of her race.

There was the young Caucasian lawyer who recently married, and despite Memphis being his hometown, he said he could not imagine starting a family and raising children in a city where racial animosity was a daily fact of life.  He moved away.

Then, there was the 30-something African-American businessman who tired of the general “ignorance” shown in the constant racial haranguing and the lip service to minority business from “black government and white business.”  He moved to Nashville.

Eye Off the Ball

Sadly, these stories are repeated weekly, and even the hemorrhaging of the best and brightest does nothing to halt the racial wars. 

For them, it’s as if our city’s leaders are trapped in a time warp where only an H.G. Wells plot line could get them into the present where their racial rhetoric is more and more revealed for its fossilized underpinnings, where their obsession with all things racial is seen for its antediluvian concept of our city and where their role models of irrelevancy on race relations is exposed for the burlesque that it is.

Lost in this mélange is the reality that these words and actions are in fact poisoning the civic culture of the city.  It is here that anything – absolutely anything – can get cast in shades of black and white.  It wasn’t too long ago that one of City Council members, in the midst of his regular rants, referred to lessons learned from the slave masters.   Meanwhile, in an aldermen meeting, a mayor extolled the virtues of the town and how important it is to keep “those people” out.

After years of being frozen out of the political system in any meaningful way, it’s no wonder that African-Americans became adept at using the kind of language that gave them the only power they could muster – the power to shut down public debate by injecting charges of racism. As more than one sociologist has pointed out, it was in this victimization that African-Americans enjoyed one of the few times when they could shift the balance of power and control the conversation.

As was shown in last week’s Democratic Party meeting, it’s as if some people would rather hold on to their grievances than acknowledge that they live in a majority African-American city, county and region. 

But that’s not saying that white politicians deserve any prizes, particularly the pandering kind that spring up in the suburbs. They seem adept at pushing the exact issue guaranteed to create racial conflict and controversy where basic empathy and understanding seem to be the first victims of discussion.

The Other Memphis

What’s lost is the chance for our public sector to be a place where we can confront our past honestly and calmly while charting a bolder future in which we all join hands to accomplish.  Instead of being the places where this kind of substantive discussion takes place, our governments fail in their first job – to create the common ground where citizens are encouraged to debate, discuss and engage in the substantive issues facing Memphis. Most of all, they fail to be the models for how this kind of respectful, consensus-building discussion should take place.

Standing outside the Council chambers during a meeting where race boiled to the surface, an African-American woman in her 20’s, said she couldn’t bear to listen.

“It’s the kind of arguing we (people her age) don’t care about,” she said. “The folks in there are always looking for the chance to march and to demonstrate or to talk about the old days and how bad they were treated. But they’re not representing us. They don’t even ask us. We can live anywhere we want, we can have any friends we want, we can live in any city we want and we just want the chance to succeed. We’re not interesting in fighting these old battles. They’re just a waste of time.”

Shortly thereafter, we were in a meeting with some people who work every day to solve some of Memphis’ worst problems. They aren’t elected. They avoid City Council meetings like the plague. They work at the grassroots. They work to engage community organizations in the hard work of community-building.

They unanimously agree that the racial chasm amplified in the news media exists primarily in politics, where ritualized racial posturing defines the culture.  They tell of a different Memphis, one where community and neighborhood organizations all over the city are working on the grittiest issues and doing it with little regard to the fact that there are two races at the table.

There are many reasons why the United States faces this potential: our recent financial calamity wiped away billions of accumulated wealth and job creating capacity; technological advancement creates efficiencies and makes human beings less necessary for certain work; increased competitiveness among developing nations means greater capacity for labor at reduced cost; and consumers are spending less, paying down debt, and saving more.

While the combination of these factors is pernicious, perhaps the greatest factor influencing long-term employment is our diminished ability to provide citizens with an exceptional education.  Our college graduation rate is now 12^th among developed nations and according to Memphis City Schools only 6% of students graduating from our city’s public schools are college ready.

In a world where economic opportunity is inextricably linked to educational attainment, the most important policy objective for our elected leaders is to dramatically improve public education.  An immediate opportunity to lead presents itself with the pending debate over Tennessee’s new standards.

Heretofore, students have been able to answer as few as 36% of questions correct to be considered proficient – our new standards will more closely approximate actual proficiency and lead to a reassessment of how all students in Tennessee are being prepared for college, the workforce, and informed citizenship.

Initial reports are not promising.  According to the state of Tennessee, only 50% of students are passing our new standards and only 25% of 8^th graders are proficient in math.  You can be sure if numbers are this low state-wide, they will be even lower in Memphis.

Despite this, embracing our new state standards and proficiency cut scores is vital because we have an obligation to tell our students the truth about the overall quality of education they receive.  The importance of this truth-telling came home in stark relief when I was an 8^th grade language arts and social studies teacher in New Orleans with Teach For America.  A young woman was valedictorian of her high school but could not pass the state’s graduation exam.  Though low test scores may inflict damage upon self-esteem, we should be more concerned with whether our students are able to compete in a global job market.  No employer will care that your public school system could have done a better job, they will simply care whether you can add value to their business.

Embracing the new state standards is also a necessary step towards greater public engagement with education reforms like those proposed in the Memphis City Schools and Gates Foundation’s Teacher Effectiveness Initiative and Tennessee’s recent First to the Top legislation.  My reasoning here is simple: you do not relentlessly pursue solutions until you have fully embraced a problem.  Many would argue that our community is aware of our educational challenges and are deeply engaged but take a moment to think about where some of our major political leaders stand on any education issue (a comprehensive human capital strategy, charter schools, accountability, pay for performance, or even our new state standards).  I took some time to study our major executive and legislative leader’s websites and most make no mention of education.

There may be no political upside in being explicit about education reform on a campaign website and it would be correct to point out that our mayors and congressman do not directly run our school system but I submit that allowing our elected officials to take a pass on our city’s most important issue is simple proof that our collective engagement could be stronger.  Down the road in Nashville, Mayor Karl Dean, has offered a model of political engagement in education reform: raising money for Teach For America in Nashville, launching a state-wide charter school incubator, testifying before our legislature on behalf of charter schools, and as recently as today partnering with Metro Nashville Public Schools to improve teacher retention.  We could ask our leaders to do the same.

Such engagement is vital because with an incredibly bleak economic picture, an increased focus on achievement and accountability in our schools, there may be reticence to follow through on many of our recently passed reforms.  Simply put, if performance does not improve, there will be tangible consequences such as state takeover and job losses for educators who do not perform at a high level.  One need look no further than the public furor over Michelle Rhee’s dismissal of 241 ineffective teachers as evidence of the storm clouds on our horizon.

Despite the challenges ahead our entire community (including our political leadership) should champion our new state standards because the stakes for our city and our children are high.  Consider a 9 year old student attending Memphis City Schools who is living in poverty (as 86% of our students are) and is, already, several years behind grade level.  If statistics for this student play out, he may be among the 65% who graduate from MCS but will only graduate with the knowledge and skills of an 8^th grader living in wealthier circumstances.  If this student is then fortunate enough to go to college, he will be so far behind that he will eventually drop out and face an ever less kind job market.  This then becomes an entire life of economic marginality – 50 years of waiting for the other shoe to drop on your job, or working several jobs to make ends meet.  If this young man has children, his children will also have fewer opportunities at a high-quality education and thus the unholy cycle perpetuates.

Now, multiply that by an entire generation of public school students, only 6% of whom are college ready – can Memphis thrive as a city with this as our educational landscape?

No.

Pay attention, then, to the proclamations of public officials in the coming months when test score data begins to reflect our actual student performance.  Politicians who resist the new standards are forcing Memphis into a long-term existential crisis.  Our responsibility as citizens will be to ensure that we instead pursue bold solutions.

Over the course of a lifetime, college graduates can expect to earn $1,000,000 more than high school graduates.  This, in turn, leads to a number of private and public goods – more jobs; more investment for innovative business ideas; greater and sustainable home ownership; greater public revenue and a decreased need for it; and a likely decline in poverty, crime, and infant mortality.

There is hope if we summon the will to look unflinchingly at the facts and embrace our new state standards.  Our kids are capable if we have the will to follow through.

We’re as appalled as the next person by the fact that former Collierville Mayor Linda Kerley was kicked out of a meeting by anti-consolidation forces in a Shelby County elementary school, but while the news media concentrated on whether it was indeed a public meeting, our question is more fundamental:

Since when are campaign meetings allowed in schools in the first place? 

We know there’s a policy against this at Memphis City Schools, and we suspect that there is a similar policy at Shelby County Schools.  It’s certainly the position taken in rulings issued by former Shelby County Attorney Brian Kuhn from time to time over the years as county politicians tried to blur the lines.

Blurring the Lines Again

That the line was blurred at Riverdale Elementary School Monday afternoon says a lot about how the line between political agenda and educational policy is regularly trampled at Shelby County Schools.  That board chairman David Pickler was there should surprise no one familiar with his autocratic handling of school affairs and the sense of entitlement that has developed around him as his seemingly lifetime appointment as chairman continues on.

It’s the only explanation for why the very idea of using a school for a political campaign meeting shouldn’t have sent off alarm bells in everyone’s heads.  But we presume that a school board that barely lets parents speak at its meetings shouldn’t feel bad about kicking Mrs. Kerley out of a building she’s paying for as a taxpayer.

Perhaps, it’s only natural that the controversy would play out in the news media by focusing on the personal dimensions of the problem – a former town mayor getting kicked out a meeting that included her former colleague, Germantown Mayor Sharon Goldsworthy.  Of course, it speaks volumes about Mayor Goldsworthy’s attitude too that she was there violating the Sunshine Law with a member of the Germantown Mayor and Board of Aldermen, Mike Palazzolo.

Payback Time

Somehow, Mayor Goldsworthy has always managed to keep a straight face when talking about the lack of transparency and accountability in city and county governments.  Now, even one close political ally said: “She is not being rational. She believes she has to oppose (consolidation) for her own political survival.”  It’s no secret that the Germantown mayor seethes about the lack of respect she thinks she should receive from the two large urban governments in Shelby County, and from her point of view, this is payback time.

She now finds herself in the company of her former nemesis, former Memphis Mayor Willie W. Herenton, who seems also willing to say anything to get some attention and hang on to some semblance of a political base. 

We guess we shouldn’t be surprised that Mrs. Goldsworthy, et al, should have seen no problem in using a public school for their political conspiring.  After all, it was only a few days earlier, the City of Germantown was considering how to use $5,000 in public money to fund the anti-consolidation campaign (which places some Germantown residents supporting a new government in the position of subsidizing people to defeat them at the polls).  It’s a slippery slope that can’t be seen any more by the fire in the eyes of the opponents.

Changing our Mind

It’s no question where we stand on creating a new and different government around here.  For years, we could have – and have – argued against consolidation, but that all changed when we looked at 10 years of destructive trends here.  We have no margin for error, so we are now firmly on the side of change.  It’s hard to imagine how keeping things as they are now is going to result in any better results than it has in the past, and already, there are even signs that the most disturbing trends are quickening.

We’ve written about these trend lines often, so we won’t repeat them here, but there are times when you have to willing to do something different if you want different results.  That’s where we are.  There are those who have philosophical differences and see things another way from us, and that’s what makes democracy great.  However, political discourse these days tends to skew to the extreme and lots of misinformation, if not lies, are circulated in the name of “winning.”

To give Mayor Goldsworthy and her colleagues in the other towns the benefit of the doubt, we’ll assume that the “facts” they have been putting out is misinformation and not lies, but the end result is the same.  That’s why the new suggestion that the towns spend public money to send out the same misinformation that they have been spreading, much of it from Pat Hardy, an East Tennessee staffer for the Municipal Technical Assistance Service, who admitted in an appearance here earlier this year that he is “not an expert” on consolidation.

Public Political Funding

Previously, the “information” disseminated by the town mayors has included core mistakes.  That’s why the vote by the Germantown Mayor and Board of Alderman to send out information is merely subterfuge to sidestep the direct use of funds that is so patently impermissible.  While the Germantown elected officials are saying that their purpose is to “get the facts out,” they also say they will coordinate activities with an anti-opposition group.  This fact alone acknowledges that their purpose is patently political and the public money is being spent for political purposes.

Someone is already considering a lawsuit to challenge the use of public funds to send out political pieces with city water bills, to sponsor political events to support their positions, and to prevent city employees from using the public’s time to engage in any anti-consolidation activities.  

In recent years, the Germantown financial condition has worsened with reserves dramatically going down and debt dramatically going up.  Instead of fighting for a fiefdom approach to government, Mayor Goldsworthy should take a page from one of the cities that’s included on the opposition’s list of cities doing perfectly well without consolidation – Minneapolis. 

One key reason it’s doing well is because it has had a seven-county tax-sharing arrangement since 1971.  Now that’s something that needs real town leadership.

Few people today remember that Wernher von Braun was the Chief Architect of the Saturn V Rocket.  However, most everyone knows the name of at least one of the 39 Astronauts that played lead roles in space exploration through the Apollo missions.  And, just about anyone could tell you who said, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Sustainable Shelby is the first agenda for sustainability in the Memphis region and a strategic framework that addresses building codes, the environment and neighborhood rebirth.  It makes the connections between transportation and traffic, public incentives for economic development and land use patterns.  This plan looks close to home by improving public building efficiency and purchasing policies, while looking far down the road at development opportunities, natural resource preservation and tax revenues.

The plan was developed through a process coordinated by 13 Shelby County employees and seven committees chaired by private architects, Sierra Club and neighborhood development leaders, urban planning professors, real estate professionals and community activists.  These committees consisted of almost 150 experts in their respective fields who each volunteered an extraordinary amount of time to a project that they believed would be a seminal moment in the history of Shelby County.

The Sustainable Framework

They all knew that, then-County Mayor Wharton needed this plan to address problems confronting us.  He stated clearly, “the present course is unsustainable on the basis of public finances, environment and land use, disposable neighborhoods, deteriorating health, and declining quality of life.”  Wharton recognized that young educated people are leaving Shelby County, that economic development practices can actually conflict with community building projects and that both fiscal and environmental efficiencies were needed to survive.

This team, however, knew something even more important.  They knew that the plan had to transcend one mayor’s time in office.  They had to create a document that wouldn’t suffer the same fate as the past smart growth plans and suburban expansion plans.  A plan was needed that could achieve buy-in from Shelby Countians and be embraced by administrations to come.  The Sustainable Shelby team was not only interested in solving problems and engaging environmentalists.  They were driven to create the catalyst we need to transform this county.

This plan is in line with past philosophies, current directions and future needs.  This initiative is in line with nationwide ideals that are being set by HUD, DOT and other agencies.  Shelby County is poised to be a true nationwide leader and has already been approved for a federal grant to begin implementing some of the Sustainable Shelby principles.

Interim-Mayor Ford unveiled the Clean Green Shelby initiative and also sought advice from local environmental experts… most all of whom participated in Sustainable Shelby.  This initiative consisted of a Wolf River brownfields assessment program, recycling, a greenhouse gas inventory, an MOU with municipal mayors seeking a solution to waste water issues and stream protections, in addition to drinking water protection.

Smarter Growth

Sheriff Luttrell, as a candidate for Mayor, publicly recognized Sustainable Shelby and that acknowledgment is appreciated by many who have been involved through multiple similar initiatives only to see them scrapped and rebooted years later under another name.  As well, the Mayor-elect stated that economic development begins with a safe and attractive community where people want to live and industries desire to locate.  He knows that “smarter growth” utilizes existing infrastructure like roads, schools, greenways, retail, medical and recreation.  He says we must capitalize on existing infrastructure that is not fully utilized.

There is no question that many of our leaders are speaking the language that is encapsulated within Sustainable Shelby.  This speaks to the lack of partisanship that existed in its creation.  So, there is no reason to lose ground by reinventing the wheel.

And please know that momentum may be waning as our county’s experts have enthusiastically come to the table and been disappointed many times before.  They are looking for a leader because their proposal is not achievable as a grassroots movement.  And because they know you can claim victory from day one, positioning Shelby County with peer communities around the country.

Like many cities in the late 1960s, Portland, Oregon found itself facing urban decay and suburbanization.  Then Republican State Governor Tom McCall and Democratic City Mayor Neil Goldschmidt rallied for and enacted measures to deal with issues ranging from urban zoning to farmland conservation.  The sustainability plan implemented over the last 30 years boasts about providing a regionally inclusive approach in order to build thriving communities, economic vitality and scenic beauty.

Ready to Go

Since 1980, the City of Portland has grown by 57% with a population density of over 4,200 people per square mile.  The Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) has grown by 62% to almost 2.2 million.  Portland’s regional household income surpasses $70,000 a year.

By contrast, the City of Memphis has grown by 4.8% since 1980 and has a population density of less than 2,200 people per square mile.  The MSA has grown by 29% to just over 1.2 million.  Memphis’s regional household income is less than $62,000 a year.

Closer to home, please consider Nashville’s Cumberland Region Tomorrow.  As Davidson County and the surrounding area began to grow, this organization became concerned about the future livability and economic vitality of the region.  They have successfully supported and encouraged growth planning, with emphasis on land use, transportation, and preservation of the rural landscape and character of the existing communities for over 10 years.

When their Executive Director, Dr. Bridget Jones, was here for a Livable Memphis conference, she became familiar with the Sustainable Shelby work.  She talked about the most difficult part of Nashville’s project being tied up in building coalitions and creating a strong enough plan.  Dr. Jones marveled at the work that had been done here and stated emphatically, “you are ready to go, you have what you need, Sustainable Shelby is your plan and you are lucky to have it.”

Positioned for Success

Today our system of uncoordinated, isolated departments makes it difficult to promote and improve life in this county.  When the economy rebounds, is Shelby County going to be positioned to succeed?  We have all of the pieces of the puzzle.  Sustainable Shelby just makes sure they are all in the same box.  Who will be responsible for defining our quality of life and powering the greatest economy in this region?

A past county mayor, respected staffers, industry experts and an army of volunteers have built your rocket.  However, they have done all they can do until a champion steps up to move it off of the ground.

You, as new leadership, can choose to use your first few years drawing up new plans.  Or, you can be our Neil Armstrong, strap into the Commander’s seat and help Shelby County take the next step by implementing Sustainable Shelby.

It’s the political equivalent of no good deed going unpunished.

That’s the moral of the Memphis City Council’s attempt to bring reason to the city’s inequitable tax burden.  But the Tennessee Supreme Court isn’t known for its legal courage, so instead of hearing arguments on this core question, it ducked.  It declined to take up the city’s appeal of a lower court ruling.

Over the years, Memphis City Council increased funding for Memphis City School and was told they had no obligation to do it.  Over the years, Memphis City Schools treated their requests as one year requests and often even referred to them as special funding. 

Over the years, particularly in the wake of the “tiny town” controversy, City of Memphis wanted Shelby County to assume responsibility for its school funding, but the county wrote back that city government should just stop appropriating the money since it was discretionary.

Over the years, when a city mayor said that county government should be funding schools, the response from the county mayor was that if the city didn’t want to fund them, it should just stop.  Over the years, if Memphis City Council knew that it was making immovable decisions on school funding, it never would have increased it as much.

Historic Irrelevancy

All that is now prologue, because all that has gone before is irrelevant to the courts.  Context, history and practice ended up meaning little and it all began with a ruling by Chancery Court Judge Kenny Armstrong.  Chancery Court is called a “court of equity,” but in the case of tax equity, there’s been no relief for Memphians.

As a result, in city government, it’s now all about finding $57 million in a city budget inherited by the Wharton Administration that was already held together by gum and baling wire.  And it could be even worse next year.   

We have been unabashed fans of the City Council for its action to equalize taxes and eliminate duplicate funding for services that are ultimately the province of Shelby County Government.  As we said at the time, we wished that the money at issue had been set aside in the event of a legal reversal of fortunes or that instead, the city property tax rate had been decreased roughly 50 cents.  That said, most people in city and county governments expected the City of Memphis to prevail.

Since the action by the Council, we’ve witnessed a great deal of saber-rattling by lawyers for both sides, but at this point, we hope that the Memphis City Schools legal team will give the over-the-top comments a rest.  For too long, to the lawyers, it’s seemed that it’s been more about winning than about finding an answer that represented the best interests of  Memphians, particularly since Memphis City Schools’ budget and workforce dwarves city government. 

Who Hurts the Most?

When Willie W. Herenton left Memphis City Schools as its superintendent following his election as Memphis mayor, the City of Memphis budget that he inherited was just slightly smaller than the one he managed at the school district.

When he left office 18 years later, City of Memphis budget had increased about 45%, which corresponded roughly with the rate of inflation.  Memphis City Schools budget had increased about 125%.  As for employees, the number of fulltime city workers remained relatively flat during the terms of the Herenton Administration, but employees at Memphis City Schools increased about 50%.

What makes the numbers so startling is that city government and city schools did not see an increase in the number of people they were serving.  The population of Memphis was about the same (due to annexation) and the number of students in Memphis City Schools was about 5,000 fewer.

Shroud of Memphis

Enrollment numbers for Memphis City Schools have been shrouded in as much mystery as Papal elections, and they have wildly fluctuated over the years, often in patterns that bore no resemblance to demographic trends.  For example, at the dawning of the 21^st century, the district was claiming to have more than 130,000 students although common sense and basic addition led to a wink and a smile when anyone at the mother ship on Avery was asked for explanations.  Everyone knew the number was substantially less.

State education officials were told that the spike was caused by the annexation of Hickory Hill, but two years later, the number had spiraled down by 12,000 students.  Of course, the higher the enrollment, the more funding that flows down from state government, so the philosophy in those days was always to err on the high side.

This is no insignificant matter.  That’s why City Councilman Shea Flinn is so insistent about getting an accurate audit of the actual enrollment, and we hope that all sides can agree to cooperate with it.

Despite the decrease in students and the climbing budgets, there are still some who act as if Memphis City Council is derelict in its duties to suggest that tax fairness comes first and that all school funding should be where it belongs – on Shelby County Government, constitutionally required to fund all public school students.

As the Flyer’s John Branston has pointed out, there was a $75 million discrepancy in the Court of Appeals ruling itself, a total that outstrips the amount at issue in the lawsuit.

“Call it ‘The Case of the Missing 7,000 Students.’  But you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out.  The Tennessee Court of Appeals make a shocker of an error in its decision this week on the funding for Memphis City Schools.  If you do the math, it comes out to $75 million in schools expenses and that’s an amount that should get members of Memphis City Council doing some homework before raising anyone’s taxes or forking over millions of dollars to MCS.

“On the second page of its ruling, the court says MCS ‘serves approximately 112,000 students.’ No, it does not. According to MCS, the system serves “about 105,000″ students. The Tennessee Report Card says the actual number is 104,829 students. School funding is determined by enrollment. The per-pupil funding (from all sources) for MCS is $10,394. Multiply that by 7,171 — the difference between the actual enrollment and the number the appeals court wrongly assumes to be accurate — and the result is approximately $75 million.”

Fairness For The Future

In addition, it’s not fair to default into the “children are our future” rhetoric when talking about City Council, because some things are even more fundamental for government to function well: tax fairness and fair play.

No one is suggesting that it’s not in all of our best interests – not to mention our common humanity – to pay for the education of our children. It does in fact take a village and we all need to be villagers in that pursuit.

But the village doesn’t only have children. (In fact 75% of our village doesn’t have any.)  It has elderly people, especially the significant percentage here who live in poverty, it needs an economy that doesn’t play down to our low skill levels but helps to improve them, and it’s about neighborhoods that are connected, walkable and served by high-quality public transit.

In other words, the village is about more than one priority or one group of people.

Lewis Carroll Financing

O.K., we’ve belabored the village analogy to the breaking point, but what we are suggesting is that there is no logic – legal or otherwise – that justifies why Memphians have to pay twice for public education while every one else in Shelby County pays once.

Let’s say it again. No property tax money from the City of Germantown, Collierville, Bartlett, Millington and Arlington go to fund schools. Meanwhile, Memphians not only pay for schools in their county property tax bill, but they pay for it again with their city taxes. No one else in this county does that – or has ever done that – except Memphians.

It paints a potential scenario in which Memphians – with their array of social and human service needs – see those programs shrink because of the Council’s inability to balance city priorities and school funding has a stranglehold on a big part of the city budget.

It makes no sense (and surely there should be some good sense in the law) that Memphis taxpayers, through a Memphis City Council courageous enough to tackle this tax equity problem head-on, lose all rights to determine its priorities, its ability to pay for services and to align priorities to funding and ultimately, to have the ultimate flexibility to move around money in its budgets in times of crisis.

Here’s the problem: because of our state’s regressive tax structure and our anomalous bulge in children, all public services are fighting over a pie whose size is fixed and so every agency feels compelled to fight for its share. It’s a flawed system destined to breed conflict and produce political dogfights.  That’s the biggest shame of all.

Why is it that just as the City seems to be gaining momentum (Unified Development Code adoption, Midtown Overlay, Sooner’s development withdrawal from Overton Square, a new city skate park, and 55 miles of new bike lanes) the City makes a decision that both chills the momentum and will be haunting us for years to come? This has nothing to do with the loss of the historic church and everything to do with missed opportunity due to shortsightedness.

There are a handful of properties in the core of the Memphis that make sense for smart, urban, infill redevelopment and the corner of Union and Cooper is one of them. Playhouse on the Square provides a cultural anchor and in a vibrant economy the redevelopment opportunities would have tempted developers to build on the foundation established by Playhouse. In approving a single story, single use, suburban drugstore, the city has undermined the stabilizing qualities that the Playhouse brought to the intersection and has all but guaranteed that Union and Cooper will remain underutilized as a suburban drugstore and asphalt dominated gateway.

Racing to the Bottom

Secondly, when you make decisions like this you broadcast that Memphis will not enforce their development standards and is more than willing to race to the bottom for the next chain that comes along. At an equivalently positioned intersection in Austin, Nashville, Raleigh, or any of our other peer cities, CVS would not have walked in the door with a suburban site plan. CVS has shown that in other markets they are willing to build an urban model if the community has a pattern of requiring such.

How did we get here? When did we stop thinking about long term impacts and start racing to the bottom? In listening to the tone of the CVS supporters a severely poor self image seems at least a plausible reason. If you wonder why 25 – 34 year olds are leaving Memphis at an alarming rate consider how our leaders broadcast our self-image and question whether anyone has ever told the next generation of leaders why they should stay.

So if the City action is a symptom of a larger problem of low self-esteem and a race to the bottom mentality, what do we do?

I suggest taking a cue from 1909 Chicago.  After the 1893 World’s Fair and the completion of Daniel Burnham’s 1909 plan for the City of Chicago, the city was swollen with civic pride. They had a shared community vision for what they wanted the city to become and they had a blueprint for how to get there.

Planning and Doing

So they had a plan — lots of cities have plans. What matters is what they did with it.

A businessman and philanthropist named Charles Wacker thought that the best way to ensure continued momentum was to educate the next generation of leaders why and how cities work, the importance of the built environment, and the continued focus on the shared community vision. So in 1911 he published Wacker’s Manual of the Plan of Chicago, an 8th grade level text that for close to 20 years became a core part of the 8^th grade curriculum in Chicago’s schools.

This illustrated text taught students the basic fundamentals of city planning, how to take ownership for your city, and perhaps most importantly PRIDE IN THEIR CITY! Below is an excerpt from this manual…

“It is becoming a recognized fact that the power, growth and advancement of a city is limited only by the measure of united civic interest of its people. The stronger and more vital the Community, the greater and more influential the city. It is this spirit which gives Chicago its great world distinction—an indomitable, living, throbbing love for the city, expressing a demand of its united people that the city shall deserve and achieve greatness. “

Memphis as a Treasure

The Wacker Manual influenced a generation of leaders, public servants, and most importantly engaged citizens. As a result –the Plan of Chicago was embraced and implemented.

I grew up in Memphis and attended school in Memphis and never once was told about the intricacies that make Memphis a treasure, about how communities are the building blocks for great cities, about how cities work, or about the importance of civic engagement. In fact, if anything I was told to be afraid of downtown and midtown and to get out of Memphis as soon as I was old enough.

Now the City Beautiful movement has passed, and Memphis lacks a plan and is far from a shared community vision (it does have a start in Sustainable Shelby), but I think there is a lesson here that hopefully could impact the next generation.

Why not introduce a curriculum into the school system that would teach students the importance of their city? It could focus on what gives Memphis its grit, soul, and texture, how the city survived yellow fever and emerged a world leader in sanitation, how the city’s most famous export has shaped modern music, how Memphis has evolved over the years and how they as Memphians have an opportunity to shape what the city becomes in the future. Most importantly it would ask students to “own” the city to take pride in it and to stick around and help clean up the mess.

Getting this implemented is another issue that will take a team of dedicated and talented educators, urbanists, and financial backers to figure out. In a city so chilling of new ideas is not likely to be easy. At a minimum the requirements are: (1) A shared community vision; (2) A crafted curriculum; and (3) A willing school system. Three requirements that individually seem insurmountable and weighted down with political agendas.

I am confident that there are hundreds of reasons we can come up with for why this will not work but what if we as a community were able to pull it off? What if it worked? What if, as in Chicago, teaching students about their city actually instilled pride and served as the foundation for a future Mayor Daley or future City Council member?

As Daniel Burnham said… “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will not themselves be realized” – Isn’t it about time we tried something different?