Planning in the Memphis area is being done, in some cases at a high level and by everyone. Chambers, governments and community groups. Mayors, business leaders and developers. Everyone has a plan for something. But what is guiding these plans to ensure they are complementary? Who is coordinating efforts to ensure they don’t conflict?
Aerotropolis is attempting to create linkages between all points of the community and multiple transportation modes to the airport area. There are hundreds of miles of greenways being planned for Shelby, Desoto and Tipton Counties. 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. As a follow-up to the 2026 long-range transportation plan, the Memphis MPO has decided to take on a regional imagining process to help determine how land uses should integrate with transportation needs while setting regional goals across jurisdictional boundaries. And I-269 is one of the largest infrastructure projects in America.
Desoto County Supervisors should be applauded for pursuing a growth plan for their segment of the future I-269. As well, Collierville planners deserve credit for a forward thinking Small Area Plan developed for their segment. Some have accurately noted the need for local plans to guide development in areas that will be accessible from this new interstate loop touching two states and four different counties. However, what the previously mentioned plans and this 30-plus mile I-269 project point out is a critical need for the first true Metro Area Growth Plan.
Honest planning for Memphis, the suburbs and beyond
A Regional Growth Plan not only studies development trends in an area, but guides equitable and sustainable expansion of resources to serve new development while maintaining the quality of life in existing neighborhoods. The growth plan determines land-uses and housing strategies. It lays out utility, infrastructure and transportation needs. The plan helps us understand development’s impact on education, public safety and healthcare. Workforce strategies are conceptualized and regional coordination is defined.
Most of all a Regional Growth Plan would help us understand both the fiscal impact of expansion and the quality of life that expansion would affect. It would force us all to answer critical questions about the future of our community.
Can the Nesbit Water Association provide service to new neighborhoods, how much will that cost and will there ever be enough tax revenue to support new homes? Will schools have to be built in Arlington and Piperton and will others have to be closed in Bartlett and Germantown? Where will the new libraries, parks and community centers be and when will the old ones be decommissioned? Will Memphis, Light, Gas and Water be able to continue providing power to new areas when the customer base in old areas is shrinking? What happens to the Downtown office market that was replaced by the Airport office market that was replaced by the East Memphis office market when a new office market emerges in a different place? Will industry be concentrated in certain areas or will it be spread from Covington to Hernando and from Marion to Hickory Withe?
Regional planning that works
Like many cities including Memphis in the late 1960s, Portland, Oregon found itself facing urban decay and suburbanization. Tri-Met, the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, was created to operate the area’s bus and rail system in 1969. Then Republican State Governor Tom McCall and Democratic City Mayor Neil Goldschmidt rallied for and enacted strong local land use measures, a system of urban growth boundaries and rural conservation policies throughout the 1970s.
In 1977 the Oregon Legislature passed a bill allowing a referendum creating a Metro Council. Residents in three counties and 25 cities in the Portland region elect the council that then works cooperatively with local governments on planning policy, regional services and quality of life initiatives. The Metro Council proudly boasts about providing a regional vision and approach in order to build thriving communities, economic vitality and scenic beauty. They also now manage over 12,000 acres of regional parkland, the Oregon Zoo, Convention Facilities, a Performing Arts Center, in addition to recycling and garbage services.
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 almost $62,000 a year.
It’s not too late, we’re not too small, other regions are doing it
Manhattan, Kansas has an MSA with a regional population of less than 114,000 people. In 2008, a coalition of seven different counties, four different cities, three chambers of commerce and two economic development commissions released the Flint Hills Regional Growth Plan for the Manhattan area. This $900,000 initiative assessed regional conditions, anticipated future needs and prioritized actions to accommodate growth and mitigate adverse impacts. The stated intention of the plan was never to supersede local agencies but rather to provide an assessment and a coordinated action plan to address the needs of the region. The City of Manhattan recently hired its first Regional Growth Coordinator to spearhead the implementation effort.
More than winners and losers… survivors
Memphis is neither Manhattan, Kansas nor Portland, Oregon but we can learn by their examples. These and other communities are realizing that the only way to survive is through a team approach to regional planning and development. If West Memphis, Olive Branch, Whitehaven and Somerville continue to compete with one another, we will all continue to pay higher taxes for a declining level of government service. As Mayor Wharton has said, “the present course is unsustainable on the basis of public finances, environment and land use, disposable neighborhoods, deteriorating health, and declining quality of life.” However, if we use I-269 or regional greenways or town-square restoration or manufacturing recruitment to start a dialogue about actual, coordinated regional growth planning, we have an opportunity to quickly change course and perhaps surpass our peer cities.
This proposal makes so much sense on so many levels. We have to do something to get out of the top tier of Forbes Magazine’s “Most Miserable Places” list!
A regional plan is definitely needed. We cannot just keep going on by the notion that it’s every man, or in this case every city, for himself in terms of planning ahead for the future. Every area of this region has their own needs, and how they affect our region as a whole needs a second look in terms of how it benefits us rather than hinder us. It’s all a big jigsaw puzzle, and putting all of the pieces in the right places is a challenge we must all take in improving the Memphis region as a whole.
Minneapolis/St. Paul also has a Met. Council that has significant planning authority, including taxing powers. What would be a unique challenge for a Memphis Metro Council would be the need for the Council’s authority to cross state lines and encompass parts of Arkansas and Mississippi.
That’s what I’d call speaking success looks like. Great post. I think we have a mayor with real ears, maybe this could scoot across his inbox?
Imagine 2035….
thats the name of THE PLAN.
Supposed to be finished in a couple of years, according to a meeting I went to. Being done by the MPO road planners.
Ah can’t wait, myself, especially if they propose an Urban Service Limit Boundary (again-tried it once before, it seems)like in Portland. Gentrified that place to where rents and land spiraled out of control. Got a really nice choo choo commuter train though. Maybe Willie will run it if he loses…he likes trains…
stay tuned for further updates. A CHARETTE is being planned for your neighborhood. (A homeless one, too, for those ‘without’.
Unless the Memphis MPO has changed radically, we can expect the same lack of planning in the 2035 plan as we got out of the 2020 plan. The fact that it’s “being done by the MPO road planners” shows just how behind the times we are- 1960’s seems to be about the spot.
Great comparisons to Portland as well- why would we want to emulate a successful urban center when we could continue down the path that yielded this veritable urban utopia we live in now.
You got THAT right, not one day past 1964 except for losing all our money.
1998 Commission on Alternative Futures. Result of Memphis and Shelby County’s own version of the War of the Roses – Formula for Fairness (Memphis) v. A Bias for Balance (Shelby County.) Check it out if you can. Went through all the metro schemes, including taxing and governmental structure proposals. High powered businesspersons, politicians, suburban communities, schools on the Board. Brought in the best and brightest planners, urbanists, economists, politicians and more in the Country to speak to the Board and public in open meetings. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
So called MPO (regional transportation)”plans and planning” still rule. Or should we say the MPO Board’s interpretation of its Long Range Plan has always ruled; always will until we change the way we govern and actually come together as one.
This idea is half baked at best. Who is the authority (or organization) that has the ability to implement this regional plan? The answer is that we do not have a regional authority that can plan and implement development, land use, and public services recommendations at a regional scale.
Step 1 would be to identify the regional planning authority that could implement this idea. Since such an authority or organization does not currently exist in the mid south, what would be the steps to create such an entity? An answer to that question would be a great place to start. That information would make this article much closer to relevant and worth reading. At best, this blog has become a site for intellectual masturbation. Pie in the sky lecturing to the same 100 readers will get us nowhere fast. Make some specific recommendations based in fact and precedent and let’s get this regional planning conversation started in earnest!
Dear Anon 9:17,
At the risk of possible blindness and strange hair growth, we are not likely to have a regional authority with taxing and regulatory power anytime soon because of the three states covered by our urbanized area. However, through an inter-local agreement we might be able to take advantage of new national policies being pushed by the Obama administration, but first a little history.
In the 1960s two organizations were created to do regional planning and sit in judgement of federal capital grants to jurisdictions in the Memphis Metropolitan Area. One was the MPO (Metropolitan Planning Organization), and the other was MATCOG (Mississippi-Arkansas-Tennessee Council of Governments). The MPO and MATCOG boards consisted essentially of the same elected officials from municipal and county governments in the area. The MPO was governed by planning rules and grants from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). MATCOG was governed by planning rules and grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
HUD was focused on housing assistance and renewal of inner city areas. DOT was focused on building roads where the population was moving. This schizophrenia has persisted over the years, but there is renewed hope of coordinated planning between the two federal agencies.
Recently, HUD, DOT and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) struck a deal called a “Federal Interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities”; and, the Obama budget has proposed funds to each of these agencies to implement the partnership.
According to the American Planning Association, “three funding categories are being considered. First, support for preparing Regional Plans for Sustainable Development that integrate housing, economic development, transportation, and environmental quality where such plans do not currently exist. Second, support for preparing more detailed execution plans and programs to implement existing regional sustainable development plans. Third, implementation funds for regions that have regional sustainable development plans and implementation strategies in place and need support for a catalytic project or program.”
This is a great opportunity along with other funding proposals for inner city renewal from HUD, the Department of Education, and interestingly, the Department of Agriculture, which will create a “healthy food financing initiative” for delivering nutritious foods to the urban poor.
As you suggest the only question to resolve is – who will take charge and apply for these funds? Maybe the 100 readers of this blog could meet at your house to take action.
Dear Anon 9:17,
At the risk of possible blindness and strange hair growth, we are not likely to have a regional authority with taxing and regulatory power anytime soon because of the three states covered by our urbanized area. However, through an inter-local agreement we might be able to take advantage of new national policies being pushed by the Obama administration, but first a little history.
In the 1960s two organizations were created to do regional planning and sit in judgement of federal capital grants to jurisdictions in the Memphis Metropolitan Area. One was the MPO (Metropolitan Planning Organization), and the other was MATCOG (Mississippi-Arkansas-Tennessee Council of Governments). The MPO and MATCOG boards consisted essentially of the same elected officials from municipal
and county governments in the area. The MPO was governed by planning rules and grants from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). MATCOG was governed by planning rules and grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
HUD was focused on housing assistance and renewal of inner city areas. DOT was focused on building roads where the population was moving. This schizophrenia has persisted over the years, but there is renewed hope of coordinated planning between the two federal agencies.
Recently, HUD, DOT and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) struck a deal called a “Federal Interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities”; and, the Obama budget has proposed funds to each of these agencies to implement the partnership.
According to the American Planning Association, “Three funding categories are being considered. First, support for preparing Regional Plans for Sustainable Development that integrate housing, economic development, transportation, and environmental quality where such plans do not currently exist. Second, support for preparing more
detailed execution plans and programs to implement existing regional sustainable development plans. Third, implementation funds for regions that have regional sustainable development plans and implementation strategies in place and need support for a catalytic project or program.”
This is a great opportunity along with other funding proposals for inner city renewal from HUD, the Department of Education, and interestingly, the Department of Agriculture, which will create a “healthy food financing initiative” for delivering nutritious foods to the urban poor.
As you suggest the only question to resolve is – who will take charge and apply for these funds? Maybe the 100 readers of this blog could meet at your house to take action!
Gene Person-
That is great information. Why not write your next blog posting on what specific steps we need to take to apply for these funds, and who you think should take the lead?
Let MATCOG do it.:):):):):)
or better yet, reconvene the 1998 1101 Committee and tell em to do a Plan this time instead of a LAND GRAB!.
My guess is Gene will still have hairy palms at the end of the day. Maybe everybody should just chill out, and eat cookies at the next Planning for (spare) Change meeting the MPO is having-coming to an inner city neighborhood near you!
“this blog has become a site for intellectual masturbation.”
“My guess is Gene will still have hairy palms at the end of the day…”
see what I mean? what a pair of great quotes…
Where IS the Plan process, anyway?