Hopefully, now that we’ve all worked through the catharsis brought on by hitting the list of miserable U.S. cities by Forbes magazine, maybe we can now follow it up with an epiphany.

Most urbanists and public policy types have long ago discredited these meaningless lists of the smartest cities, wired cities, successful cities and happiest cities.  So many of these lists spring from Bert Sperling’s indefatigable obsession with city listings.  That Forbes relied on Mr. Sperling for its rankings tells us that the miserable cities listing would naturally feature some of his regular incongruities, such as crime rate and professional sports team records.

It would be laughable except for the fact that so many reputable bastions of journalism these days are drawn to these lists, especially Forbes which touts itself as “The Capitalist’s Tool.”

The Miserables

We know something about capitalists in Memphis.  There’s the one who’s been invited to meet President Barack Obama for a conversation – Fred Smith.  There’s Pitt Hyde, the youngest CEO listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and others who have shaped Memphis’s entrepreneurial history.

Memphis is also world headquarters for FedEx (which has one of the 10 most positive brands in the world), Autozone, International Paper and Servicemaster.

If we were actually inclined to write a letter to Forbes, we’d focus on our business history and ask this question:  Does it really make any sense that these entrepreneurs and world-class companies – who could locate anywhere – would choose a city as miserable as Forbes suggests?

The Best

We’re proud of so much about our city, but most of them – music, art, grassroots creativity, funkiness, coolness and neighborhoods – aren’t directly responsive to the unemployment rate, tax rate, commuting times, violent crime rate and corruption cases cited in the miserable rankings.  Because of this, we know that the mass of letters from Memphis are probably stuck in the same bag as the letters from Cleveland, Stockton, St. Louis, Miami and Buffalo.

As for us, the I Love Memphis blog reminds us every day how special this city is; however, that doesn’t mean that we should delude ourselves that there isn’t serious work for us if we are to improve a trajectory that is now headed definitely in the wrong direction.

Now that all of us have defended our city’s honor, we hope that the energy spent on letters to Forbes will be channeled into vigorously attacking some of the problems listed in the Forbes article, particularly the seedbed of so many of them – poverty.  While our unemployment rate was factored into the miserable index, it actually was the iceberg whose mass is below the surface.

Breaking the Link

In Memphis, if the unemployment rate is officially listed as 10%, that means that 34% of our people are out of the job market, because almost one in four aren’t counted anymore because they haven’t looked for work for an extended period of time.  And it’s time to talk bluntly about how to break the inextricable link in Memphis between race and poverty.

The lack of more workers and the presence of 20% more children than our peer cities conspire to keep the Memphis tax rate high.  For example, in Nashville, there are three workers for every child, but in Memphis, there are only two, which means that those two have to pay more to produce the revenues needed for public services here.

In the past seven years, Shelby County became a majority African-American county and the Memphis region is soon to follow (if it hasn’t already done it), so no city in the U.S. has more incentive to quit talking about how bad poverty is and finally do something about it.

Poor Choices

This was on our mind as the Forbes article was published, because CEOs for Cities was having a national conference in Detroit on “The Opportunity Dividend,” which calls for reducing the poverty rate 1% in U.S. cities.  No one from Memphis attended, which was discouraging, but it made us ask the questions: We all talk about poverty in Memphis but who’s in charge?  Who has principle responsibility for reducing it?

In other words, it’s past time for Memphis to quit the speeches and get to work.  While we were talking, the poverty rate in Memphis has risen 27.2% since 2000, and the poverty rate for adolescents has risen 45%.  Now about one out of two children in Memphis live in poverty, and child poverty is twice the national rate and the highest in the South.

In other words, where a Memphian is born is the single largest determinant for his future.  If he is born into the geography of poverty that grips 160,000 people, there is a greater likelihood that he’ll end up in jail than in the line to graduate from University of Memphis.

I Am A Man

That’s why Memphis City Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash’s summoning up of the greatest heroes in Memphis history – the sanitation workers who led our civil rights movement – touched a nerve with us.  It may have been a bit clumsy mixing up the sanitation workers with an overzealous advocacy of his school police force, but all in all, we got the bigger idea.

In recent weeks, Superintendent Cash viewed the Memphis Tourism Foundation-produced documentary, I Am A Man, and met a sanitation worker who was a leader in the 1968 strike.  Clearly, it had an impact on him.

Holding up an “I Am a Man” sign during his speech to local ministers, Superintendent Cash compared the struggle to save Memphis’ children with the sanitation workers struggle to gain respect, dignity and basic civil rights.    He’s right.  The greatest civil rights issue of our day is the future of the 105,000 children in Memphis City Schools.

The Right Fight

“We have children going from the schoolhouse to the jailhouse,” said Superintendent Cash.  “That path is grooved better than two lanes in a bowling alley.”  There’s no argument, because as he said, juveniles in the urban core get few options to the ride to Juvenile Court.

Here’s the thing: It is not the time for another program to end poverty.  It is not time for another anti-poverty project.  It is time for a movement.

Memphis Mayor A C Wharton said recently that our city needs to write its own song or narrative.  As for us, we vote for it to be Memphis: Fighting for Every Child.

That’s the epiphany we’re waiting on.  There’s no time like the present.