It is a regular part of media coverage and blog posts that someone will knock Memphis by talking about the cranes in Nashville.
We have said over and over and over that no city in the Southeast can match the momentum of Nashville and its booming economy, so these comparisons with Nashville are irrelevant, if not silly. In the end, Memphis must be the best version of Memphis rather than a Memphis copy of Nashville…or Louisville…or Austin…or anywhere else. It’s taken us a long time to come to grips with this, and it requires our attention to make sure that the city’s building boom does not undermine the strength of the adaptive reuse impulse that has guided Memphis for three decades.
All that said, for the fans of cranes, here are three photos from downtown Memphis, and it’s a harbinger of the future. Soon, there will be many more with the cranes for Union Row, the Lowe’s Hotel near the convention center, and others.
I agree. Growth comparisons to Nashville are unfair to almost any city. But given the amount of public funding invested in local economic development, peer city group comparisons are fundamentally required for measurement.
Comparisons of the respective economic development processes are useful since both cities share the same state tax structure, the same business incentives, and the same state laws. But comparing most economic indicators and expecting there to be much relevance is another matter.
Memphis is already about 25 years behind Nashville, so a little crane watching here may help our bruised egos. These projects are all relatively small potatoes compared to other cities. But they are welcome in a city that is desperate for activity. The underlying problems are our stagnant population growth, weak business climate and CRIME.
The crane watchers never talk about Nashville having more debt than the state of Tennessee. We all know the state legislators have shown more favor to Nashville than Memphis, and this has contributed to the boom Nashville is experiencing, but Memphis is experiencing its own growth and it will not have the pains Nashville is experiencing or will soon experience.
The pains of Memphis are crime and poverty.