As we look ahead to a new year, I have asked some Memphians who care deeply about their city’s future for their resolutions or reflections for 2024. I am deeply grateful for their thoughtful submissions.   

Here is the first one.  It’s by Susan Adler Thorp, principal at Susan Adler Thorp Communications, panelist on ABC24 This Week, and former political columnist for The Commercial Appeal:

No point in trying to pretty the picture for Memphis. 2023 sucked.

We held an election in which only seven percent of registered voters elected our new mayor.

Tyre Nichols lost his life to the brutality of five police officers.

The new head of Memphis Light Gas and Water thumbed his nose at Memphis when he proposed to move the city’s largest division away from downtown to an area not even within the city limits.

At least 4,000 burglaries or robberies of businesses happened in Memphis in 2023, maybe more, making the term smash-and-grab part of the local lexicon.

And a young St. Jude scientist working to find a cure for childhood cancer was murdered while trying to protect his wife and child on a street in downtown Memphis.

Those are only a few of the reasons 2023 was a lousy year for our city. Who could blame me for being pessimistic about 2024?

But I’m not. 

Of course, I’m discouraged by these events, and others. But I’ve learned over the many years I’ve observed and reported on our city that even in the darkest days there’s always hope. Hope for tomorrow. Hope for next year. I’ve learned that without hope we lose the need to give meaning and purpose to our lives. Hope for a better future lies at the very core of who we are as people, as Memphians.

In fairness, Memphis has experienced many days darker than those of 2023. The yellow fever epidemic, for example, when more than half of the city fled or died. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which branded Memphis as a decaying Mississippi River town – a stain we still feel today. More recently, the 1978 Fire and Police strikes, Hurricane Elvis in 2003, and the 1994 ice storm. Few people thought Memphis could recover from those dark days, but it did.

So, rather than look back and wallow in the past, let’s look ahead as Tom suggests. Here’s what I look forward to for Memphis in 2024, but I plan to keep my expectations in check. 

  • Continued excitement about the new Tom Lee Park, which has given our riverfront a new lease on life.
  • Watching how Paul Young, who was elected Mayor with something less than a mandate, plans to advance our city, get a handle on crime and work with the City Council.
  • Learning that the Grizzlies will stay in Memphis another 25 years.
  • More private businesses fund more mobile food trucks so that more people living in poverty will have access to fresh fruits and vegetables.
  • Hoping that Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy, Juvenile Court Judge Tarik Sugarmon, and our deep bench of criminal court judges all realize that crime without punishment creates a crime-infested free-for-all, and includes punishing those convicted of car thefts and smash-and-grab crimes.
  • MPD figures out how to curb drag racing on our city streets.
  • Learning that Memphis and Shelby County Schools hired a superintendent so the system can start thinking about teaching our children once again.
  • Doug McGowen, president of Memphis Light Gas and Water, finally does what’s best for the utility’s ratepayers and issues a fair and transparent RFP so we can find out what electric power supplied by a provider other than TVA will cost us.
  • An airline – any airline — launches nonstop service from Memphis to Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco.
  • Chance Carlisle resurrects his plans for a Grand Hyatt downtown. 

So, for me, this is what hope for our future looks like even though it’s not everything I would like to happen. I don’t think it’s foolishly optimistic to rely on hope. Hope gives us the courage and strength to look forward to another day, and to make what seems impossible, possible, especially in a city like Memphis.

Simply put, I’m looking forward to a year that simply doesn’t suck.