New Year’s Resolutions for 2015 Smart City Memphis | January 8th, 2015 Everyone these days has their own list of moonshots – inspired by the description by the Greater Memphis Chamber’s Chairman’s Circle of its own priorities – and we’re no different. In truth, what we call moonshots might be called business as usual or priorities for a decade ago in many cities. For that reason, we apologize in advance if our list of moonshots sounds more like building the launching pad for a moonshot. That said, we still believe are essential. Regardless, it’s time that Memphis elevated its thinking and if that requires us to get the basics right, let’s do it now and really get to game-changing strategies that can improve the Memphis trajectory for the future. In our previous post, we wrote our rules for the new year. They were: 1) Resist the temptation to treat anecdotes as data. 2) Let’s create a story for Memphis that resonates with all of us. 3) Shake the Nashville obsession. 4) Be intolerant about us versus them rhetoric. 5) Quit chasing magic answers. 6) Create balanced strategies for the future. From where we sit, the following are the priorities for Memphis that need to be addressed: 1) Create a downtown known for its vibrancy. We were having lunch recently with someone who moved here after living in several other cities. His question about downtown: Where are all the people? We smiled and replied: Haven’t you heard yet that we’re in the midst of a downtown renaissance? We then told him about downtown Memphis 35 years ago and how it was teeming with activity and people. It would be a sign of our civic maturity if – when it comes to downtown and many other issues – someone in a leadership position would simply tell it like it is. A few years ago, a national columnist revisited Memphis after an absence of 10 years or so, and he said: “Downtown Memphis is in real trouble, and I’m not sure it’s going to make it.” an international authority on cities spoke in Memphis some years back and he said: “The reality doesn’t live up to the resonance.” That’s why we should make a new year’s resolution for 2015 that we will be honest about the challenges before us and the sense of urgency needed to address it. We owe it to ourselves. Back to downtown, it is the classic example of what we have said often: we too often define success by comparing Memphis to itself rather than to other cities. Because of it, we think downtown is going through a renaissance when compared to 10 years ago, but the real question is what downtown looks like when it is compared to other similar cities. Considering that too often, no one even felt the need to fight for downtown as businesses, law firms, banks, and arts groups moved east, we are pleased to see that the current leadership of the Downtown Memphis Commission refuses to go along to get along. We have pockets of vibrancy but they are few and far between. Make no mistake about it, if you want to know how to decide if a downtown is successful, it is vibrancy. That, more than anything else, should be the goal of everything under way downtown. 2) Mitigate the devastating effects of sprawl. The tragedy of the unsustainable sprawl of Shelby County is that it is precisely the result of our own local government policies. Shelby County Government bears most of the blame, reliably coughing up more and more money and almost quadrupling its debt to build more and more roads and schools outside Memphis. In a sentence, Memphians, who were paying 75% of county government’s bills, were required to subsidize their own neighborhoods’ decline and invest in Memphis’s place at the top of the list for economic segregation. But less known is the complicity of Memphis City Council. Zoning laws gave Council members extraterritorial jurisdiction which means they had a vote on zoning and land use decisions three and five miles outside the borders of Memphis. As a result, City Council had the ability to shape the future of unincorporated Shelby County, but instead, it wielded a rubber stamp on every project because its members were also under the influence of developers. They also assumed that through annexation, Memphis would ultimately take in the area and gather up new property taxes. As we’ve seen, this annexation policy was fool’s gold, because the short-term infusion of more tax money was outpaced within a couple of decades by the long-term costs of services, which were more expensive because they had to be delivered over greater distances with less density. Today, while Memphis is at the bottom of most economic indicators, it is at the top of the list of communities with the worst sprawl. In this cause, correlation does mean causation. One begets the other more than we often seem able to realize. These days, we seem to accept sprawl as a fact of life, but there are still public policies that can mitigate its effects, but they require us to understand the price that we are paying for this unsustainable growth. It also requires Shelby County Government to act as a partner with City of Memphis to protect the economic heart of the entire region. 3) Develop a balanced economic development plan. Today’s economic development plans continue to put Memphis in position long-term to compete against Mexico rather than American cities that are succeeding by concentrating on the knowledge economy. In the past year, Memphis has added jobs that barely pay living wages, but meanwhile, we lost as many jobs at FedEx. We celebrate call center jobs that are located so far east that urban workers can’t get to them. It’s no wonder that Memphians are in the top rungs of cities where people spent the most for transportation. It seems only logical that if the governor is going to swoop in to Memphis – and this goes for anybody else announcing jobs – to announce a bunch of $9 an hour call center jobs that the first box to check is whether Memphians who need these jobs the most can even get to them. On average, it takes one hour and a half for inner city workers to get to most job centers in our region. And while the political attention now falls on connecting workers to the call center jobs, it’s worth remembering that there’s no bus service to Electrolux or Mitsubishi either. There is a strange culture that has grown up around economic development in Memphis and Shelby County, one based on anecdote and vested interests telling us how essential tax freezes are, even as about $80 million in city and county taxes are waived every year to major corporations. Nobody here is saying we should do away with the PILOT program, but we are saying that it needs to be used sparingly, it should have carefully identified targets, and it should quit overpaying for the jobs it’s getting. More to the point, we shouldn’t rely on the people who benefit from PILOTs to tell us how indispensable they are. It’s become de rigueur here to say that we have to give away taxes because we are a border city with Mississippi. And yet, just about one-third of the largest MSAs in the U.S. are just like ours – they are multi-state – and no other city approves as many tax freezes as we do. 4) Become a hub of African-American talent. Atlanta built its economic juggernaut while soaking up most African-American talent in the Southeast, and it prides itself on being a hub of African-American talent. Competitive advantage is built on differentiation, and what makes this entire region different – the first majority African-American MSA with more than one million people – is our wealth of African-American talent. We should embrace what makes us distinctive, because when we don’t, we play into the hands of those who assume that a majority African-American region cannot succeed. That’s why the smartest thing we can do is to walk toward, rather than deny, facts perceived as problems by others. We’re not saying that we shouldn’t be scratching and clawing for any talent that we can get, whatever color, but the fact remains: we have a significant bulge in children under 18 when compared to the largest 51 MSAs – and the majority of these kids are black. This bulge can be an economic plus, but first, we have to begin to treat them as assets rather than problems and do whatever it takes to convert the students in our classrooms today into the talent that becomes our competitive advantage tomorrow. Finally, minority business development has to be treated as more than social work. Too often, companies helping minority entrepreneurs act like it’s just a good deed rather than a critical business decision for economic success. Despite decades of talk about the importance of minority businesses, these businesses remain largely in low-growth and no-growth sectors and rely on personal debt and family financing rather than loans, equity, and other tools. Because of it, the businesses lack the number, size, and capabilities of their white-owned counterparts. If we had more African-American businesses, they would accomplish so many of our economic objectives for Memphis, including accelerated jobs growth, rebuilding urban neighborhoods, expanding local tax bases, and creating more customers and putting more money in everyone’s cash registers. 5) Get serious about a plan and planning. So much that is done in Memphis is a shot in the dark because we have no real plan that guides decisions or articulates our aspirations for the future. Most planners in other cities are incredulous when told that we have not had a comprehensive plan for 30 years. They are dumfounded that the number of planners for all of Memphis and Shelby County can be counted on two hands. They are concerned that we can’t all cite what our priorities are. That said, we don’t need a traditional comprehensive plan but more of a strategic framework that shows the forces shaping Memphis, how they can interrelate in ways that propel the city ahead, and which ones are our top priorities. It is incredulous that city and county governments have decimated our planning functions and failed to support the new Unified Development Code with the staff needed to enforce it. It is next to impossible to find a city our size with as few planners as we have and the impact of this lack of commitment to real planning. 6) Implement the Jeff Speck Recommendations. Nationally-known planner, architectural designer, author, and New Urbanist co-creator Jeff Speck laid out six simple ideas for the Memphis riverfront that could transform it. His 74-page report appeared to have found the sweet spot for short-term actions that don’t cost much and could bring more activity, more people, and more vitality to downtown. He began his work with a fundamental premise: “The central indicator of success for a city is street life,” he said, as he explained the context for city government’s work. His six short-term ideas for the riverfront: make Riverside Drive a complete street, make Bass Pro Drive a complete street, remake Jefferson Davis Park, complete the central Riverwalk, and improve Tom Lee Park. So far, only one of the report’s recommendations have been implemented – turning two lanes of Riverside Drive into bike lanes (although not exactly in the configuration he and traffic planning firm Nelson-Nygaard suggested). Riverside Drive made the list of a national cycling group as one of the top three new bike lanes in the U.S. 7) Get intentional about development of elected leadership. This one needs no explanation, because we’re sure you’re already discussing it. Memphis has to attract younger, innovative leaders into the political system and positions of government leadership. Today, our political process repels many people from getting involved, much less run for office, and there is an entire sub-strata of young, smart young people who are passionate about the future of Memphis but have nothing but disdain for politics here. We have to find a way to get them engaged because Memphis’ future hinges on attracting a new generation of leadership. 8) Make University of Memphis nationally significant. The single largest pipeline for talent in Memphis is our state university, but its role and potential too rarely come up in discussions about the future of Memphis. All of us who care about the future of our city should also care about the future of U of M, no matter what our alma maters. As we look for strategies to expand and improve our economy, it’s imperative that we make it a priority to move Memphis’ higher education anchor up that list – and up the list of the top U.S. universities. 17 Comments Tiger88 says: January 8, 2015 at 9:54 am It would be great to see University of Memphis more nationally significant. But the reality is that UofM is a bit of a step child in the state’s higher education system with UT Knoxville and Middle Tennessee State Univ. being more important and with larger enrollments and budgets. Rhodes is the our crown jewel of higher education, but it is a small, elite college focusing on liberal arts. If only we had an institution like Vanderbilt or Duke here, it would greatly benefit the city. Anonymous says: January 8, 2015 at 12:25 pm One idea I’ve had in regard to city planning is to divide the city into discrete named neighborhoods as do other large cities. That would permit each discrete neighborhood to coalesce behind an identity. Many of the neighborhoods already exist and are named: downtown core, south main, pinch district, uptown, etc. The rest of the city needs to be appropriately partitioned with the neighborhood boundaries formalized; newspapers should be encouraged to identify areas by neighborhood. sleepy says: January 8, 2015 at 1:39 pm Downtown during a weekday is a ghost town. Very, very few people on the streets, even on South Main, with far fewer people out and about than most cities one-half the size of Memphis. It seems more of an entertainment district than anything else. While far more people live downtown now than at downtown’s nadir of, say, 1980, I would imagine employment downtown was far higher back then–before Beale, before FedEx Forum, before South Main, before Autozone Park, etc., etc. Would be interesting to do a study of where downtowners actually work. RB says: January 8, 2015 at 1:53 pm The city comprises approximately 70 named neighborhoods whose residents can describe the boundaries upon which they generally agree. Many, like Hein Park, Evergreen, Central Gardens, and Cooper-Young would be the envy of any American city. Others still struggle to achieve comparable success. Many of the latter, such as Binghampton, Frayser, and Klondike/Smokey City, benefit from energetic, passionate community development corporations whose tenacious leaders tirelessly work to eliminate blight, reduce crime, assist schools, and attract redevelopment. They are easy to contact, and can use support and help from the rest of us. Regarding downtown: No one ever sent home a postcard of suburban shopping strip saying, “Wish you were here.” Cities draw identity from the unique qualities of their downtowns. No two look alike. Each exemplifies the values, energy, and purpose of their people; who they are, what their story is, and what they stand for, what they believe. Downtowns are the front doors of cities. They are the first, and usually lasting, impression received by visitors. Paul Morris and his team deserve the enthusiastic support, assistance, and financial commitment of the entire regional business, civic, and governmental community. It is in our collective best interest to do so. As a resident and business owner, I selfishly and unabashedly want to lower taxes, raise property values, and increase the customer base of higher income residents. Our current trajectory takes us away from these goals. Some may regard implementing SCM’s recommendations as impractical. I regard it as in my own economic self-interest. Preston Gold says: January 8, 2015 at 3:26 pm Much of Downtown Memphis is very much like a ghost town, even on weekends. Compared to other cities, our downtown is very lacking in street life and urban vibrancy. A weak downtown hurts the entire city and region. The Beale Street area is mostly just plain “tacky” with very few authentic “destination” restaurants and bars. The whole area can be sketchy, especially after 10 pm, and the police presence serves as a distinct warning signal to many that this may not be the safest place to liger. Go just a few blocks in the wrong direction and it can be scary. This image, either imagined or real, really hurts downtown. Even when there are lots of people on the streets after an event at FedEx Forum or the ball park, the crowds seem to vanish quickly as people get in the cars and head for the suburbs. I also wonder where the people who live in the downtown area actually work. I doubt the Bass Pro Shop will help the Pinch and North Main districts too much as most of the customers will only go into the Pyramid itself. The riverfront has always had tremendous potential, but the Beale St. Landing looks to be another public works disaster and has cost so much and produced such an isolated and mediocre product. Like Mud Island, it’s just not that impressive or alluring. Downtown has way too many blighted buildings, notably the Sterrick Bldg. 100 North Main is just plain ugly and probably not worth the high costs needed to rehab. Who knows how the Chisca will turn out, but at least it’s better than the rotting structure that’s been there for decades. Downtown has far too much vacant land, especially surface parking lots. It pains me to see that the downtown skyline looks almost exactly the same as it did 25 years ago. There have been hardly any major new downtown skyscrapers built in downtown Memphis since the 1970s. J Stone says: January 8, 2015 at 6:19 pm The idea of formally partitioning city neighborhoods strikes me as ridiculous. To do so would further divide Memphis and exacerbate an “us vs. them” mentality, further fueling the racial tensions at the root of this city’s misery index. Anonymous says: January 8, 2015 at 8:24 pm My idea regarding neighborhood partitioning was actually meant more for north memphis, south memphis, and midtown as a way of generating enthusiasm for the neighborhood by the people who already live there; light pole banners, etc. Knock the idea if you wish…. Urbanut says: January 9, 2015 at 9:55 am Anon 8:24- I agree with your idea regarding neighborhood branding and identity. Urbanut says: January 9, 2015 at 11:14 am SCM et.al., Please excuse the lengthy post here, once I started typing I found it hard to stop. Downtown has definitely slipped over the past several decades in terms of its average daily population. What is lauded as a renaissance is essentially the replacement of office uses with residential use. That is fine, except that the average one bedroom apartment occupies somewhere between 700 square feet and 1000 square feet and supports one or two residents. Utilized as office space, the same square footages would support an average of 7-10 people. Thus, residential conversion projects lower the potential population housed by any one building (assuming office to residential). There is rampant anecdotal evidence and outright personal preferences employed in place of facts in some of the comments here. For example: A study not so long ago showed that a smaller percentage of the land area of downtown was either vacant or devoted to surface parking when compared to other cities in the southeast. In some cases it was MUCH smaller. Immediately adjacent to 72 story Bank of America Plaza in Dallas is- you guessed it- an entire block of surface parking. Some two-thirds of downtown Houston- a massive office market and capital of the nation/world’s energy market- is defined by surface parking lots. Still, the infill of parking lots between Danny Thomas and the River is a must as one surface lot anywhere downtown is one too many. A great first step would be to require all surface lots downtown to conform with the existing regulations of the UDC regarding landscaping, screening and fencing which would help create a far more comfortable pedestrian environment. Match this with comprehensive streetscape improvements and the ground level experience would be completely reinvented. Statements such as “100 North Main is just plain ugly and probably not worth the high costs needed to rehab” provides a great example of the type of subjective thought and reasoning that if prevalent would constrain the growth or development of any community. As if to directly counter that opinion, initial prep work at 100 N. Main for its much anticipated redevelopment has already begun. If anyone thinks Downtown Memphis is a ghost town on the weekends, they have obviously not ventured into downtown Dallas, Houston or even Atlanta (beyond Centennial Park) on the average Saturday or Sunday. Talk about ghost towns! These locations remind me of downtown Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s- a district that hummed with cosmopolitan life from 8 am to 5 pm on weekdays, but on the weekends served as the film location for countless post-apocalyptic films simply because there were no pedestrians or vehicles to inconvenience with the closing of any streets. That does not mean Memphis does not have great strides that need to be made in order to create the type of vibrant urban center we all desire for it to be. A primary step in obtaining that goal should be the focus on growing downtown’s role as an employment center, specifically targeting both start up and small companies. These companies are the city’s best hope for long term and sustainable economic growth that transcends the low pay found in tourist and distribution related employment. Such entrepreneurial prospects also happen to represent the greatest potential for future growth and demand for the office market. The resurgence of Midtown’s residential and retail market serve as a leverage point for the growth of downtown as a center for both jobs AND as a residential neighborhood. Another relatively easy first step is to re-consolidate all city and state service and support offices back downtown which would serve as an excellent stopgap measure towards allowing the local market to reinvest and upgrade existing office properties downtown. The urban renewal project that many decades ago yielded Boston’s City Hall and plaza purposely did not include the amount of office space necessary to support future city, state and federal needs. The city used the leverage created by this demand to support what was then an ailing office market and sparked massive investment in that city’s supply of downtown office real estate space. Beale Street- still touted by the Tennessee Dept. of Tourist Development as the state’s most frequented tourist attraction- is an incredible asset and foundation on which to build. 3 out of 4 of the establishments on Beale are unique to Beale Street alone, thus it is easy to dismiss Preston’s claims as (once again) anecdotal evidence or flat out disinformation. I can think of several other entertainment districts and strips in other cities in both Tennessee and elsewhere that are far more “tacky” and lack any degree of authenticity but attract tourists nonetheless. However, as Beale Street continues to evolve it will be important to guard against the pressure to grow the district with thru brands and establishments that do not build upon the street’s historic roots and identity. Some of the issues regarding the growth of Beale are the ownership of land both within and adjacent to the district and restrictions regarding the uses permitted on these properties. A natural first step would be to evaluate these property ownership patterns as well as whether the bureaucratic dead-weight that was crafted at Beale’s inception supports or hinders the growth of that area going forward. When Beale was the center of a massive urban renewal project, building the MLGW headquarters at that location may have made sense (even if the suburban approach to the design was NEVER a good idea for that location). Considering the building is an aging facility in need of a massive overhaul and would be unable to withstand a moderate to strong earthquake- never mind the potential for a massive shakedown- it may be time to consider the construction of a new facility in a more appropriate location. Such a move would open what could be extremely valuable real estate that would allow Beale to extend seamlessly to Main Street and the recently expanded Orpheum facilities and one block closer to the river. I also hope that most individuals are beyond the phallic obsession with skyscrapers and skylines. It is a very 1980s infatuation. Tall buildings do not a great city make! It is a juvenile correlation and one that most cities dismissed many years ago. Once again, I refer to the desolate downtowns of places like Houston, Dallas and Atlanta where the skyscrapers that tower over anything constructed (or even proposed) in the state of Tennessee have contributed little to creating a truly vibrant urban core. However, one can find incredibly vibrant downtowns in places like Portland, Eugene, Alexandria, Charleston and many other cities and towns that lack the monumental towers (or have seen little in the way of skyline altering projects over the past decade) some seem to correlate with a vibrant and desirable place yet have the level of downtown vibrancy and activity completely lacking in any city in Tennessee. Even in places like NYC and Chicago, the most vibrant neighborhoods are not those with the tallest office and residential towers, but are in those neighborhoods defined by buildings of much shorter stature such as Wrigleyville, Old Town Triangle, Lakeview, Mid-North, The Village, Park Slope, Williamsburg and LIC. Of course, essentially every city in continental Europe could serve as a similar example. That is why in city after city, both in the southeast and elsewhere, we see blocks once touted for towering edifices instead being utilized for residential development and blocks that are often 7 stories in height or less. Autumn1997 says: January 9, 2015 at 3:05 pm Downtown is a place we rarely go, even living nearby in midtown. There just isn’t enough to attract us there other than the occasional event, so we usually stay around midtown or head east. When we travel we always notice that most all other cities have downtowns much more alive than Memphis and maybe that’s because there are lots of office workers and businesses there. There are really quite few office buildings downtown since most everything moved way out east years ago. As for Beale Street, no way Jose! It has zero appeal to most everyone I know. Anonymous says: January 9, 2015 at 3:26 pm Good gosh, would someone else respond to some of these great comments OTHER than the usual troll who uses a different pen name every single time? Their writing style gives them away on every comment they make! Come on troll- at least man up and use the same pen name if you are going to post. Writing the same crap 10 different times under 10 different names doesn’t support your opinion, it just makes you look like a nut. Anonymous says: January 9, 2015 at 3:57 pm At least he’s not ranting about how great things are in Nashville. Anonymous says: January 10, 2015 at 2:07 pm Atlanta is the undisputed hub for African American talent and enterprise for the entire country. It will hard to compete with Atlanta so nearby, but I’d like to hear ideas about how Memphis can create more African-American businesses without relying on more government handouts and loans. It will be a tough sell for private funding. Not having a majority African American university here hurts. Urbanut says: January 10, 2015 at 2:53 pm Anon 2:07 There is a historic African American majority university located in Memphis: LeMoyne-Owen College. I think you raise an important issue in that while LeMoyne-Owen does exist, it is hardly of the caliber, reputation or capacity found at Morehouse, Spellman or Clark Atlanta. WCN says: January 10, 2015 at 8:25 pm Mitigating sprawl and creating a vibrant downtown go hand and hand. I don’t see how a vibrant downtown can happen unless the zoning policies improve. Additionally, it seems that the leadership does not tout downtown for consideration in company recruitment efforts. If a company does decide to locate in Memphis, they will more then likely move out east or even out into the county Duncan says: January 11, 2015 at 7:52 am Companies always seem to move to East Memphis, into Shelby County and increasingly to Mississippi. All of this works against Memphis ever having a truly vibrant downtown. I can’t think of any major companies that relocated downtown in recent years. Except of course Pinnacle Airlines who packed up and left town for Minneapolis. Now we have Pinnacle’s former CEO Phil Trenary heading up our Chamber of Commerce (making a huge salary too). Another example of great leadership at work in the Bluff City! WCN says: January 11, 2015 at 8:47 am @ Duncan On the downtown issue, I will go even further and say that even many county gov’t offices have relocated OUTSIDE of downtown. How can we expect private companies to consider downtown, when the local gov’t is abandoning it.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 15:50:20 +0000
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