We have repeated one of our favorite quotations often: every system is perfectly designed to produce the results that it does.
So, what exactly were the decisions made here that produced the results that we now face us? Our “system” is characterized by sprawl, declining densities, higher poverty, neighborhood blight, low-wage jobs, and underfunded public services.
The following begins our list of our 10 decisions that produced things as they are today:
Shelby County Encourages Middle Income Families to Leave Memphis
Back when Shelby County Government was restructured in 1974 and the mayor form of government was created, it had a choice: to be Memphis-focused and pursue policies that supported the growth of the city that produced most of its tax revenues or to be suburban-focused and advance policies that supported the small municipalities and grew their political base. Unfortunately, it chose the suburbs, a decision that continues to have ramifications today and defines the prevailing philosophy of the county administration.
It all began in the mid-1970s when the newly structured county government developed preferential programs for the municipalities that were expanded over the ensuring decades. For example, county government agreed to split the costs of major roads 50-50 with the municipalities but refused to consider a similar policy for those within Memphis. County government paid the total cost of schools inside the towns while Memphis contributed tens of millions of dollars to schools within its borders.
Meanwhile, Shelby County Government’s demonstrated additional largesse when it came to paying for things like libraries and ambulances for the towns while refusing to contribute to the same services within Memphis. As a result, county taxpayers – most of whom lived in Memphis – were essentially subsidizing the towns’ lower tax property tax rates.
But there’s little question that all of these pale in comparison to Shelby County’s decision to subsidize influential developers with infrastructure that set in motion the first sprawl in the county and then doubled down with more and more new roads and schools – to the point that county government’s debt skyrocketed to almost $2 billion.
Put simply, Memphis taxpayers were forced through their county taxes to subsidize the decline of their own neighborhoods – and their city’s tax base – as Memphis hollowed out its middle class.
But, it is worth remembering that Memphis City Council could have thrown down a gauntlet by refusing to approve zoning requests within its extraterritorial authority. Under this policy, Memphis City Council had the right to approve any developments within three or five miles of the Memphis city limits. But in those days, the city’s legislative body was no different than county government: it was controlled by developers. As a result, City Council rubber stamped approvals of big projects, and today, there is no better example of what this city-county developer-controlled process produced than Germantown Parkway.
Long forgotten by most is the fact that the Memphis and Shelby County Office of Planning and Development issued a smart plan for Germantown Parkway, but the legislative bodies started approving changes to it before the ink had dried. In fact, they decided that the report was advisory only and immediately and routinely approved strip malls and massive apartment complexes that doomed any attempt to make Germantown Parkways into nodes of mixed-use activity.
Instead, Shelby County pursued policies that were unsustainable, both in terms of land use and wise financial management, as county government’s massive debt moved it to the brink of financial collapse.
And yet, even today, in county government discussions, you’ll hear officials refer to the “growth” in Shelby County, which in their context, means the area outside of Memphis. Of course, the truth is that it’s not growth at all. It’s actually the greatest relocation of population in the history of the region and all made possible because of policy mistakes made by county government.
As a result, it is no surprise that today, we are #6 in a ranking of regions with the most sprawl.
No Commitment to Planning
Planning has always been a low priority for local government, and even when the planning office took a more professional role in producing reports to guide important planning opportunities, it was common for the legislative bodies to hear the presentation, thank the presenters, and put the reports on the shelf.
Unfortunately, the lack of a commitment to planning by the Shelby County Board of Commissioners and Memphis City Council was duplicated in the executive offices of city and county government in the pivotal years when planning could have made a significant difference in the direction of this community.
However, with campaign contributions flowing freely in local races, developers exerted an influence that neighborhoods could only imagine over decisions about policies, funding, and programs. For at least 20 years, developer interests have dominated key boards like the Land Use Control Board and the Board of Adjustment, and even today, when push comes to shove, developers continue to get inordinate consideration in land use decisions.
That influence can be seen even today in the erosion of the Unified Development Code, the form-based code that offered so much promise to create walkable neighborhoods, compact development, better connectivity, and overall smarter planning, and also in the inappropriate use of the Board of Adjustment to sidestep the normal zoning process.
A nationally known planner said recently that he had never seen a major U.S. city the size of Memphis that did not have an ambitious, well-funded planning process. But, we’ve managed to do it. Decimated by budget cuts over the years and now with the number of planners you can count on two hands (much, much fewer than in comparable cities), city planning is largely an afterthought – if it’s thought of at all by city and county elected officials.
It is the culmination of a traditional lack of support for planning in this community, and if nothing else, it suggests that City of Memphis should set up its own planning operations and remove Shelby County Government from its planning decisions altogether.
Ignoring the Need for Equity
The intent behind the creation of joint departments and divisions was noble, but ultimately, they created issues of equity that city and county governments ignored for decades until Memphis City Council took action a few years ago to level the playing field.
While the notion of city and county governments working closely together on areas of shared importance sounds like good governance, it in turn resulted in Memphians paying a disproportionate share of all joint city-county operations. This functional consolidation was often a stand-in for the lack of full city-county consolidation, but with Memphians paying 100% of its half of the costs for joint services and about 70% of the county’s share, it meant that in this 50-50 management arrangement, Memphis taxpayers ended up paying 85% of the total budgets for these operations.
Fortunately, for Memphis taxpayers, Memphis City Council took the matter into its own hands. Two years ago, it voted to end funding for the Memphis and Shelby County Health Department since it was county government that had legal responsibility for health services in this community. A few years before that, the Council eliminated city funding for schools.
It was a sound policy change that was almost 40 years in the making. Until City Council got serious about it, Memphians were paying twice for services that were countywide in nature and rightfully should have been funded solely by county government. The confusion was aggravated because our community never had a clear definition of what was a municipal (city government) service and what was a regional service (county government).
In the aftermath of the “tiny towns” controversy in the late 1990s, city and county staff members met to begin discussions about rationalizing public services. On the table was the idea of shifting libraries, health department, and convention centers and arenas to the larger tax base of Shelby County. Unfortunately, the negotiations broke down before they ever really had a chance to get started.
At the heart of the problem was the lack of coherency in county tax policies. Shelby County’s rationale for service delivery was schizophrenic and confusing to the people who pay its costs. For example, county government delivered some services countywide, such as public health and criminal justice. For some municipalities, it provides fire protection and law enforcement. In others, it provided ambulance service. Outside of Memphis, Shelby County Government paid the total cost of education and the towns paid nothing. Outside of Memphis, Shelby County entered into partnerships with small cities to help fund road projects, but denied the same option for Memphis.
And yet, the inequity of the joint funding arrangement continues to rear its head, most recently with the grumbling in Shelby County Government because City of Memphis wasn’t forthcoming with its half of the budget of EDGE, the umbrella agency in charge of economic growth. The complaint was that Memphis owed half of the funding for the group, which begged the question that Memphis taxpayers are paying 60-65% of the county’s funding.
If Memphis funded EDGE, Memphis would find itself in a altogether familiar position – paying a disproportionate share of a joint city-county agency. In other words, Memphians would be paying 100% of the city share and then about 60-65% of the county share, which means that Memphians would in the end pay about 80% of the total cost of EDGE – and to do it while none of the other county’s cities are putting in anything.
In its way, it’s business as usual: special rules for Memphis, a pass for the municipalities. Shelby County should just fund the total costs of EDGE, so all cities are treated the same.
Next Post: More Decisions That Produce the System We Have Today
I feel that had the “tiny towns” been allowed to form their own municipalities, the City of Memphis, being virtually landlocked, would have been forced to look toward smart growth policies instead of continuing to annex its way to growth (and hence leading to more sprawl).
In addition, areas such as Cordova and Hickory Hill would have been responsible for their own destinies.
At the time the “tiny town” decision looked good for the city, but in hind sight perhaps it was not so good.
With policies like we have people will continue to move as far away from the City of Memphis as possible. This means growth for Fayette County and Desoto County at the expense of Memphis.
WCN-
Long post, appreciate your patience:
I agree with the spirit of your post. In many ways it strikes at the justification underlying annexation used in other cities, most notably in western states. In places like Oklahoma City and Phoenix, which are geographically enormous municipalities, annexation has historically occurred in a proactive manor based at least in small part on controlling suburban development. The idea was to essentially prevent the free-for-all that unrestricted county zoning would generally permit. It also has enabled those cities to coordinate the extension of sewer, gas and water along with streets and schools so that development occurred in a more orderly fashion and not at the expense of the existing urbanized area. If these cities (the effect is more pronounced in Phoenix) conclude that proposed development does not meet the city’s criteria re: financial sustainability, overall land-use plan, existing or planned infrastructure, and/or market demand, they can simply deny the requested permits. With those cities having annexed so many miles beyond the existing urbanized area, developers are left with fewer investment options for new development that would still be close enough to essential services and amenities to be considered attractive. Locally and throughout Tennessee (and much of the Southeast for that matter), it is quite possible for developers to simply advance a mile or two and proceed with the same proposal under an entirely different set of guidelines and regulating governmental bodies that are in direct competition with their neighbors. Annexation is reduced to a defensive measure representing a knee jerk reaction to development. In such scenarios both “to annex” and “not to annex” options are almost equally unsustainable.
My personal opinion is that at least some of the proposed tiny towns would be in dire financial straits today had they been allowed to incorporate. Both Cordova and Hickory Hill have vast developments defined by cheap housing stock that was thrown up very quickly under the laissez-faire oversight of Shelby County. Due to the quality of construction, much (but not all) of the housing stock in these areas had a life span of around 15-20 years when it was first built. This means that many of the homes would have required major investments and renovations in the 2000-2010 timeframe to maintain their value. Considering the virtual lack of planning or investment made by the county in properly designed roadways, well placed and scaled neighborhood commercial and retail development, open spaces and other amenities, it is hard to imagine the market supporting the scale of financial re-investment in individual homes within those neighborhoods that would be required. Had those areas incorporated, the City of Memphis financial house might be more secure, but the city would still be surrounded by deteriorating “tiny towns” that would likely be drawing on county financial resources that are also largely dependent on taxes assessed on properties located in Memphis. In other words, there is a good chance we would still be equally screwed, but it would be via a third party.
@ Urbanut
Very good points.
While I agree that many of the ‘tiny towns’ would likely have deteriorated at least it would have put a stop to (or at least slowed) the march into the east. But that would have been dependent upon county leadership having stopped approving more and more suburban developments.
That said, what is done is done. I would be interested in seeing an article from you all detailing point by point what you would do to reverse the tide if you were given full power to do what needs to be done to bring development back to the urban core.
Directly related to a point you made on another post, the first 3 steps I would take:
1) Establish a new “urban boundary” defined by those areas with existing adequate basic infrastructure and civic services.
2) Freeze all new development beyond that boundary.
3) Create a variable property tax rate based on actual cost of service at the census block level which in turn would be determined by (among other things) population density, average typical service demand, age of infrastructure and average household income.
@ Urbanut
All three are great ideas. The freeze on new development must happen at some point because the economics of sprawl just don’t work. It eventually collapses if it continues unfettered.
got it in one, UrbanNut. We’ll just draw another blue line on a map (ignoring the munis, again, of course-can-have the CC13 setting conditions INSIDE the sacred soils now, can we.) Also can’t fiddle with THEIR annexation reserve areas, since I’m assuming that with the impetus of their own school systems they will not be constrained from annexing ‘greenfields’ to meet the growing demand-and provide municipal services themselves-or soon will.
So that leaves-what? Most of Eads inside the now wistful memphis reserve area is already developed with estate lots and hobby ranches; northwest Shelby, with trailer park Terry and his hillbilly band whooping it up during bluegrass Fridays setting policies for their piece of the holler; Bolton? already a ‘rural reserve’ (sic) designation and supposedly secure from them nasty developers and sewers a million dollars a mile away?
How ’bout De-annexing most the vacant or underutllized land which became toxic to development during desegregation as the Great Flight skipped vast tracts of Memphis municipal areas, yet has fire/police/streetlights, etc
But the blue line thingie sounds great. Can we do a Charette too? Love crayons on brown paper..
Urbanut: Great suggestions, which would be a giant step forward.
Anon et al,-
I agree with some of the futility of actual implementation, but please remember it was conducted as an exercise under the banner “if you were given full power to do what needs to be done”. If given that type of power, I would not violate the agreed upon annexation reserves, I would simply prohibit additional development in those areas where adequate services did not yet exist regardless of their location within the County’s “growth plan”. Even the suburban municipalities have large swaths of “undeveloped” land to which urban services have already been provided.
Would it be possible to implement the three points I mentioned (as mere forerunners to a host of additional development and land use policy changes)? I think it would be very unlikely… killer asteroid flattening Graceland degree of unlikely. However, sometimes the situation calls for starting with your intended outcome and working back to your current position.
the costs of defending a ‘no build’ zone lawsuit filed by 10,000 angry landed gentry (who vote for/own most of the CC13) would relegate such a planning document to the rest of them on the shelves going back to 1924.
Anon 10:17
Please consider that I did not state that a “no-build” zone would be implemented. I would prohibit new development beyond the existing urban services boundary. That does not mean that those who own land beyond this zone would necessarily be deprived of the financial benefits they would have received had a new strip mall or suburban cul-de-sac been constructed on their property. The first financial windfall for these owners would be a reduced annual property tax bill as they would be rural properties which demand little in the way of services. The second benefit would naturally be via the transfer of development rights. Because the total number of houses ultimately built in the larger region does not go down as a result of simply moving the geographic location of the new homes, there is enough money available overall to compensate landowners in the restricted area for any decline in their land value, without sacrificing the profits of landowners elsewhere. The trick is to transfer part of the purchase price for land in a location where development is encouraged to a landowner in a place where development is prohibited.
The fact that legal precedent for such an arrangements have already been set and go back several decades means that any lawsuit filed would be destined to fail.
As noted by SCM, Memphis has the power to control zoning up to 5 miles from its corporate boundaries outside of the other municipalities, which includes most of Shelby County. Also as noted, the Memphis City Council has never had a clear policy on an efficient land use pattern, and as a result, zoned land to please the developers, not the citizens – (a few city council members have actually been paid to side with the developers).
With the recession, budget problems, and discussions about smart growth, the Memphis City Council has the opportunity to begin using it zoning power (it also regulates subdivisions up to 3 miles from Memphis) to halt sprawl, but will it?
A disturbing CA article indicates that Mayor Luttrell has a separate legislative agenda from AC Wharton to eliminate Memphis’ powers to zone and regulate subdivisions outside of its corporate boundaries. (CA 12/2/14, “Wharton Luttrell renew requests of general assembly…….” Thus the one power Memphis has to control its destiny could be eliminated. This looks like the developers fear a Memphis City Council that will look harder at sprawl than before recession due to fiscal problems caused in part by sprawl.