We’re elevating an interesting discussion here that’s been going on about the post, Growing Economic Strategies in Quality Soil. Feel free to join in:
Businessman2010 says:
Most cities don’t focus on entrepreneurship like they should. Most talk a good game like they do but most don’t just. Companies and entrepreneurs don’t look for cities with high wages, high land costs, high utilities, and high taxes. If thats the case D.C. wouldn’t be trying to give that defense company, which is trying to move headquarters to D.C., financial tax breaks and incentives. What companies and entrepreneurs do look for is low to average wages, low land costs, low utilities, and most importantly low taxes. The only thing that can over ride wages, land, utilities, and taxes is having a highly skilled workforce, both college and vocational train. Not trying to go against you though cause I agree with 95% of what you say on this blog.
John says:
I don’t think we have to throw the baby out with the bathwater… unless, of course, the low-skill strategy is a complete distraction.
Every year for the foreseeable future, our metro region will produce about 18,000 young people looking for work. If trends hold 2,500 will go somewhere else (forever) and 3,000 will be absorbed into the logistics industry. That leaves over 12,000 that could fill higher-skill positions instead of lower-skill positions (or none at all). If we can coach them, teach them, train them, engage them or inspire them to be the next wave of home grown entrepreneurial brains and build the companies that can employ them when they are ready, then there is no reason we can’t have it all… or at least a little more economic diversity.
Our business landscape needs to be addressed too. We have few, if any, real clusters of serious business activity. It is hard to build energy around entrepreneurialism when your office market is spread all over 300 square miles. Our Downtown office market is now smaller than Jackson, Mississippi’s. The only cluster of serious business is in the east market but you still have to drive to lunch.
There are few places where the brains can congregate over coffee, bump into each other on the way from here to there, spontaneously collaborate when going from the accountant to the dentist. I think the economic development plan to tackle first may be reknitting some urban fabric around pedestrian friendly office locations or concentrating business in a few select areas. I know people who recently have intentionally moved to more traditional, downtown office locations specifically for one reason… “everytime I go downtown I make money” is what they say. They run into opportunities on the street, are given referrals from someone who saw them in line for a sandwich, make acquaintances that lead to ideas that lead to businesses. They couldn’t do this in suburban markets. Interested Observer says
Interested Observer says:
And they can donate a buck or two to the winos, deadbeats and crackhaids every lunch hour-thus redistributing the wealth.
Smart City Memphis says:
Businessman2010: We don’t see research to justify that entrepreneurs are looking for cheap. We think they are looking for quality. It is interesting that some of the most successful cities with entrepreneurship are cities with the highest taxes. That’s because often those taxes are directly connected with providing quality of life, research institutions, quality neighborhoods, vibrant downtown, all magnets for entrepreneurs and creative workers. It’s in creating the culture for innovation and entrepreneurship that we’re missing the boat, and if we had that culture, it really wouldn’t matter what our tax rate is (although it needs to be reduced). Thanks for commenting and for the good insights.
John: Amen. You have accurately recounted what is happening in the big winners in the new economy.
Interested Observer: Funny, I’ve been downtown for 35 years, and I’ve never donated a buck to anybody, and contrary to your view, it’s rare to see winos, deadbeats, and crackheads. Downtown is not nearly as good as the downtown cheerleaders say nor nearly as bad as the complainers say. I wouldn’t work anywhere else, and it’s because we do run into opportunities on the street, as John so rightly observes. Thanks for commenting.
Wintermute says:
What you want is just not in the path of this city’s karmic momentum.
Urbanut says:
John, SCM,and others, It’s really no surprise our downtown office market has shrunk to such lilliputian scale. One of the great disadvantages downtown Memphis has inherited is it non-central location within the metropolitan area. A key reason why places such as Jackson, Little Rock, Nashville and many other cities smaller than Memphis can boast of a more robust downtown office market is because said markets are located very close to their population centers. Locating an office in those downtowns shows an appreciation that employees are just as likely to live 5 miles to the north, east, south or west. I am of the opinion that if the sprawl surrounding Memphis had occurred in a more balanced way, with Arkansas seeing population growth similar to, if not exceeding, DeSoto County then downtown would be seen as a prime office location. Growth around Memphis has been focused almost due east for so many decades (thanks to the Nonconnah Creek and Wolf River) we came close to achieving a linear city worthy of Le Corbusier. At this point, locating downtown has become more of a choice for those trying to make a statement- a location based on principals (well that and law firms for obvious reasons) rather than a pragmatic location.
You might say this has no impact on the issue being discussed, but I would offer that a space meant to be shared by an entire community – in this case downtown- should be located near a community’s population center. Otherwise you are using the tyranny of distance and transportation, or lack thereof, to discriminate against those forced to the far edge. All things being equal- a space that is equally shared by all should be located at the midpoint of the community. In this case- Memphis is a center-less city where downtown is in serious danger of becoming a high-rise suburb for the elite rather than the proud representation for the metropolitan area. No wonder so many are hostile towards continued investment downtown, it has become detached- or perhaps it was the population that detached itself- from the day to day function for so many of its citizens. With a dwindling employment base and very specialized retail component, does continued heavy investment in what is essentially “just another neighborhood” make sense when the true economic and social focus has shifted to another area? Thought: does it instead make sense to build a “new downtown” closer to the population center where the infrastructure is in place- say I-240 and Poplar- by enforcing new design criteria that requires higher mixed-use densities and sidewalks within well scaled pedestrian blocks that could replace the oceans of parking that currently exist in the area?
Zippy the Giver (abridged) says:
A commerce-less downtown. A dead Main street.
That’s not a sign of quality thinking, councils, commissions, leadership, choices, and won’t lead to a quality city. But you know that and SO WHAT? (don’t take the capitalization as emotion, it’s not) It required absolutely no thinking to get us to this unquestionably weird state. It was going this way on it’s own, hence the term “natural.” It’s a result of an unconscious mass animalistic behavior, hoarding, clanning, migrating to avoid harsh elements of other tribes or gangs/clans/peoples, and people’s sense of right and wrong formulated by what they didn’t get caught at being deemed right, and excessive dereliction of duty sold and disguized as permissive liberal behavior.
Karmic Momentum? That’s one way of looking at it, but, it’s the same thing, I agree. Two powerful words in the face of all that: SO WHAT?
Do we have to follow past Karmic momentum? NO.
Do we have to continue in the “no planning followed, no thinking allowed, don’t blow the cheapskate economy” line of thinking? NO.
The past is only information, in our case, a “what not to do again” list. To outsider, a “what not to do ever list.”
…we’re just as smart, but suffering from a SEVERE lack of information. We have confused “drinking the Koolaid” with an accurate accounting of the facts. We have confused “looking at problems a different way” with “denial and believing our own hype.” That’s the most dangerous thing in business that doesn’t look dangerous till it’s too late.
Once again: SO WHAT?
We don’t have to follow any trajectory of the past. Knee jerk reactions, even if they took a bureaucracy and forever to arrive at consensus, are the first clue and sign that although you may think you are headed a new direction, you aren’t, so, you gotta be careful.
Is there something wrong with cheap land? Depends on why. Is there something wrong with cheap labor? Depends on the cost of living for that labor force. Is there something wrong with cheap utilities? Depends on what kind, fossil fuels shouldn’t be cheap, but, the solar, geothermal, wind and hydroelectric should be cheap at this point. But are they?
You are so right about promoting entrepreneurship and reinventing Memphis. Where we are at right now, I don’t think higher utility bills will work, neither will higher taxes, not yet. Our taxes are already way too high, employee bloat on the city, MCS, & MLGW payroll is telling of why we are where we are and what not to do ever again. It didn’t work. It never could.
QUALITY, that’s a key word, if you don’t have that, you have a temp job no matter who or where you are.
Maybe it should be much harder for companies looking for a cheap labor force to land here. Maybe they should be shouldering a lot more of the tax burden. When the citizenry is too used to being mercilessly trod upon, like here, that is the lowest form of suffering, the kind where divine intervention happens.
Gotta do better thinking.
John says:
Urbanut: You have summed up what many of us debate frequently (however quietly). When do we admit that Poplar & Ridgeway may be the new Downtown and how can we make it function like a traditional one and is it right to even think about that? Perhaps one of us can craft a full & thoughtful post on the topic because it deserves exploring.
However, in terms of creating an entrepreneurial climate, Downtown still has amazing advantages. Advantages that will not be recreated elsewhere unless/until we have dramatic population growth.
A) Many cities have downtowns that are not in the geographic center but still serve strong populations. You are correct about the lack of westward expansion but I think you’d be surprised by the ease of access for many, many people to the north and especially south… access similar to or better than some peer cities.
B) You cannot recreate the grid system… the system of comfortable, walkable streets that stretch throughout the historic city making it conducive to the most desirable social environment. Enough can never be said about the importance of a pedestrian environment.
C) Start-up business needs a diversity of price ranges and types of space. This exists in mass downtown for any endeavor you can imagine. This may be our greatest advantage.
D) Access to existing institutions of research, medicine and government are concentrated in or near Downtown.
E) The largest bragging point about Downtown Memphis is its entertainment options. This often is linked to entrepreneurial areas in other cities.
F) This list could get long… I am just making the point that making somewhere else function as a mixed use environment with parks, schools, warehouses, offices buildings and people at the scale of an existing downtown is close to impossible. We should make what we have better before trying to build a new one.
Some cities try. Some high growth cities succeed. When you have population growth of 5% a year, you can build density in old suburbs. You can build new mixed-use neighborhoods in developing areas. You can invent Main Streets where none existed before. In slow growth markets, you get The Avenue at Carriage Crossing… a nice replica of a town center with all the latest & greatest shops. But a place that is still in the middle of a parking lot, connected to nothing, 100% auto dependant, not benefitting the office market or residential market at all. And something, that if successful, will cause the failure of another mall in another part of town.
The greates density and the most accessibilty for the most is still around Downtown. The tyranny of distance has been building for 60 years as we have spread out. Moving Downtown could just change the victims, the winners and losers. Nothing will ever be convenient for everyone.
The only comment I have heard in this string that I take any issue with is about Downtown as a neighborhood for elites. No one can deny that there are a lot of expensive homes in the area. But there are a lot of affordable homes too. And the surrounding neighborhoods offer anything and everything you can imagine from Miami to Maybury. You will know when Downtown Memphis has a disproportionate amount of elites and wealthy home owners living there… office space will start to be absorbed, law firms will start to return, accounting companies will rehang shingles… where the boss lives is where the business usually goes. I hope the bosses of the future are choosing the inner city for home, business and pleasure because that will boost the entrepreneurial opportunities for thousands more than it could anywhere else. I hope we can someday have a true gentrification fight. But for now we are stuck in limbo between rich and poor with no sense of place. That does not breed confidence in entrepreneurs.
Urbanut says:
I completely agree that building a second downtown would be a colossal waste of money when we already have an existing one. I guess what I am trying to balance here is the reality that a vibrant downtown in its current location is almost as likely (and could be almost as costly) as a new downtown somewhere else. One of the issues I’ve noticed while living downtown is the lack of vibrancy, or more specifically, pedestrian activity. You are dead on in that it is almost impossible to place a value on a healthy pedestrian realm (sidewalks and street front businesses). It leads to chance encounters and socializing that otherwise does not occur- on the sidewalk, at the deli, and during the after work drink tradition (that is non-existent in this city). I was mulling this issue one day while walking up Main Street and while thinking back about historic pictures which show an amazingly vibrant downtown, realized that we cannot hope to achieve this level of activity on our curr ent path. Residential re-use has been the backbone of downtown’s redevelopment with the promise hung out there that we can achieve a level of vibrancy that is lacking if we keep just keep renovating old buildings for condos and apartments with some office and retail mixed in. The simple fact is we cannot achieve a truly vibrant streetscape at the current building densities found downtown even if all the currently unused buildings were occupied by apartment dwellers and condo owners. The problem: one resident uses the amount of space once occupied by anywhere from 3 to 15 office employees. Residential re-use is actually decreasing the potential density of our existing built environment downtown. One either needs to build new and taller structures in order to compensate for this loss of potential pedestrians/ block or we need to conserve the remaining unused building stock for potential office users. Unfortunately, the low rental rates and demand will continue to cap n ew high rise construction and renovation downtown.
So yes, we need a greater degree of office occupancy downtown. Once again, the overall office vacancy rate for Memphis coupled with a traditionally slow growth rate in employment that uses that type of space does not bode well for an influx of new users into downtown.
So I guess my question would be, in light of these factors, does one intensify the residential component and begin to a pedestrian scaled block structure missing from the “new downtown” focused somewhere between Perkins and Massey or do we somehow try to convince corporations to build and renovate space downtown?
OK, everyone has a good point or two.
Let me make an observation from someone who used to live at Poplar and Ridgeway … literally almost on that corner in the old Ridgeway Trace Apts … which is now a parking lot.
I loved that location. It was so central to where I had to go … work (further east), mom’s (Frayser), and close to restaurants, movie theaters, my dentist, my chiropractor, Home Depot, and lot’s of places to shop. I could and did walk to restaurants and the shopping mall nearby. Biking was a little more challenging but I found semi-safe routes to work and other places.
If you’re going east or west on Poplar or Park … plenty of buses. Any other direction and you’re pretty much out luck unless you want to take a silly amount of time with several transfers.
The things that keep that area vibrant are:
1. Access. Easy access from all points. Wide streets with good traffic flow … even during rush hour. In contrast, Downtown where the Mississippi River may be beautiful but it is a natural barrier to those coming from W. Memphis and chokes the traffic to two bridges … and the interchanges at the “Old Bridge” really need to be redone. The streets are narrower and often one way.
2. Parking. Lots of FREE parking! I can’t emphasize that enough. People want to park where they shop and eat. I might enjoy walking and biking but many … MOST … don’t. My mother will spend more time to find a parking spot 20 feet closer than it would have taken to walk that extra 20 feet.
3. Memphis State … U.M. … actually anchors the west end of the area. Maybe having the law school downtown will help.
4. Middle and upper class neighborhoods. Panhandlers aren’t tolerated out there. I don’t know why they’re tolerated Downtown but they get chased away pretty quickly out east. Thus the area is still vibrant after business hours. Whereas Downtown becomes Ghosttown unless there is an event going on.
5. Safety. What can I say. Panhandlers and hoodlums aren’t tolerated.
The reality is that the I-240/Ridgway area has become a second Downtown. The only thing it is lacking are the numerous gov’t buildings … not that that is a downside.
So let’s apply some of this to Downtown.
1. Access. If you’re coming from out east … decent. Any other point is a pain. Willie had a decent idea of turning N. Second into a Parkway. I’d go with that. Contrary to poplar belief, Frayser has some nice homes and could become the “North Bluffs” under the right circumstances.
Fix the I-55 interchange to make it easier to get from W. Memphis … unless you want to discourage people from moving out of Memphis and living there.
2. Parking … always a problem Downtown. Absent a decent 24-7 transit system, there must be plenty of free or at least cheap parking available. I’d recommend something like Chattanooga does … build parking garages at either end of Downtown (ideally along the Trolley route); charge for parking but have the Trolley or an electric bus run from one to the other free.
Otherwise, local businesses need to chip in for parking. If you shop Downtown and buy something, you get your parking ticket validated.
3. Maybe the law school will attract some night life if the students choose to live nearby.
4. One the best things happening Downtown is the closing of the housing projects and replacing them with new, affordable housing for middle and upper class incomes. Yea, some politicos may decry the gentrification of the area, but it must happen.
5. Safety. The panhandlers and hoodlums must be chased away or locked up. If you’re disturbing the peace, you get one warning.
I was included, thanks and also thanks for a “quality” abridgment.
I’ll go one further to make it more succinct, “group folly” has substituted for “group wisdom” and become “group evil”.
That’s easy to address and I think it’s getting some attention.
Downtown Parking:
Midtowner’s point about parking is a key issue, We have inefficient use of downtown parking space near the trolly. All vibrant areas have parking decks, Queensborough bridge in NYC, has a deck under it for those who drive to the subway. Turn 201 Poplar into a parking deck, or, an office building, the jail should not be at the front door.
Mass Transit:
Ask Steve for more federal money and get two more trolly cars and extend the tracks east all the way to Germantown, back it up with some busses on a dedicated route. Make busses stop at the train for now and you get the low volume effect. Include some kind of feedback system in all new works. And the Mayor is pretty good at getting feedback, but, it shouldn’t stop once things are up and running.
Make Memphis Safer:
I was impressed whenever I went to any place with security guards here and they all looked like they just got out of the klink. Apparently, they had. “Security guard” is not a god job for “ex-felons”, no matter how convenient. Ex-felons should be manufacturing things for public good, not guarding. It becomes a mechanism manipulated by them to subvert justice through intimidation. The person in charge of making sure security companies are doing background checks needs removal. It’s obvious that some ideas we implement are not smart, good, or, even sensible under any circumstance. Just an example of group folly.
Remove inept personnel quickly:
We had Kenneth Moody as head of everything under Willie Herenton, the animal shelter, rape crisis center, and civilian police complaints.
None of those agencies worked after his touch. We need a better responsive feedback system in that area. People need to know that it’s ok to report crime, even when errant officers are doing the crime. Any leader or personnel that subverts reporting of a civil services non-functionality due to malfeasance need to be arrested, removed from duty, charged tried, and sentenced.
For what ever reason, we are too slow to address and appropriately and effectively deal with very serious issues of malfeasance that destroy our city. That must end.
Don’t whine about bad leaders, remove them quickly:
We have a city council with members that pull the race card at the breaking of wind for political expediency at the cost of credibility and on the back of their racist remarks targets. We have council members that are very obviously (to outsiders that have not been traumatized and desensitized) racists, drug abusers, alcoholics, and a few working for the public good and that council needs to be dissolved. Drunks, drug abusers, and racists do not need or deserve political representation, they need psychological evaluations and federal attention.
Remove judges that are more like doorstops and improve public safety:
One big stumbling block to safety is sentencing.
Federal guidelines for sentencing sex offenders are not adhered to in Memphis.
If you look at the satellite view of the map of sex offenders here, you’ll see why people who can get that map do not move their kids anywhere near downtown or midtown (among other destinations) and why people leave areas. Only a sick person, or one without that information, puts their kids in a dangerous area such as that.
A feedback loop needs to be created with the court system and include some federal oversight for judges who historically do not follow federal sentencing guidelines. The excuse of not being enough room in prison rings hollow. Crime has a percentage of the population and if you don’t increase the size of the prison as a population grows, you aren’t handling an important part of your responsibility as a city at all, and your city will fail. High crime rates are a deal breaker.
I was in court one day for a friend’s support as a victim of a shooting. The case before his was a multiple sex offense by a previously convicted man convicted for the same offense. He molested his daughter and all her friends that were over for a sleep over. He got one year for his third offense. That kind of stuff will destroy a city.
All of that addresses walkability.
You don’t walk around in a high crime area.
It’s a bad idea. I know, we know that, but, solution doesn’t seem to be implemented widely. All of the pieces aren’t working together. Feedback seems to be prohibited and that will kill all efforts.
It’s kinda like this, the last city to institute best practices will become a magnet for the worst kind of people. Memphis is proof, so are a very few other cities.
They won’t leave till all the best practices are instituted.
Improve public education through transparency and accountability: There are many very high level business people who absolutely believe in putting their kids in public schools. I know four billionaires that use public education for their kids and lots of millionaires too. They don’t live here. They WON’T live here. They have all the info they need to stay out of Memphis and it’s not from the nightly news, which doesn’t help either, sensationalizing isn’t feedback. Having a substandard or non-workable system is a deal breaker for them. Having no feedback system due to fear of acknowledging legal culpability is a deal breaker.
Stopping the info is not the answer, increasing the info is. Locals who need info have had it subverted. That is changing.
Get feedback system with a mandate for MCS:
I have yet to see a feedback system for MCS go out since the new super was hired. WHY NOT put out a parent survey? Have the parents of ALL city schools give their real opinion to an impartial company that specializes in that if you have to get a reason to change he structure. Kansas City Missouri just dumped half of their school system.
Do we have to do that? I hope not, but, it ain’t about what I want, it’s about what serves and quality.
We won’t know what it needs because our schoolboard is too cowardly in the face of this problem. Where is the audit? Where is he public inspection?
Get the MCS technological system up and running since you pay for it, demand results or a change of contractor:
Why are teachers complaining for decades that the email system doesn’t work? Why don’t the webpages work for at risk schools as well as “the good schools”?
WHERE IS THE MONEY GOING, why aren’t the people in charge of system that are payed for yet don’t work fired?
WHY don’t yo get notified of a change in grades till it’s too late to do anything about it?
Who or what is impeding these systems?
Demand accountability, demand an audit, demand an inspection or shut down the schools:
If I was running a city with a city public education bill of $70 million/yr, and a state bill of a billion dollars, a questionable census, low grad rates, mostly failing schools, falling enrollment to the tune of 4k/year, conspicuous connection to MLGW, a Jim Crow like policy, loads of impoverished parents, high violence stats, I WOULD DEMAND AN AUDIT AND INSPECTION from the state and federal government oversight.
If we don’t ever grow the nads to start on this, we’ll never get quality education and the businesses will move to better places.
MCS, the union, MLGW connection, and the administration seems like a big murky recalcitrant problem that needs to be obliterated, not just dismantled, and start all over again making best choices along the way.
I’m really surprised that there were no indictments handed down for the Jim Crow law violations by MCS and MLGW. Familiarity breeds crime. We need to rotate our federal law officers again.
ALL of this is very doable, motivated people are waiting to get to bat, loads of promise in the city of broken promises.
They are all worthless unless all realized.
We have everything to gain by stepping up and addressing these issues. We CAN do it.
These are the reasons that I think mass transit reform is so important to Memphis. With a quality transportation system (and a change in perception) relocating a business from out east to downtown starts to make much more sense.
That brings up a question. I know the last time some one asked Norfolk Southern about sharing right of way along Poplar they said no. However, things have changed recently. Norfolk Southern is an eastern railroad with Memphis being at the far west end of their distribution network. Will the construction of their new train yard in Piperton mean that they use the tracks along Poplar much less frequent? I wonder if they would be open to the idea now.
Long shot I know…
Maybe I’m being too pessimistic here, but I’m not convinced it’s an accessibility issue. Maybe it’s the perception of an accessibility issue. However, the morning commute into and out of downtown on both the surface streets and the freeway is relatively light. True congestion seems to be a rare occurrence. Thus I would need to assume that major deterrents to locating business offices, corporate and otherwise, is the travel time itself and cost of parking. Seeing as it takes anywhere from 45 minutes to 1 hour to travel from the eastern edge of Collierville (or so I am told) to downtown at rush hour and 30 minutes from the same starting point to the Poplar/Ridgeway area, does that mean we need to reduce the travel time to 30 minutes (and thus less for those living closer to the urban core) from the suburban edge to make downtown competitive?
On the parking issue- parking will need to be paid for in some way form or fashion downtown in order to allow for the densities we need to create a vibrant pedestrian atmosphere. This results in either the employee paying for the parking, the business paying for the employee parking, or the business building its own garage. This adds costs that are not found in suburban locations which means that rents must be lowered to compensate for this difference or downtown must become a location where companies can’t afford not to be located (pardon the double negative). I know we can compensate for the parking costs, but how do we make downtown THE place for companies to locate?
As to the issue of parking convenience, there is no simple solution. Even if one organizes a parking scenario involving garages and transit, it will still not be viewed as convenient. In fact did you know that MATA has free parking available at both the North End Terminal and Central Station to allow for park-and-ride on the trolley. It’s essentially Chattanooga’s system in reverse and seeing as the trolley costs $1 each way for most of the day and only 50¢ during lunch, it is cheaper than most parking decks. However, why would someone park at either end to ride the trolley, when for $5 will allow them to park within a block of their destination for a good portion of the day? Like the earlier post noted, it’s more of a perception of what is convenient and what is inconvenient when it comes to the parking issue, I am not sure we can ever dispel this notion of inconvenient parking downtown. More important might be the idea of teaching individuals that the walk can be half the fun in a pedestrian friendly environment. When malls were king, shoppers had no issue with parking in a lot and walking up to a mile or more inside while they shopped. An active sidewalk with street front shops, sidewalk vendors and a good streetscape softens the impact of one not being able to park adjacent to the destination.
It’s a real chicken and the egg scenario- to create that environment, you need the shops and businesses to help animate the pedestrian realm and draw residents. However, to attract the businesses and shops, you need a certain customer base or level of pedestrian activity.
Back to the issue of attracting a significant office employment base, it’s a real uphill battle. Downtown must overcome several challenges specifically from its principal rival- the East Memphis office market. We know what these are, but I’ll state them for the sake of the discussion: proximity to and ease of access by employees, proximity to high wealth clientele and customers, free parking, and safety/ quality of environment. The last issue is actually easy to resolve and parking can probably be worked out via our independent, quasi-public parking authority. However, overcoming the first two issue is much more difficult and cannot easily be resolved via simple policy change, maintenance, design or policing efforts.
Here’s why we focus on Downtown and not East Memphis if we are trying to build entrepreneurial opportunity.
Access today.
If you are in Desoto County, Whitehaven, Frayser, Bartlett or Arlington, it is quicker to drive Downtown than it is to East Memphis. East Memphis is convenient to East Memphians. To most everyone from Midtown to Raleigh to Hickory Hill to the Airport, it is faster (not shorter) to get Downtown than it is to get to Clark Tower. Test it.
Vibrancy.
Vibrancy is lacking everywhere. The lobby of the Crescent Center isn’t anymore kicking than the lobby of One Commerce Square or Nonconnah Corporate Center or Lenox Park. But in Downtown, what we don’t have can be created. Unlike every other part of town, mutual shared points of interest and congregation can be established. (Perhaps this conversation should move from the built environment to the programming of that built environment?)
Efficiency.
The make up of the infrastructure makes Downtowns the place to do a lot of business fast. If support businesses (attorneys, accountants, marketing companies, office supply stores) are across the street from the new businesses, then the daily tasks become quicker, easier, happier than having to take 45 minutes to get to the car, to the store and back to the office a half mile away.
Downtown is the only place that will ever be cool.
We read it every day. Young, smart, entrepreneurial people are not just choosing Birmingham or Louisville or Indianapolis over Memphis. We are competing with Boston and San Francisco and London for talent. Our Memphis Aerotropolis advocates are using comparisons to Pacific Rim cities and European cities and Middle Eastern cities. On its best day, no suburban business location in Memphis compares to the experience in those cities. On its worst day, Downtown comes the closest.
Urbanity may the future.
The arguments about reaching the most people from the geographic center are terribly valid and respected. However the geographic center may be accessible to fewer people due to both density and infrastructure than Downtown. Plus, our regional population is not going to grow enough in the next 50 years to justify ANY investment in changing the system we have in place. When penciled out, building Downtown and the inner city is an opportunity. Building elsewhere is irresponsible to the tax payers. Finally, some suggest that cars aren’t forever… either by necessity or choice we have to offer some place that functions without an automobile if we are to hope to be competitive (today and in the future).
If you haven’t lately, give it a try.
Can our Downtown be better? Oh, yes. But lunch at the Little Tea Shop (or fifty other places accessible on foot) still provides a sense of specialness that is not available anywhere else. Instead of a beak-room coffee break, a stroll to the Peanut Shop is as fast and a lot more liberating. If nothing else, Downtown offers places to Drink… get to happy hour today.
You know it’s where you really want to be anyway.
Beyond the little things that make it nice, Downtown makes a person feel important. JR Ewing could have worked anywhere around Dallas… he had a stinking ranch! But he didn’t. He & Bobby knew that a view from Downtown trumped anyone anywhere else. That is a silly analogy but I bet if you ask any entrepreneur what they dream about at night, it won’t be about having a first-floor duplex office on Colonial. Their dreams will be about having what 30,000 plus Memphians have today. An office upstairs, Downtown.
John,
All true points, and as a devoted urbanist I agree with the idea of continued investment in our existing downtown. I guess the question I am dancing around here, is with all the advantages associated with working downtown- from knowledge exchange, to ease of operation, easy access and pure ego- why do we see a long term trend of employment contraction in the private sector office market downtown? There is obviously some underlying factors that not only allowed the decline to occur in the first place but continue. These factors must be identified and addressed if one hopes to see downtown resurrected as a center of business and finance to the same degree it has become a cultural and entertainment center.
Gotcha. We’ll run out of space before we solve this… but it is fun to talk about. The easy answer is that a handful of important and connected people who have a lot of money to make off of land have guided the development decisions for a long time. We also have a lag time here due to the slow-growth of the market… a company may see California or Carolina building secluded campuses for their companies. But by the time the Memphis version is ready, 15 years has elapsed and tastes have changed but we have put into motion something that can’s be quickly reversed. Elected leaders thought chasing new was better than caring for old for various reasons (some valid, some not). Plus, every city has 60 years or more of bad decision making when it comes to urban planning and real estate development. Some worse than others. Ours is compounded by race & politics and poverty and rural vs. urban issues and a thousand other factors. All of that has been rehashed at SCM in some form or fashion. There is a laundry list of incentive packages and Economic Development techniques and clustering strategies and growth tactics that each deserves their own posts.
However, here are a few off-the-cuff thoughts that I know have worked elsewhere that everyone can engage in.
Step One:
Focus on who is there and who wants to be there. We could spend every moment of every day courting the 60-year-old decision maker who left Downtown swearing never to return. We would die lonely and unsuccessful. The first step is always to market to (and honestly embrace) those we know want Downtown to succeed. If Downtown becomes a little isolated village of happy, productive and successful looking people then it won’t remain isolated for long.
Step Two:
Enlist the business leaders and LOCAL property owners that are left (and not conflicted with too many competing interests in other parts of the market). We need some heavy hitters to throw some weight around. This either comes from having something to lose or from being excited about a project or just the joy of the fight. The top-dogs at the top companies must be the leaders. However, much of the time they come on board because the younger people approach them and make it look fun for them.
Step Three:
Downtowners have to start making lots of friends. Relationships are the key. I have retained businesses simply by knowing the right person and having them know I was there to help… the long soft-sell is really all it takes sometimes. It works because I made connections and provided ideas and did favors long before they were ever considering a move. On the other hand… I have lost some deals along the way. However, in the biggest deals I have lost, the CEO or Chairman still years later will ask me if I am still mad… in a friendly way. Because I still have relationships with them and they always knew I was making a case for them to be in what I thought was the best location for their business. Guilt can be a powerful motivator when someone lets a friend down. I am still willing to help them and shoot the bull with them and do whatever friends do. I want people to be successful and make money and I am willing to help if I can. I also know how long there leases are and you better believe that I think I can get them back where they need to be when the time is right.
I think we make this too hard and too heavy sometimes. It is a big-deal. But no body wants to be involved with something because they have to or because it effects taxes or some other hard to think about reason. Sometimes maybe we should just have fun doing whats right ourselves, help people make some money doing whats right for them and hope other folks catch on.
Hmmm- recruit every new and existing small business in the city to locate downtown. Assuming the rents are in line with other areas of the city and/or the proximity to other businesses can be sold as the positive they are, I think this might really work. Really, I think you might have identified an issue that is easy to address and could have major long term impact. I know the CCC is actively recruiting medium and large office tenants for the downtown market through tax incentives. Is there a similar program in place for small businesses? Or perhaps, we should reverse the focus from large tenants to herding all the small tenants into the downtown market through equally hefty incentives- this would begin to fill much of the empty space that exists both in our office buildings and on the sidewalks while also giving a financial boost to companies that usually need it the most. You could argue that the money used in this manner could pay for itself as new employees and businesses begin to frequent downtown food and office supply locations throughout the week.
If this is not already occurring, I think you might have struck real gold here- something worth writing up and taking to the CCC.
OK, I see what’s happening here, you’re sorta on the right track, downtown has to be attractive to draw people in and relationships are important. HOWEVER, you just lost sight of the planning aspect. Trust me, I’m watching this happen, it just disappeared.
Yopu have to keep your eye on the plan of “how we design it to grow continuously” not just to get people in there, if yo get the wrong combination, it will flounder and die again.
You need anchors:
Staples, office depot, for office bldg support and for work at homes in the area.
You need a dry cleaner or two:
People who want to look god in heir clothes in their offices or at meetings need a LOCAL dry cleaner.
You need drug stores:
Bandaids, lotions, toiletries, toothpaste hairbrushes, etc. Gotta have em.
You need a hair place with quality cutters.
You need a local grocery store like a Krogers or a Schnucks:
LOCALS NEED GROCERIES, offices who cater lunches in house need them too.
A lot of this stuff is in proximity, but, the basics aren’t. The basics build local pedestrian traffic of working people. They won’t come without incentives in the atmosphere of “not enough clients” so, pay it forward.
Hey, somebody has to clean the place.
Make a policy that every business with a storefront and every bldg. mainenance co. has to provide a clean swept sidewalk every morning.
Street sweepers, every other day. No more festering horse poop, no horses.
GET RID OF THE JAIL AT THE FRONT DOOR. Big no no. We don’t need that reminder up our nose everyday.
These things will NOT take care of themselves in Memphis, they didn’t before and they won’t now. WE have to keep our eye on this.
NYC does all this stuff.
Before this topic fades into the next one, I wanted to pass along a quote from Chris Nolen (Mississippi Artist and Ad Guy) that I recently heard:
“The only thing that seperates one city from another is what lies downtown. Everything else about urban America is trapped in unremarkable sameness.”