I and around 50 other residents attended a public meeting held by the MPO on December 9th at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library.  The meeting was part of the second round in the public input process being held to inform the MPO’s 2040 Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP). 

The focus of the meeting was to use a series of “chips” representing everything from business centers, town centers and mixed use districts to suburban tract housing and rural estates in combination with markers of various colors to show where we would like to see growth occur in the future including roadways and transit development.

Several ground rules were established before the “game” commenced including use of the chips, the different chip “sets” that were available and accepted population and employment growth projection figures used to justify the number and types of chips.  

Optimism vs. Reality

First up was the MPO’s population projections.  In order to play the game, you must accept that these numbers are accurate, so let’s look at the MPO’s most recent attempt at gazing into a crystal ball.  In the 2030 LRTP update adopted in March 2008, the MPO projected that the population of Shelby County would increase 6.4% between 2000 and 2010.  In reality,  Shelby County grew 2.3% between 2000 and 2009- American Community Survey data indicates the population actually declined from a peak estimate in 2007. 

So even during the study process, the MPO failed to compare the growth projections with the actual census figures being published.  If they had, the nearly stagnant population growth as opposed to the projected 55,000 new residents would have been apparent.  I would not expect that the MPO projections be exact any more than I expect the National Weather Service to provide the exact high temperature 3 days in advance. 

However, Dave Brown will not stick to a forecast high of 75 when the actual temperature outside is already above 80.  When the margin of error includes population growth  equal to that of present day Bartlett, I have to question the basic assumptions underlying the planning process. 

Now we can apply the lessons of errant population projections to the current LRTP process.  The current population within the MPO’s study area- Shelby County, west Fayette County and the majority of DeSoto County- is 1,073,559 people.  The accepted projection based not on Census data but from an outside consulting group shows a 31% population increase in this same area for a total of 1,408,561 individuals by the year 2040. 

This is based on the somewhat optimistic notion that our population will continue to increase at roughly the same rate over the next 3 decades.  However, census data shows that after a slowly increasing rate of growth over the first years of the 21st century, the metropolitan area’s annual growth rate has decreased by over 60% to just 6,400 individuals (.005% annual growth rate) between 2008 and 2009.  To assume that the metropolitan area will continue to experience steady population growth ignores a noticeable downward trend in the area’s census figures. 

also results in basing future plans on the anticipated arrival of hundreds of thousands of individuals that will not actually be here.  This has a profound effect on resource project identification and resource allocation.  The track record for the MPO where population and employment projection is concerned reads less like a true analysis and more like promotional fluff from the Chamber of  Commerce. 

Play the Cards you are Dealt

“So what?” you might ask.  If the growth rate proved to be lower, we still need to accommodate nearly 200,000 “new” residents over the next 30 years. A valid point, so let’s analyze how the MPO has residents playing a game to identify what they want their future to look like.  Three images are shown corresponding to the three chip sets each team could choose from.  Each image showed new development which required Greenfield space to create. 

Maybe I am being too severe in my critique, but the MPO lacked an image showing new development occurring alongside pre-existing buildings that would allow residents to consider the existing urban environment as part of the game.  That not all future development need be a planned neighborhood of  300 homes built on an empty field would be lost to the uninformed.  A recent
report highlighted that there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 21,000 vacant properties or lots in the city alone. 

Assuming each lot or property became the site of just one single family home, we would have enough housing for 54,000  people.  Nowhere among the chip sets was a tile that could be placed to represent infill development, focused rehabilitation of existing neighborhoods and housing stock or increased density in the city’s urban core.  One could simply place a sticker that read “town center- 3000 homes” (and no mention of employment or businesses), one that read “mixed use” (which included a quaint picture of Main Street signage), or even a chip that stated “apartments” over an existing section of the city.  That is hardly adequate and does not accurately depict the potential path that residents could suggest the MPO follow. 

I know this was inadequate because a member of my group asked the very insightful and pertinent question early on of whether we could place our chips “on top of each other”.  What insight and brilliance in the ability to not only understand what was wanted, but how the participants were being constrained by the MPO.  This game truly shows that while the MPO might be slowly changing in their mindset, they still lag far behind the approach that is necessary to truly set this metropolitan area on a path that allows for balanced and sustainable growth.  Land uses depicted patterns, that while in close proximity, are still highly segregated. 

According to the rules, all the pieces of each chip set were required to be used by the end of the game.  Our group wanted to focus all future development around existing infrastructure, transit routes and connections, yet, were forced to place suburban tract housing and “rural estate” chipsaround the map.  Why?  Why should we even consider this type of development as a viable alternative?  Why should any consideration be given todevelopment at the edge which simply serves to waste limited resources in providing for new roads, sewer, schools and safety when these same resources already exist and sit underutilized in our community?  

A Familiar Outcome

One has to wonder why a group of supposed planners would either ignore or choose to disregard the issues above.  Over-inflated population and employment growth projections and vague, misrepresentative land use “chips” help to justify the familiar call to build and widen roads to provide access to undeveloped tracts of rural land. 

How can a planning effort be taken seriously that does not include Tunica County- where employment outstrips the local population, or fails to include such major infrastructure facilities as the Union Pacific terminal in Marion or the future Norfolk Southern terminal in Fayette County? 

Where is information such as the Grey’s Creek plan, quality agricultural land, vacant lot densities or already approved road and development projects are left off the map?  If such an analysis is valid, will there be any surprise if the MPO simply presents a revised vision all too similar to the plans that came before it- a plan which politely speaks to infill and redevelopment around existing infrastructure, but in reality goes into great detail describing new and wider roads stretching into undeveloped areas.   

As I’ve said before, never underestimate the decision making ability of aninformed individual.  Despite these faults and inadequacies, of the groups that were present at the meeting, none showed new roadways beyond what already exist.  All showed increased focus for development within the footprint of our existing infrastructure and neighborhoods.  All chose to focus their chips as redevelopment within the urban core and around preexisting centers all connected by efficient transit and pedestrian
facilities. 

Now if only the MPO could be as honest, bold and creative in crafting a vision for 2040.