By John Lawrence
We need to shape the built environment to enable and facilitate innovative, new-economy growth.
Considerable employee-to-firm and firm-to-firm mismatches exist in the Memphis Metro area, while the new knowledge economy prizes accessibility and proximity. Economic drivers and regional assets are migrating outward faster than they are growing. This pattern is unsustainable without significant growth in the overall regional economy.
Where Do I Invest?
This entire region is designed to move products, not people or ideas. Infrastructure is focused on distribution of goods, not connectivity of workers. The region lacks density and well-connected nodes of activity. The jobs-housing mismatch hinders access to employment. Infrastructure maintenance and taxing structures are being strained by geographic expansion outpacing economic growth. And, the unpredictable spatial distribution and geographic growth patterns lessen the desirability of the area as an investment location.
Employment, while largely in Shelby County, is highly decentralized. Approximately 7% of employees are concentrated near the airport, 6% in the Southeast Memphis warehouse area, 4% in the Central Business District, 4% in the Downtown Medical Center and 3% in the East Memphis Medical District. Almost 2% of employees are concentrated around Tunica County gaming facilities. Over 74% of employees are dispersed throughout the area with few definable concentrations.
Regional growth patterns are complicating movement of people. Due to outmigration and annexation, the City of Memphis density has declined significantly from 7,780 people per square mile in 1950 to 1,915 today. And two-thirds of recent regional job growth has occurred in suburban counties.
Private job-creation investments that are occurring in the region are being driven largely by slight tax advantages in North Mississippi in addition to aggressive incentive packages offered in both Tennessee and Mississippi.
How Do I Get To Work?
Most people drive to work and work to drive. The region’s very low traffic congestion compared to other metros allows residents to travel farther in personal vehicles without additional loss of time. However, there is a cost associated with this for commuters.
The Memphis MSA ranks 51 out of 100 metros for housing affordability with 35.9% of the population spending more than 30% of household income on housing according to the American Community Survey. At $14,182, Memphis regional transportation costs are the 10th highest of all MSAs with a population more than 1 million people. When transportation costs are added, H+T Housing Plus Transportation Index finds that 88.5% of the regional population spends over 45% of their income on housing and transportation.
With low coverage, frequency and access to jobs, transit is not a reasonable alternative. The Memphis area ranks 68th in coverage and 64th in service frequency among the 100 largest metros. Region-wide, 5% of jobs are accessible by transit within 45 minutes, 10% within 60 minutes and 26% within 90 minutes. Access to low-skill jobs by transit ranks 73rd among the 100 largest metros.
Economic Development Depends on Next Generation Land-Use
Basic growth may depend on how predictable investment opportunities are and how connected people are to jobs. To compete long term in the new-economy, this region needs to link land-use decisions to market demand. Mixing complementary uses should be encouraged. Density must increase. And, job concentrations need to be purposefully linked to employment candidates.
We could adopt (or invent) 21st century land-use planning models. We could establish innovation districts. We could design strategic redevelopment projects at key locations and prioritize future target industry sites.
But we must first accept that competitive metropolitan regions succeed when their economic assets are concentrated, their geographic make-up reduces transaction costs and their organization encourages innovation-producing interactions.
The Series:
Part One: Creating a Process on Economic Development
Part Two: Securing the Global Logistics Brand
Part Three: Diversifying the Economy Beyond Logistics
Part Four: Leveraging Assets for International Trade
Part Five: Building A New Manufacturing Workforce
Part Six: Organizing for Innovative Entrepreneurial Growth
Part Eight: Tracking the Market to Understand Emerging Opportunities – Monday (10/14/13)
Part Nine: Prioritizing First-Step Initiatives – Wednesday — (10/16/13)
“We could adopt (or invent) 21st century land-use planning models”
We COULD rent a barn and put on a show! I’ll get Mickey and Minnie and the gang together and a band and banners and tablecloths and poster boards and craft paper and sharpies and crayons and maybe even get the planning director to sing a song and then have a charrette.
or maybe not.
say, how many new homes been built inside the Memphis city limits this year?
thought so.
I realize the comment below is something of a novel and more string of thought than organized thesis, so please indulge me.
Anon 10:24’s comment seems uninformed seeing as several multi-family projects have come online this year, others have either been approved and/or will break ground just in the downtown neighborhood alone and numerous examples of new and renovated single family homes that have come online inside the Memphis city limits. However, the author may have a point elsewhere.
Playing devil’s advocate for a moment: Much of this particular post reads as very vague and lacks many critical details. How does one propose to increase density in a place where the economic transformation will be built on the back of logistics which is a driving factor in our lack of employment density? How is density increased where demand for the types of uses that might support higher density is utterly lacking? How do connections between places create enough value to drive market demand in the face of infrastructure that is so oversized (once again in large part due to a focus on logistics) that congestion is virtually nonexistent and “undeveloped” land with easy highway and rail access is both cheap and plentiful? How can quality of place be created and maintained when the market lacks the capacity to fund the construction and maintenance costs associated with said quality?
Our existing land use patterns and planning largely reflect and support the region’s economic emphasis on logistics. Logistics, and manufacturing based on said logistics, necessarily requires a dispersed employment pattern. The space demands of any activity that revolves around shipping and receiving via multiple transportation modes decreases the potential for dense employment patterns when utilizing contemporary production methods. Trucks require large turning radiuses, rail yards require large runs and restricted cross movements and scales of economy require goods be shipped in large bulks that then require rapid transfer/use or large spaces for storage upon. Based on previous posts, Memphis is to build a manufacturing and research base on its logistics strengths. While research and development can be found in higher density employment settings, many manufacturing activities and regional commodities/materials processing employers occupy enormous footprints without necessarily yielding high concentrations of employment. Barring a revolution in transportation modes (on the par with the invention of the first practical locomotive), dependence on employment activity that is limited largely to a ground floor footprint will perpetuate the type of densities currently found in the Memphis area. Even in the case of R& D, while these labs are found in multi-story settings, these types of facilities are extremely expensive on a per sq. ft. basis to build and operate and only certain areas of R&D lend themselves to stacked spaces. At the end of the day Silicon Valley, the Telecom Corridor (Dallas) and Research Triangle Park (North Carolina) are all low density employment centers located in low rise districts and defined by low density employment patterns.
I do take some exception to the idea that land uses and development has yielded “unpredictable spatial distribution and geographic growth patterns” that “lessen the desirability of the area as an investment location”. Admittedly there are exceptions, but our current land use patterns have been largely anticipated and actively pursued by market driven land use since the 1960s. The areas along Lamar and to its west were envisioned as an industrial district early on as can be seen in the areas zoning and the city’s drive to build the quasi-expressways that are Perkins, Getwell to serve the area. The few isolated pockets of residential development were caught in the middle of shifting economic development initiatives or are annoying reminders of the limited vision and the inability of area “leaders” to say no to immediate development opportunities in the face of long term strategies. The focus of wealth as well as professional and service employment along the Poplar axis is evident as early as the development of Poplar Plaza.
I will go as far as to suggest that current land-use decisions are being entirely driven by market demand with no thought towards the quality of the built environment or long term economic development goals. In an overly simplified free market model, density requires 3 key ingredients: sufficient infrastructure, demand and “high” per square foot prices for real estate. If any one of those 3 variables is lacking, then the free market will not yield higher densities without public intervention. Memphis and the surrounding region by in large lacks the latter two variables. Market demand dictates that drive thru retail be built in the heart of the same districts that policy and residents had identified to serve as high density neighborhoods and focal points. Market demand entices CN to develop a logistics park adjacent to its intermodal facility in Pidgeon industrial park that could “one day” create an estimated 6 jobs per acre. The lack of demand for office space has resulted in a downtown where the market is on seemingly permanent life support and a low density dispersion of tenants at Poplar and Ridgeway that reflects the surplus of property amid a dearth of occupants. If there is no demand the market dictates that density will not increase. We can artificially tinker with the market via land use controls, but that only works in a vacuum and is extremely hard to achieve once multiple jurisdictions with competing interests are introduced. Even then, if demand is almost entirely composed of low-rent and low income activities (be they residential, commercial or industrial), it will be extremely difficult to finance a high density (and thus higher cost) development without involving subsidies.
One last note- Memphis and Shelby County did adopt/invent a 21st century land use and development model. It has and continues to be deconstructed and rendered ineffectual by the Memphis Shelby County Office of Planning and Development in conjunction with area developers.
Urbanut +1
as usual.
besides, the planning director would have to rouse himself from his usual stupor to learn a tune. Not happening.
is there a deannexation study underway yet? just askin’…