The purpose of a day-long conference last week was to pursue ways to reduce poverty, but in truth, it was most of all about developing a “superior growth model” for the Memphis economy.
Speaker after speaker at the National Conversation on Prosperity for All emphasized the dramatic economic impact that would result from achieving the City of Memphis Blueprint for Prosperity goal of moving 64,000 Memphians from concentrated poverty into the economic mainstream.
“Two-thirds of the economy is based on consumer spending,” said Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League. “More money that people have in their pockets, the more the economy will grow. It’s not a zero-sum game. Adding more people to the prosperity side does not mean taking something from somebody else. It’s about expanding, elevating and lifting.”
A Gap Costing $20 Billion
Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and CEO of PolicyLink, who described herself as a “cheerleader because there’s nothing I can tell you that you haven’t thought of,” said “equity is the “superior growth model.” If the white and black disparity in the Memphis region could be closed, the GDP would be $20 billion higher.
“By 2044, the United States will have a majority of people of color,” she said. “Since 2012, a majority of all babies born have been of color. By 2030, a majority of the workforce will be people of color. You know the disparities and that people of color are being left behind. The people being left behind are the future. We are in this moment of toxic inequality, and if we don’t get it right, we have failed the future. If the people becoming the majority are not prepared, there is no middle class and we’ve set the course for the nation.”
The audience of 225 people included public officials, leaders of nonprofit organizations, and philanthropists, and while there were no business leaders or leaders of economic development organizations at the meeting, the conference underscored the importance of the Greater Memphis Chamber’s priorities of reducing poverty and the high unemployment rate for African Americans.
$2.7 Billion for Transportation
In a panel discussion about driving change, Scott Bernstein, president and co-founder of Center for Neighborhood Technology (Chicago) said that the Memphis region spends $2.7 billion a year on transportation, and if it could divert some of that amount to develop a more efficient, more sustainable public transit system, it would be a boost to the economy by connecting employee-rich areas of Memphis to jobs-rich areas.
“Poverty is largely excluded from the political process,” Mr. Bernstein said, pointing out that Memphians spend 52% of their incomes on housing and transportation. “We have votes on spending money on roads but we never have votes to spend money on poverty. We need to expose people to the faces of poverty and talk about full employment because it (poverty) costs everybody.”
In their invitations to speak to the National Conversation about Prosperity, Mr. Morial and Ms. Blackwell were asked for their specific advice for Memphis’ Blueprint for Prosperity.
Angela Glover Blackwell’s Priorities
Ms. Blackwell’s recommendations:
* Approve a $15 minimum wage because it means that “people who go to work are not living in poverty.”
* Focus on entrepreneurship by people of color. “African Americans and Latinos are three times more likely to create their own business than whites.” The International Monetary Fund study of 100 countries determined that “every 10% reduction in inequality results in 50% increase in growth period.”
* Develop Pre-K-16 program because workers need at least associate degrees and even more to succeed as part of today’s high quality workforce.
* Reform the criminal justice system. “In urban black community, it’s hard not to have interactions with police, and it’s a place where you feel like a criminal even if you’re not and where young people get records they don’t deserve (and felony charges that shouldn’t be felonies).”
Marc Morial’s Suggestions
Mr. Morial’s recommendations:
* Any plan to reduce poverty must focus on women and women empowerment because the status of children is defined economically by the economic status of their mothers.
* The plan must focus on the working poor. He said people think poverty is an affliction of unemployment and believe that if we can just get people jobs, everything will be fine; however, many, many people in poverty are holding two jobs. “It’s about confronting issues about the quality of jobs.”
* The plan has to focus on criminal justice. “The victims of gun violence are too often people of color shot by people of color so we can’t act like we aren’t interested. The war on drugs criminalizes behaviors and became punitive.”
* The plan has to support small and minority business development. “The best-kept secret about minority businesses is that their revenue growth rate is higher than S&P and Dow.”
* The plan needs to confront racial dimension of poverty in America. “It requires not just a plan but will.”
The Best Kind of Publicity
In opening comments, Memphis Mayor A C Wharton tied the fight to reduce Memphis’ poverty rate to the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s murder in 2018 and the 200th anniversary of the founding of Memphis in 2019. “In other words, in only a few years, we will have two opportunities to show the world the progress we are making and the opportunities that we are achieving,” he said.
“Memphis is not in the top 10 cities with the highest poverty rates but the Memphis MSA is. Because of our size, Memphis is the perfect urban laboratory for strategies that can be replicated in much larger cities with higher poverty rates. Here, outcomes can be measured quickly, measurements can be taken easily, and fine tuning can be made immediately as we perfect our strategies for change.”
He said the Blueprint for Prosperity is built on the cornerstones of higher job rates, lower daily living expenses, efficient transportation to job centers, and taking advantage of available income support programs.
This was a stealth conference just like the “Blueprint for Prosperity”.
Mayor Wharton’s 2012 State of the City address included the following statement, “In the coming 100 days, we will unveil our “Blueprint for Prosperity” plan. It is our strategic program to reduce the number of Memphians living in poverty and give them the training, human services, encouragement, and help that they need to move from dependency to self‐sufficiency.
For 2013 Wharton said, the “Blueprint for Prosperity” is a strategic approach to creating the kind of neighborhoods that encourage connections to jobs and economic development, to services for childhood development, and for housing program(s) that create the conditions for strong family development.
In his 2014 State of the City speech, Wharton said, “Given the demands of our situation, I am looking forward to launching, in the first quarter of this year, one of the most innovative programs to reduce poverty of any city in the United States – the Memphis “Blueprint for Prosperity”. The Blueprint’s goal is a mandate to reduce the poverty rate in our city from 27% to 17% in 10 years – that’s 1 percent per year for the next 10 years.“
In 2015 he said, “To address it (poverty), we have developed the “Blueprint for Prosperity”, which will reduce the poverty rate by 10 points in 10 years. It is already attracting national attention, and in the coming six months, I will be asking you to help us move our bold initiatives ahead. Unlike other plans in other cities, the Blueprint is focused on increasing financial security and wealth.”
I have yet to see this blueprint. Where is it? And, What is it?
The Blueprint is at the halfway point of its development and it has produced a federal Jobs Plus grant, more MATA routes, partnership with state government, recommendation of a risk assessment model of individualized interventions, and more. In addition, the Center for Neighborhood Technology has made specific recommendations for increasing income and reducing cost of living. You could probably request information about the Blueprint from the mayor’s office if you’d like to see what the process and the timeline are.
Janis
Thanks for your response. I had no idea that all of what you list was tied to the Blueprint for Prosperity. Maybe Wharton just hasn’t been transparent enough in his State of the City speeches for the past 4 years. And to think we are only half way toward its development. There must be a lot more coming.
I just found the following in my files –
“If successful, the blueprint would erase the $200 million income gap that separates Memphis’ poorest families from economic stability, according to calculations from the Chicago-based Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), WHICH DESIGNED THE PLAN’S EIGHT-POINT STRATEGY (emphasis mine). He (Wharton) shared the plan’s specifics exclusively with The Commercial Appeal.” (“Inequality in Memphis: Wharton proposes a roadmap out of poverty, into prosperity”, Wendi C. Thomas, May 4, 2014, Commercial Appeal)
Do you mean we are half way through the preparation of the blueprint, half way toward its implementation, half way to the 10 years, or half way to reducing poverty by 10%?
Why isn’t the “eight point strategy” posted on the City’s web site?
Oh, one more question: What is “recommendation of a risk assessment model of individualized interventions”?
I’m sorry for dragging this out, but this Blueprint thing is bugging me. Why would Wharton share “the plan’s specifics exclusively with the Commercial Appeal” and not exclusively with the citizens of Memphis?
And why weren’t the citizens of Memphis encouraged to attend the National Conversation on Prosperity with greater publicity? And why were there no business leaders or leaders of economic development organizations present?
The $200 million income gap was the result of the Center for Neighborhood Technology work, and it’s featured in the article you referred to. The eight point strategy were recommendations of CNT. The process is designed to get broad input and within three-four months have the final recommendations. As part of the process, 15 University of Memphis experts provided issues briefs that are also part of the input.
The risk assessment model will rank the risks to each family in the target area and then rank the neighborhood risk factors as well. There are a couple of models of this kind of individualized approach that are being evaluated at this time.
We did our part and wrote about the National Conversation a day or two ahead of it being held. Media were notified, we’re told, and hundreds of invitations went out. You’d have to ask the business leaders why they weren’t there.
OK. There is a 114 page Blueprint for Prosperity out there somewhere and since at least 2014 a dozen or so articles have been written about this document. The aforementioned Wendy Thomas did a followup to the above reference, along with several others, to summarize each of the eight strategies, several of which sounded like goals. Without the full document we can’t pass judgement nor make a judgement if Wharton is on the right track
The Blueprint for Prosperity is one of several plans that overlap – Fast Forward ( Economic Development Plan, People First, Healthy Memphis, Operation Safe Community, Government Fiscal Strength); Sustainable Shelby Implementation Plan; Greenprint; Direction 2040: Long Range Transportation Plan for the Memphis Metropolitan area; and the City of Memphis’ A Strategic Fiscal and Management Plan, which is an element of Fast Forward.
This makes my head spin and I really care about how we organize the process of planning. Most people don’t care. Is it too much to ask that we unify planning?
I still have these questions for Janis. Do you mean we are half way through the preparation of the blueprint, half way toward its implementation, half way to the 10 years, or half way to reducing poverty by 10%? Please respond.
Don Quixote Hasava
There is no Blueprint for Prosperity plan out there. There’s a document that frames up its importance, there are principles, context for the plan, and the description of process to develop a final plan of action by end of the year/early of new year. There are recommendations made by Center for Neighborhood Technology and we believe those were the basis for Wendi’s article; however, they are not the Blueprint but some of the strategies being considered for the final.
The Blueprint is designed to be exclusively about poverty reduction and wealth creation. None of the other plans deal with this head-on, but Blueprint will not replicate those plans but integrate the relevant parts of them so that they can partner to achieve the overall goals. As we mentioned, the Blueprint isn’t like one of those plans. It’s not intended to be one of those lengthy strategic plans but to identify 5-7 transformative strategies that have the power to change the lives of the 64,000 people who are targets for the plan.
I feel like Alice in Wonderland. All of these strange things just pop-up along the way. Now there’s no plan, but I just saw it on a tree limb back there somewhere and since 2012 Wharton has been saying he’s going to unveil the “plan”. No wait, it was a cat I saw on that tree limb and he had Wharton’s tongue.
Now we have the next big thing from Wharton. Beverly Robertson, the retired head of the National Civil Rights Museum, will become president of the yet to be created “Center for Prosperity and Empowerment”. Does she play croquet?
Smart City, I think I understand and agree with you. This new thing can draw from existing initiatives, plus add a few, and shape a comprehensive attack on poverty. However, It just has not been explained very well and that’s a problem. And as usual the citizens have not been involved and this could be Wharton’s downfall.
This all just reminds me of Peggy Edmiston’s grand vision to “Free the Children”. I wish she could weigh in on the Blueprint.
Louise: It does feel like Free the Children, which was ahead of its time. I remember Peggy sitting on my radiator as we put together the idea and marched right into Mayor Morris’ office, and to his credit, he didn’t bat an eye and said, “go for it.” Peggy was off and running. Everyone in Memphis and Shelby County should have had the pleasure of knowing Peggy but there are many of us who hopefully keep her ideals alive.