By TOM JONES
Memphis has been surprising people for more than a century, and it happened again in the wake of the Great Recession. With Memphis hit harder than almost any city in the country, many commentators predicted that it could not recover from the blow.
These were tough times for Memphis, leading it to identify viscerally with its NBA team’s mantra: grit and grind. The Great Recession left this Mississippi river city on the Fourth Chickasaw Bluff to draw inspiration from the Memphis Grizzlies, who touted its refusal to give up and to find a way to win, even if wasn’t always pretty.
While it may be surprising that the city found ways to win, there’s no bigger surprise than the fact that it did it by turning the image of a slow-moving, sedentary river city into a city known for outdoor recreation. Memphis went from zero to almost 300 miles of bike lanes and built more than 30 miles of greenlines in only five years, bike lanes are being added to the bridge connecting downtown’s riverwalk to Arkansas, a bike-share program is beginning soon, and the city was named one of America’s best paddling towns.
Memphis turned a conception on its head in one of the city’s most trying times, and it’s that spirit that pervades everything Memphis stands for and is.
It’s been a remarkable turnaround in such a short time, and in truth, it surprises even many of us. When it began, downtown was seriously struggling, key neighborhoods were languishing, new construction was nonexistent, self-confidence was flagging, and young adults were moving away in droves.
To read more, click here: https://www.thrillist.com/lifestyle/memphis/memphis-deserves-a-place-as-a-great-american-city
tom
that is so well done!
makes me proud to be your friend.
It is a bike lane to absolutely nowhere! A total waste of govt funds that could have been used for much more important purposes.
Which bike lane? There are hundreds of miles of them.
I think the idea of a high up bridge bike path is very disconcerting. First, it ends in West Memphis Arkansas in the middle of nowhere. It will likely attract suicide jumpers and could be prime spots for muggings and robbery which will be difficult for police to respond to. I’d rather expand bike lanes elsewhere. We need to fix Riverside Dr and the trolleys first. This smells of government waste spending
There are plans for an Eco center in Arkansas looking back at Memphis and hopefully, it will come to pass. Other cities have these kinds of bike/per lanes on bridges so we can’t see why they won’t work here.