By John Branston 

This post is intended to be a follow-up to a recent post, What Is Memphis’ Right Size, about Memphis population density by Tom Jones.  It is some context about the fiendishly difficult job of getting accurate numbers – the bigger, the harder.  

It is a safe bet that a local government that can’t fix escalators in the main library, run a bus system, fill potholes, or manage a clerk’s office and has to deal with unnamed “influencers” in an era of eviscerated local media and Trump/Musk cuts – well, hard job. 

Population of Memphis: 600,000 to 650,000 in a google search. Depends on the U.S. Census and year. It is supposed to be done every three years. If you had a Census worker come to your door and fill out a form, raise your hand. 

Land area of Memphis in square miles: 296 to 328. Boosted by decades of annexations, as Tom Jones pointed out. 

Density: See above and do the math. 

Peer cities: Nashville, Detroit, and St. Louis are often cited. Nashville is booming and consolidated with Davidson County and is the largest city in Tennessee and growing weekly. Detroit has a population in the 600,000 to 700,000 range but is in a Metropolitan area of 4.39 million while Memphis metro is 1.39 million. St. Louis is in an area with scores of small municipalities and hamstrung by inability to annex. 

Memphis and Shelby County public school system enrollment. The most recent number is 110,000, but that is not average daily attendance and school funding is an incentive to overstate. To their great credit, MSCS staff, teachers, security, bus drivers, kitchen staff, and parents get some 90,000 children in and out of more than 200 schools safely 180 days a year. 

Voting: There are an estimated 600,000 registered voters in Shelby County. I find that number hard to believe because it is not simple to register to vote, you have to be 18 years old and motivated, and the recent Memphis mayoral election turnout of under 100,000 suggests otherwise. 

Murder. 397 a couple years ago. A sticky number, and sticklers point out that murder and homicide are not the same. So sue me. There were nine murders in seven days this month, including one during a food festival in Tom Lee Park. It is a lovely park and I will continue to visit it weekly, but you can’t count the people who don’t come or move out of Memphis. 

Property appraisal. In general, they went up for homeowners – 5 to 20 percent in my Midtown neighborhood. (You can check your own and your neighbors’ appraisal at the county assessor’s website.)  The days when a “million-dollar home” was a big deal are over. There are whole neighborhoods of them. You can look it up. 

Sports attendance: Just a personal hobby horse since there is so much space, time, and attention given to Tigers and Grizzlies and lesser fry such as Showboats, soccer, and Redbirds. Suffice it to say that there is the “announced attendance” and the butts-in-seats.

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To read more of John Branston’s posts, go to categories on the right side of this blog’s home page and select his name.   

John Branston has been contributing to Smart City Memphis for four years. Before that he wrote columns, breaking news, and long-form stories for The Commercial Appeal, Memphis Flyer, Memphis magazine, and other print and online publications. He is author of the books Rowdy Memphis (2004) and What Katy Did (2017). He is a journalist and opinion writer.  His stories are based on reporting, interviews and quotes supported by notes or a tape recorder. He has written about people who made Memphis what it is, for better and worse; about sleep issues and depression; about racquet sports; and about travel in the South and West. Tom Jones, creator of the Smart City Memphis blog, is his invaluable publisher, copy editor, tech support, and rewrite man.