Riverfront Development Corporation and The Beale Street Landing

The Riverfront Development Corporation (RDC) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to create and implement a Master Plan for the development of the Memphis Riverfront which includes green space, public amenities, private development and economic opportunities developed jointly with citizens and funded through a public/private partnership (http://www.memphisriverfront.com/.) The president of the non-profit is Benny Lendermon, III who is the former Director of Public Works for the City of Memphis. RDC is responsible for the development of 5 miles of the Mississippi riverfront in downtown Memphis. They unveiled a master plan for the riverfront in 2002. Projects they have worked on include: Confederate Park Renovations, Historic Cobblestone Landing, Beale Street Landing, Promenade, Mud Island Land Use Study, and the Riverfront Master Plan.

The Riverfront Master Plan was adopted by the Memphis City Council in 2004. In an effort to understand if the Riverfront Master Plan was feasible, RDC asked the Urban Land Institute (ULI) to evaluate the plan. This evaluation is called “An Advisory Services Panel Report: Memphis Riverfront: Memphis, TN.” The evaluation from an impartial third party is crucial to the implementation of such a large scale project. One aspect that has been scratched from the master plan is a land bridge that was determined to be infeasible and the change was approved by the Memphis City Council.

The RDC are now making strides in improving the Memphis riverfront and trying to take advantage of its excellent positioning on the Mississippi River. The City of Memphis and RDC struck a deal with the Great American Steamboat Company to change its headquarters to Memphis and employ about 250 people. The deal has huge potential for economic development advances for the city and the riverfront. The company has chosen One Commerce Square for their headquarters. Great American Steamboat has purchased the American Queen from the U.S. Department of Transportation for 15.5 million dollars. The steamboat is 418 feet long and boasts 436 beds.

The City of Memphis is putting up 9 million dollars in Federal Housing and Development loan funds for the 31 million dollar project. The money will be paid back over a 10 year period via an 89 dollar docking fee, which will decrease to 15 dollars after the loan has been repaid. Private entities such as the Hyde Foundation are also putting up money for the project. The Great American Steamboat Company is spending 5 million dollars on renovations of the American Queen for her maiden voyage, which is expected to be on April 11, 2012 from the Beale Street Landing.

The Greater Memphis Chamber says the project will create 589 jobs and 89.5 million dollars’ worth of annual economic impact. The 89.5 million will come from passengers staying in hotels and shopping in Memphis since the American Queen will spend 20 percent of its time in Memphis. The steamboat project is expected to bring in an additional 1.5 million dollars in tax revenues for the city. She will also be visiting 13 other states along the Mississippi River.

The Beale Street Landing project is one that has had its ups and downs along the way but the Great American Steamboat Co. deal has been a definite advantage. The project has been affected by delays from the flooding of the Mississippi River, financing, budgeting, and project bidding concerns for the fourth phase. The project has been developed in 4 phases and scheduled to be finished in late 2012. It was originally slated for a 2008 opening but some of the factors listed above attributed to its current delay. The fourth phase should be finished in late 2012 but enough of the project will be done so the American Queen can have her maiden voyage in April.

Hopefully the riverboat will be able to have a positive impact on the city and in theory it should. Will it be able to help boost the completion of the Beale Street Landing? Will it be a catalyst for future economic development? If everything works out favorably, this could be a huge enhancement to the riverfront. The revitalization of the downtown riverfront and the acquisition of the American Queen should increase economic development in downtown as a whole. However, RDC has to figure out a way to finish the Beale Street Landing in a positive way so it can be a catalyst for future downtown development. Only time will tell if these actions by the City of Memphis and RDC will pay economic dividends.

Everyone Deserves a Second Chance?

Do first-time offenders or low-level offenders deserve a second chance under the law in order to better themselves by avoiding future criminal activity, avoiding other known felons and committing to furthering their education? Should communities ailed by the problems of these crimes be given the opportunity to not only voice their concerns, but also be directly associated with measures to stop the crimes committed in their neighborhoods?

Well the City of Memphis thinks so because in 2010 the City sought to implement a program that would do just that. Along these lines, the City of Memphis in collaboration with the Memphis Police Department and other law enforcement, community agencies, churches, citizens and the United States Attorney’s Office came come together to implement a program known as Drug Market Intervention (DMI).

What exactly is the Drug Market Intervention Program? The program is defined by the United States Department of Justice as measure between the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), via the Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) strategy, which supports training and technical assistance for local teams interested in implementing an open-air drug market intervention (DMI) initiative that is commonly referred to as the High Point Model. DMI addresses the challenge of effectively responding to illegal drug markets and their associated crime, violence, and disorder that has proven challenging for communities and law enforcement for decades. DMI is a strategic problem-solving initiative aimed at permanently closing down open-air drug markets. The strategy targets individual geographic drug markets using focused deterrence with transformational elements. The most violent offenders are targeted and prosecuted as examples. The strategy then targets low-level offenders and stages an intervention with families and community leaders. Law enforcement mobilizes community residents, leaders, and family members of low-level drug dealers to voice their intolerance for this criminal behavior and to create opportunity and support for the offenders. Offenders are given the option to straighten up or face lengthy prison sentences and are provided assistance in locating employment, housing, transportation, health care, and access to other social services. In the High Point Model, North Carolina Model, the strategy involved few arrests, mostly employing problem-solving approaches, and has resulted in a complete transformation of the targeted areas. The results were immediate and have been sustained for over four years. High Point’s most troubled neighborhoods have seen dramatically improved conditions and reduced drug and violent crime citywide. Most importantly, it did so in a way that addressed and repaired deep historic racial divisions in the community. The neighborhoods themselves have now taken responsibility for safety in the community.

The program in Memphis initially targeted the 38134 zip code and gained momentum after a three month undercover operation that targeted street level dealers. As a result of the undercover operation, 50 arrests were made, 5 of the offenders face federal prosecution, and 38 of the offenders have state court charges. (http://www.myfoxmemphis.com). However, 6 of the offenders were given the very rare opportunity to come and to meet with people of the community and to be given an opportunity to quit or be prosecuted because as stated previously, under the DMI program there is a “second chance” provision available to those considered low-level offenders who just might be seeking a way out of the drug life. (http://www.myfoxmemphis.com). The 6 offenders in question received hand delivered letters from the Memphis Police Department whereby 5 of the 6 eligible offenders were ordered to bring a loved one and attend a community intervention held at Springdale Baptist Church Tuesday night. Peggy Russell, Safe Streets coordinator, explained, “they were shown videos of the actual [drug] transactions and then they received a message from community residents. The community residents ask these individuals to please stop.” As a result of the program all 5 of the offenders agreed to get out of the drug life rather than do jail time and in return, they will receive help to get their lives back on track which as stated previously involves a variety of resources including locating employment, housing, transportation, health care, and access to other social services.

The program appears to be effective means in stopping future criminal activity in a number of ways. First, the government actually has to establish and be able to present a case that criminal activity is being committed in particular area. Second, an opportunity is presented to specific offenders in order to prevent future crimes from occurring. The methodology is simple and effective because regardless of the acceptance or lack of acceptance by the offender, the government still has built a case against the offender. Furthermore, it becomes in the best interest of the offender to seize the opportunity to avoid jail time and also obtain needed services. As such, the program is a win/win because either (a) the offender is taken off the streets for the crimes committed or the offender elects to become a contributing and productive citizen to the neighborhood, family, and communities that loves and support them. Either way the community benefits from the program and the government grows as it seeks to identify new and effective means in targeting and preventing crime.

Bad for Business.

The focus of this piece is based on the operating cost and statistical data associated with the cost to operate a supermarket in a low-income area versus a middle-income area and if the data supports the notion of many supermarkets that it cost more to operate supermarkets that serve low-income consumers as opposed to median-income consumers.

According to a report prepared by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), their results in fact did not support the hypothesis that it costs more to operate supermarkets that serve low-income consumers and while stores with different rates of food stamp redemption have significantly different cost structures, their overall operating costs are essentially the same. Therefore, if the poor do pay more, factors other than operating costs are likely to be the reason. As such, we shall explore these other factors in order to determine what other issues are at play in this long-debated scenario.

The article goes on to state that the issue of higher cost for low-income consumers has been researched for more than three decades and the findings have been mixed, but much of the available evidence indicates that shopping opportunities for the poor are more limited than for higher income consumers and that prices are slightly higher in stores whose patrons are chiefly low-income consumers. Furthermore, the article references research where a review of a 14 store surveys which were conducted between 1966-1996 that indicates that food prices are generally higher in smaller grocery stores than in larger supermarkets and also higher in inner city and rural locations than in suburban locations. Therefore since the poor are more likely to shop in small grocery stores and to live in inner city or rural locations, they often face higher food prices (USDA, Supermarket Characteristics and Operating Costs in Low-Income Areas, 2004).

However the premise of location, location, location can not be the only contributing factor for these higher costs and common sense yields to the belief that these supermarkets are preying on the poor and less fortunate if for no other reason than because they can; because no one is going to stop them and because this is the way it has/and will continue to be. These supermarkets view poor people as uneducated consumers in terms of knowing their rights and fighting for their equal treatment as consumers. These supermarkets understand that there is a desperate need for their existence and services. As such, the advantages and disadvantages appear to be clear-cut in terms of winners and losers.

The report goes on to cite supermarket panel data on store operating practices and that data indicates the extent to which a store has adopted new technologies and business practices that support supply chain initiatives in the food industry. Further, the human resources index measures adoption of progressive training and compensation practices. The food-handling index measures compliance with accepted practices for ensuring food safety and quality. The environmental practices index indicates the degree to which a store offers environmentally friendly products and services to its customer and uses energy-efficient practices and store waste recycling in its own operations. Finally, the quality assurance index measures adoption of objective practices for assessing customer satisfaction (USDA, Supermarket Characteristics and Operating Costs in Low-Income Areas, 2004).

In my opinion all these variables combined still fall drastically short in effectively addressing the actual question-at-hand which is simply why do supermarkets in low income areas charge more to consumers than median-income areas? I would argue that the answer will not be found in any empirical analysis or data collection effort because it does not exist.

The answer...as simply as it may be is because no one has demanded that it be any different! The consumers has not demanded that pricing be changed either by those that are directly effected(low-income consumers) or by those indirectly effected (median-income consumers). The argument for the low-income consumers probably lies somewhere between not knowing and not caring and the premise for median-income consumers is that as long as it does not effect their bottom-line, it is not their problem. However, I would argue that the mistreatment of the few can and will lead to the mistreatment of the many. As such, it is in the best interest of all income brackets, low, high, and in-between to ensure that supermarkets and businesses alike treat all consumers equally in terms of pricing and access to goods. Furthermore, it is imperative that low-income consumers ensure that the change starts with them by effectively not patronizing those establishments that insist on providing sub-standard services at astronomical prices and although it is easy to mandate that low-income consumers boycott these establishments and other income brackets band with them collectively to help their fellow man, it is also important that government, both locally and nationally do not continue to facilitate the unequal, usurious pricing of the poor. We all must strive to create a society that does not seek to strengthen the strong on the backs on the weak!

God Lends Helping Hands to Hickory Hill

The 38125 and 38141 zip codes of Memphis, also known as Hickory Hill, have been characterized as declining for at least fifteen years now. Increasing crime rates, decreasing property values, and the flight of many residents and retail stores further into the suburbs have contributed significantly to the decline of Hickory Hill. According to the City of Memphis Division of Housing and Community Development (HCD), zip code 38141 has been identified as one of ten zip codes in Memphis with the greatest percentage of home foreclosures. Hickory Hill also ranks among the top ten zip codes for the highest percentage of homes financed with sub-prime mortgages and has been identified as an area likely to face a significant rise in the rate of home foreclosures in the near future.
The Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) is a grant-funded program awarded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The program provides emergency assistance to state and local governments to acquire and redevelop foreclosed properties that are abandoned or vacant. The NSP acquired properties must be rehabilitated for the purpose of resell, rent, or lease purchase in order to stabilize neighborhoods and control potential blight that foreclosures may cause. The State of Tennessee was awarded $49,360,421; Shelby County was awarded $2,752,708; and the City of Memphis was awarded $11,506,415. The city has selected ten zip codes based on established criteria by HUD as areas of greatest need related to foreclosures, and 38141 qualifies for assistance. This program will be administered locally by the City of Memphis HCD.
The federal and local government can provide the framework and resources to revitalize urban areas, but members of the community must be involved for the revitalization to truly be successful. The members of the community are stakeholders, and they must feel ownership, responsibility, and camaraderie for the revitalization efforts to make a significant impact. Faith-based urban revitalization initiatives can help foster the sense of community that is an integral part of true revitalization, and that is what Stacy Spencer envisions for his community.
A decade ago, Stacy Spencer set out to start a new congregation in an old church in Hickory Hill. “‘I didn't want to just come in and start another church. I wanted to do something to restore the fiber of this community. That meant meeting the needs of the people who were coming and the people who weren't leaving,” Spencer said. Over the span of a single decade, New Direction Christian Church (NDCC) has grown from 60 members to 18,000. "Our job is to make disciples, not members," Spencer said. "Members come to sit and watch. Disciples come to help and serve." The “disciples” have made many contributions to Hickory Hill over the past decade, including:
- regular Bible studies at nearby apartment complexes, community prayer vigils, and mentoring kids at various schools, including the Kirby High football team.
- the Power Center Community Development Corp. to "restore the economic, educational and social foundation of Hickory Hill through empowering initiatives designed to instill hope, pride and sense of community." One of those initiatives is the Soul Cafe, a for-profit venture that opened in a former O'Charley's restaurant next to the church.
- the Power Center Academy, a charter middle school that opened in 2008. The school, which has nearly 200 students in grades 6-8, was recently named the middle school winner in a statewide public school competition by the State Collaborative on Reforming Education.
- the formation of the church's own CDC, which helped acquire the abandoned Marina Cove apartment complex at 5505 Winchester. The church's plans to redevelop the property include a health clinic, a performing arts center and a charter high school.
- a deal for Nueva Direccion Christian Church to move into New Direction's original location at 5777 Winchester after the Hispanic congregation was robbed during a prayer service at their former location. Nueva Direccion Christian Church is now working to meet the needs of Hickory Hill's growing Hispanic population.
What Spencer is doing to revitalize Hickory Hill is something the government can rarely do- create a sense of community that comes from neighbors helping neighbors. For residents of Hickory Hill, the feeling of camaraderie that has been fostered through the church’s initiatives allows the revitalization process to stretch beyond the capacity of government assistance into a project that is successful and sustainable well into the future. "When Hickory Hill is restored, we want people to look at it and know that God did it," Spencer said.

A Creek Runs Through It

The Vance neighborhood, located in the southern portion of Downtown Memphis has experienced a downward spiral populationally, economically, and ecologically. According to the Census, the two tracts that the neighborhood falls within declined by 70% from a population of 23,264 in 1940 to a population of 6,910 in 2010.

When looking at what we consider the vital statistics of a neighborhood, the Vance Area is a prime target for urban revitalization. The typical urban renewal/revitalization project treats humans as objects within a project, hence, the term “The Projects.” The typical prescriptions prescribed to these areas involve demolition and reconstruction, which is known to result in the sociocultural, economical, and physical displacement of residents of the ailing neighborhood. This fraudulent and manipulative method of revitalizing neighborhoods has never worked for the “objects” in the project. What it has done in many cases was increase the city’s tax revenue. This increase in tax revenue has been the main goal and will always be the main goal of any municipality.

In the Vance neighborhood, many of the parcels are publicly owned. This means that taxes aren’t being paid for most of the neighborhood. If the city wants to increase their tax base and the neighborhood’s residents wish to increase their quality of life, what is a possible solution that will serve the needs of both the city and the neighborhood? Bingo! A creek runs through it.

This article attempts to evaluate the possibility of restoring a creek that passes through the heart of the neighborhood. What’s amazing is that this creek connects Brown Park, located in the southeast corner of the neighborhood and Robert Church Park, located at the northwestern corner of the neighborhood. Robert Church Park is also an underutilized historical venue. The creek can end at the southern tip of Robert Church Park where a pond can be located. The pond will provide a host of recreational and relaxational options for citizens and tourists. Especially since Beale Street is a stone’s throw away.

The creek, for the most part, passes through publicly owned property; therefore the need to purchase property through eminent domain is negligent. There are two religious institutions where the creek runs through their parking lots. There are also two private residential parcels that currently have no structures on them. More than 90% of the parcel area the creek runs through is publicly owned.

The need to demolish buildings will also be unnecessary because Cleaborn Homes has already been demolished. It seems inevitable that Foote Homes will also be demolished. If it weren’t demolished, only one of the many buildings within Foote Homes would need to make room for the creek.

The benefits associated with the restoration of a creek supersede those of the typical cookie cutter pseudo-“New Urbanism” structures that are normally built in neighborhoods that have been recipients of Hope VI grants. These include, groundwater recharge, flood prevention, recreational opportunities, health, beautification, and increased property values. Although the scale is small when compared to the entire city, the creek can minimize the wear and tear on our storm water system. On a much larger scale, the creek alone can revitalize the downtown area and send a message to the entire city on how to revitalize the City of Memphis as a whole.

The maintenance of the creek will be minimal therefore achieving environmental sustainability as well as economic sustainability. Church Park and Brown Park will be connected and rebranded as a regional park instead of a neighborhood park.

The benefits associated with the restoration of the creek far outweigh the costs and can revitalize the city in a major way.

Sources:

Shelby County Assessor Data 2010

Men At Work

Anyone who has driven through Frayser lately has noticed the "MEN AT WORK" signs on almost every street, and its not just for show. Its all a part of the Mayor's campaign to rid the city of blight. But this mess didn't appear last week. It has been a problem for years. For the most part, the city has allowed these problems to fester. They spread like a cancer to surrounding city blocks and before you know it whole neighborhoods are falling apart and the problems become insurmountable. Its not just Frayser. Whole communities are being left to rot. And it is usually the same sad story: the big employers left first, then incomes began to decrease, those that could leave did, major retail centers dried up, properties were abandoned, and, well you get the idea. So now the city is left with a major problem.

I am not expecting city leaders to control national economic trends. I know this same situation is happening in hundreds of neighborhoods around the country, but that doesn't mean that we can just ignore our problems here. There are trees and brush so overgrown that you can't see the vacant house behind them. The ones you can see are decorated with gang graffiti. Many of the vacant homes aren't even boarded up and they soon become crime dens. The grass is waist high. There is so much debris on the sidewalks that people have to walk in the street and there is so much yard waste and trash clogging the storm drains that even a rat couldn't get down there.

Now, as I drive through the city, I see men at work and they definitely have a lot of work to do. But why are these issues addressed so dutifully all the time? Maybe they would be if every year was an election year. If elected city leaders knew that their jobs were on the line every October they just might do something the other 11 months of the year. But inevitably inertia sets in, other issues take precedence and they forget about all the promises they made during the re-election campaigns.

Don't get me wrong, I like A.C.. I think he and many of our council members have done alot for the city. But why do we have to wait until election season to see them make good on their promises? If we had real conversations about the real issues that plague so many neighborhoods and then actually did something about them in a timely fashion, Memphis would be in a much better place than it is now.

We can't attract new businesses to come to Memphis and locate in these communities in the shape they are in now. If we don't care about our neighborhoods how can we expect someone else to? Through our actions, or lack thereof, we are showing that we really just don't care enough to do anything. But the truth is, I think most of us really do care. Its just that the problem has gotten so big and out of control that no one really knows where to start.

When our politicians are running for office they seem energized;ready and willing to tackle any problem. But once they get into office all that energy seems to slowly fizzle out, until the next election. I say no more! We should fight blight every day and if that is too big of a problem for the city to manage they should at least support the organizations who are willing to take on the task.

There are many hard working Memphians who have made it their mission to do something. Every day they get up and fight the good fight. Its not glamorous and its not pretty, but they do it anyway. The reporters don't show up asking for interviews and no one gets a fancy victory party. They just do their job and go home happy knowing that they made a tiny difference. I wish all of our local leaders could say they same thing but sadly they can not. A City in Motion? Apparently only in October.

Community Lift: A Public-Private Partnership for Revitalization

Community Lift is a non-profit organization that is looking to help foster community development and revitalization in the City of Memphis. It is a newly formed organization headed by Eric Robertson who formerly for the Center City Commission and the Lemoyne-Owen College Community Development Corporation. It has a 12-person board that is constantly conducting meetings with potential investors to help sustain and growth the fund. The non-profit wants to raise money in order to loan it out for community building efforts. The efforts include: education, affordable housing, business, and social infrastructure. They will loan the money out and would get a return from interest which will go into a fund for future projects.

There are other non-profit organizations in the country like Community Lift. They include national organizations like Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and Community Development Financial Institution Fund (CDFI). These are two major types of community development non-profit organizations. They assist cities by allocating money for projects to the local branch of each entity. CDFI’s operate like bank but lend out for community development, affordable housing and urban revitalization. LISC does similar work as CDFI’s. They lend money out for community development and revitalization as well. These two non-profit privately backed organizations have national pull and are very well respected. They have a long track record of positive development from years of distributing money for revitalization.

How do these two national organization stack up against the newly formed Community Lift? LISC was formed in late 1979 with a 10 million donation from various philanthropic organizations, and corporate businesses. LISC organizes corporate business, government and philanthropic support to provide local community development organizations with the capital in order to fund local revitalization efforts. It has the backing of local, state, and national governments in policy support. LISC is preparing for its 25 anniversary.

The CDFI Fund was formed in 1994 under the Reigle Community Development and Regulatory Improvement Act of 1994 and is directed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. It was created in order to provide funds to various CDFI’s throughout the nation. The CDFI Fund invests in local CDFI’s and trains them in lending and gives them technical support. It gives out New Market Tax Credits, and it also provides incentives to banks to invest in local CDFI’s through its Bank Enterprise Award Program.

Community Lift was formally introduced in 2011 but has been working behind the scenes raising money for almost 3 years. It has raised money from various sources including the City of Memphis, the Community Fund, the Assisi Foundation, and Bank of America. It also plans to help fund local community development corporations in the Memphis area. There are so many CDC’s in the area and they are struggling with raising adequate funding in order to carry out necessary projects in their respective communities. Community Lift could loan money for certain projects to a CDC in order to help revitalize communities or assist in sustaining there viability.

Community Lift with the help of some other entities mentioned above have put together a comprehensive plan called “The Greater Memphis Neighborhood Plan: A Blueprint for Revitalization.” The plan was passed by The Memphis City Council on January 4th 2011. The plan had many contributors including: City of Memphis, Assisi Foundation, Community Foundation, Consilience Group LLC, Coalition for Livable Communities, and The Community Development Council of Greater Memphis. Community lift has been working diligently with the city, foundations, private companies and community development corporations (CDC’s).

Why did Memphis choose to form Community Lift instead of calling upon LISC or forming a CDFI? Community Lift is starting from scratch when they could have tried to join the CDFI Fund so they could start up easier. It sounds like Community Lift has strong ties with the City of Memphis, Foundations and corporations in Memphis. The intermediary may have found it easier to form Community Lift than to have worked with the Federal Government forming a local branch of LISC or a CDFI which is overseen by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Once we see projects start coming online, it may show some promise in the Memphis area.

How long will it take for Community Lift to start really making headway in the Memphis community? Is it a problem that this entity is not backed and provided assistance from national organizations that have successful model and track record? How long will it be before we start to the revitalization efforts of Community Lift come to fruition? Remember, it is a very young
organization and has a long way to go.

Building a Stronger Community

What does a sense of community mean to you? Is it a physical place, one in which you live and work? Perhaps it consists of only your neighborhood. What aspects really make it a community, though? Today, many forget about the social interaction of communities and tend to focus on the physical environment. How is this lack of social aspects hurting our neighborhoods, and what can we do to make our communities stronger?

Community as defined by Merriam-Webster is “a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society.” This implies that simply living close in proximity doesn’t make a people a community, however, sharing common interests and goals does. The expression of these goals between the members of the community defines its strength, but this can’t be done without social interaction. When we look at so called communities in the city of Memphis and its suburbs, there is a large lacking of social interaction. Why? Who or what is to blame?

For decades our neighborhoods have been built with the American dream in mind; we want a nice house with a big lawn. These neighborhoods were built with one intention in mind: to create a place for people to live and sleep. A neighborhood full of nothing but housing does not promote interaction between the residents. Along with highways making it possible for people to live far away from their work, the popularity of national food chains and retail took major nodes of social interaction away from the homes. The average American spends 87 minutes behind the wheel each day. Why is this a bad thing?

Aside from being better for the environment, healthier to walk or ride a bike, and giving one more free time each day, living close to one’s work allows one to get to know members of the community better. Similar businesses usually operate close to one another, so one is more likely to live near those with common interests and goals, reinforcing the idea of what community really is. This is just one step closer to building a relationship with others. To really bring everyone together, we must figure out how to combine live, work, learn, eat, and play in the same place. This isn’t to say everything must be provided in a community so one has no reason to leave it. There will always be other reasons such as large city parks, sports facilities, museums, or any other type of entertainment. However, we should strive to provide most of these needs to build community.

Many articles cite that happiness is not affected so much by the quantity of social interaction, but more by the quality of that interaction. While someone who lives far away from their work may interact just as much throughout the day with others, the quality of that interaction may not be as strong if the relationship with those people isn’t as rich. People who live, work, and are entertained in the same area will have more common interests on which to build a relationship. General happiness is just one benefit of a stronger community. Safety is another. As relationships are built, so is trust. More interaction brings more awareness.

With this idea in mind, it is easy to plan for this type of environment for new developments. How can we change the state of our current neighborhoods, though, to encourage this type of social interaction between the residents? We must look at whose responsibility it is to build our relationships with one another. It is ours. Despite conditions working against us, we need to reach out and support our local businesses and institutions. Forming community organizations to address issues and concerns of the residents will bring people together and promote growth within our communities through volunteering and cooperating together to meet common goals. Social services such as a fire department can play a key role in building community relationship.

The city of Memphis has the tools in place to assist with community building such as the Urban Land Institute, which offers workshops to institutions, nonprofit organizations, and the general public. The city is working towards implementing bike lanes such as on Madison Avenue to bring our communities closer together, however, future planning should be done with social interaction and multiuse in mind. The stronger our communities are, the better our overall wellbeing will be, and the greater the city of Memphis will be.

Sources:

Langer, Gary. (2005, February 15) Poll: Traffic in the United States. ABCNews. Retrieved October 11, 2011 from http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Traffic/story?id=485098&page=1

Roehlkepartain, Eugene C. (2007, December) Benefits of Community-Based Service-Learning. National Service-Learning Clearinghouse. Retrieved October 11, 2011 from http://www.servicelearning.org/benefits-community-based-service-learning

Urban Land Institute. (2011) Retrieved October 11, 2011 from http://memphis.uli.org/Community%20Building.aspx

Collaboration: City and University working together?

Planning is all about partnerships that link common goals and visions together into a coherent plan or set of guidelines towards development of city and neighborhoods. Universities are the ones who should be bringing these partnerships together since they are some of the only places that have access to knowledge that is multidisciplinary and already “together” in a group. The group of course being the university itself. With all of the academic departments at a typical major research university there should be no question as to the ability of a university, such as University of Memphis, to act as an engine for economic as well as social growth in a city or town. Our work in the Vance Ave neighborhood is an example of university collaboration to bring about a positive change in a neighborhood torn by cyclical poverty and a drug problem that pulls the whole neighborhood down. We are working with two departments, CRP and Anthropology, and while this is a good start I often wonder, why architecture isn’t involved or why can’t economics, business, history, or geography be a part of this effort as well. Other departments like the ones listed above are needed to provide an extra point of view at the table and to bring their specific expertise to a project could have enormous impact on Memphis and the Vance Avenue neighborhood for decades to come. We as planners don’t have all of the answers and we might see a problem one way but someone from another department could see it from a different angle and provide a better solution that we could or would.

Universities in the past have been mostly places for the rich or elite to go and get an education before they went into the family business or some other enterprise and they were not places were anyone could go and try to better themselves and raise their own position in our society. Traditionally the schools have tried to distance themselves from the problems that surround their campuses like poverty, crime, drug abuse and poor access to services. This has since changed somewhat in that more schools are looking around their campus and saying that there are some issues here that need to be resolved. More and more the university is taking a more proactive role in effecting that change and I’m not so sure that their motives are as pure as they might make us think. Like any business it’s all about money and universities are no exception. While the schools themselves might be not for profit there is still an intense competition between schools for the top students, athletes and professors and this means that in order to attract the tops from those groups a school must be appealing in all aspects. Some aspects that planning and planners can affect are campus integration with the neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods themselves. These two things are really important when prospective students come to look at a university.

A family flies into Memphis and they pick up their rental car and drive to campus, the most direct route is Airways Blvd to Central Ave. Central Ave is very visually appealing to them because it has nice houses and green lawns but Airways is another matter entirely. Rundown and vacant buildings dominate the route and homeless and poverty stricken people are readily apparent and numerous. Now where planning comes in is trying to “solve” the problems of homelessness and poverty by bringing jobs and social services to the area and enforcing a building and design code that makes the area more appealing in general. In the October Issue of Planning Magazine there is an article about how universities are helping their community with its problems and issues by combining the expertise available in a university setting. Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Idaho are two of the examples they give of schools partnering with the community to improve the locale. They are applying creative solutions to community issues such as proposing a former grain silo being redeveloped into a downtown hotel. Other schools are focusing on bringing people together that have common interests and goals to breed a climate of cooperation and collaboration in an arena that hasn’t always been willing to work together and facilitate an environment that works for all citizens.