Small, agile changes can become big ones
How did the blighted and disinvested neighborhoods of Memphis get that way?
The Community Development Council of Greater Memphis began examining this question in 2005. Shortly thereafter, we launched an education and advocacy program — now known as Livable Memphis — to highlight the connection between urban sprawl and core-city quality of life.
Citizens must raise their voices and work with the public and private sectors to determine where, when and how future development happens. That begins with raising their level of awareness about these issues.
A decade ago, Memphis did not have nearly the resources to adequately maintain its parks, roads and libraries. There was not nearly enough funding to revitalize distressed neighborhoods like Klondyke and Orange Mound, or stabilize other communities like Hickory Hill that had reached a tipping point.
Nine years later, much is the same. Although the real estate downturn slowed suburban sprawl, a recovering housing market and newly opened outer loop, Interstate 269, threatens to speed it up again. The city’s budget is even more s queezed, with fewer dollars available for core-city nei g hborhoods.
Still, many exciting new things are happening at the neighborhood level and grass-roots activists are leading the charge.
High-profile projects like 2010’s “New Face for an Old Broad” on Broad Avenue and the recent “MEMFix” events in Crosstown, the University District and Soulsville have been well documented in The Commercial Appeal and elsewhere.
There are smaller examples of these communityled neighborhood improvements all around Memphis, from the Secret Sculpture Garden in Speedway Terrace to Jacob’s Ladder Community Development Corporation’s colorfully decorated youth enrichment center in the Beltline neighborhood.
At Livable Memphis, we put these efforts into three categories:
Small things, like flower planting, that can be done for free or funded through online platforms Columnist Otis Sanford holds the Hardin Chair of Excellence in Journalism at the University of Memphis. Contact him at 901-678-3669 or at o.sanford@ memphis.edu. Watch his commentaries on WREG-TV Channel 3 at 4:30 p.m. weekdays.
like ioby.org
Larger projects, such as a mural, that might need more resources from government or a nonprofit partner
Exceptionally creative — but technically unsanctioned — ideas, like do-it-yourself bike lanes
We are not suggesting that these kinds of bootstrapping projects eliminate the need for larger public and private investments in our neighborhoods. No amount of community gardens in North Memphis or pop-up businesses in empty South Memphis storefronts can reverse, by themselves, decades of neglect. Abandoned buildings still need to be fixed or demolished. Affordable housing still needs to be built. Adequate public transportation still needs to be provided.
When neighbors team up to make small improvements in their community, however, optimism grows, behaviors may change and, most important, potential is revealed. We can imagine what a corner would feel like if it had a coffee shop instead of a vacant storefront. We can see how much cleaner our streets would be if someone just put a trash can next to a bus stop.
If we want these small, agile changes to ignite something more permanent, we need to start thinking differently. For citizens, that might mean undertaking small projects that government probably should do but won’t, like installing a bike rack near a convenience store or beautifying something ugly, like painting the side of a vacant building.
For local government, shrinking budgets present an opportunity to ask some hard questions. Can the impact of many small façadeimprovement loans in neighborhood commercial corridors be greater than that of a single larger investment in one place? And if those neighborhood-led initiatives prove successful, is government well positioned to make strategic public investments to encourage continued positive change that might eventually lead to transformation?
Over the past two years, City Hall’s planners, engineers and public works officials have started to ask these questions. In more and more cases, they are seeing the potential in these kinds of small but significant neighborhood investments and strategies.
This week community leaders from the public, private and nonprofit sectors will have another opportunity to push their mental envelopes at the Strong Towns Boot Camp. Together, we will examine and question historical patterns of investment and learn about new models of revitalization.
There is no single strategy that will transform all of our neighborhoods, but if government can learn to help turn small changes into big ones, we will have achieved a great amount — with even more to come. Emily Trenholm is executive director of the Community Development Council of Greater Memphis. Learn more about its work at MemphisCommunityDevelopment.com.