vibinc

Partnerships don't maintain themselves, they take effort from all sides

Partnership: An association of people working together for common goals and aims for their benefit.

Entitlement: A belief that one has a right to something with minimal or no contribution.

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One persistent complaint that I hear about Memphis, from people who mostly live outside the city, is that the whole place is corrupt, from the City government and all its divisions to the schools, and the developers and regular joes on the street, depending on ingrained prejudices of the complainer.

I’ll grant you that Memphis has problems, but the notion that Memphis is the home of corruption says more about the speaker than Memphis, and what it says isn’t particularly pretty. Yeah we’ve got a lot of things to address, and yes those issues are challenging, but the lens through which these individuals see the world is one of having no skin in the game.

Memphis is a regional financial and population center. That means that a lot of what goes on in this area, which includes most of west TN, north MS, east AR, and even parts of KY and MO, happens because Memphis has this mantle. From that frame, all those parties, as well as the people of Memphis have skin in the game. The better Memphis does, the better all these surrounding areas will do.

But that’s not the way people have chosen to look at it.

It’s easy to leave. It’s easy to whisk yourself away to your quiet suburban neighborhood in the County, or in DeSoto, or Crittenden and forget how much of your life and livelihood depends on Memphis being the best Memphis it can be. In fact, we’ve made it too easy over the years, expanding infrastructure to accomodate people who have checked out of being a part of the solution, often with little or no effort.

Good government doesn’t just happen, it is intentional. It requires the participation of all those that have a stake in the success of an area. It requires people to serve as checks on power both at the ballot box, and the 1460 days between election days. It requires engagement and an understanding of issues that often fall outside our personal bubbles.

For instance, blight is not a serious problem in my neighborhood just outside of Central Gardens. Sure there are some ugly buildings. There are things that just don’t fit the character and every time I pass them I wonder just what the heck someone was thinking. But I understand that blight be it a half mile away, or 5 miles away, negatively impacts me personally, even if I don’t see it every day. It depresses home values across the city even if it doesn’t exist next door. That, in turn, negatively impacts city tax revenue, which negatively impacts investments we should be making in our city, as well as vital services. All these things impact me, and they impact you too.

But too often we only look at the symptom. “This road is falling apart”, “Crime is too high”, “Traffic is a mess”, whatever the complaint, it is not just constrained to the situation, it is a symptom of a bigger problem.

We, as a people feel entitled to good government, as if it is supposed to just make itself in a vacuum. As if it can judge for us what is good and what is bad with no input. This sense of entitlement is a passive aggressive stance, and one that is ultimately toxic for both the government and the people served by that government.

Certainly, everyone directly involved in government should endeavor to create and maintain “good government”, whatever that is. But people are human, and because we are human we are fallible. Because our institutions, be they governments, or religious institutions, or other associations are made up of people, they are also fallible, and subject to failures as a result.

You don’t have to look far for examples of this fallibility outside of government. The persistent reports of child abuse from clergy, which, despite perception, is not unique to the Catholic church, is an example of institutional failures due to human fallibility.

From that frame, the expectation that people, be they government officials or religious leaders, are just supposed to do the right thing on their own, is entitlement at its worst. Certainly we hope for this, but to expect it is folly. If you want something, you have to go out and make it. The people who benefit most from our institutions understand this.

“But they have too much power, access, etc.” That may be true, but access has become much easier. Rarely does a day go by that I don’t communicate with one of my elected officials. Just the other day I talked to Kemp Conrad, not because I have extraordinary access, but because we engaged each other. Through that engagement, hopefully, we both came away with a better understanding of our perspectives. Through this intentional engagement, my concerns, my perspective was heard. Whether or not it will impact the way Councilman Conrad votes is another issue entirely, but it was heard, and responded to, and in a partnership of over 600,000 people that make up Memphis, its something.

We all have to stop relying on someone else to do it for us. Certainly there are good people out there working for the good of all. People like Brad Watkins with Mid-South Peace and Justice Center who made tackling the homelessness problem in Memphis the cornerstone of MSPJC’s mission. Or Memphis Heritage who lobbied relentlessly to save a historic building from demolition. But these people can’t do this on their own, and neither can government. They need engagement, they need the energy of the people to find the best solutions for the challenges facing the city. They need it all the time, not just at budget time or on election day.

And that’s one of the primary failures of Memphis as an economic and population center. We don’t, as citizens or a government, act as though we’re thinking three moves ahead, we react.

There are some significant problems with relying on a reaction rather than action. First, you’re a step behind. Second, whatever you decide to do or not do is colored by the source of information. So if it’s budget time and people are talking about an issue as if it’s waste, you may decide its waste too, only to later discover that maybe it isn’t. Your lack of direct information has hampered your ability to react making you at least 3 steps behind. Third, and most importantly, because you find yourself this far behind, you’re in a really bad position to work for a positive solution. Now you’re caught in a “just don’t break it” mode, which is like putting your issue on life support.

I talk and think a lot about intention. Intention is a funny thing. We can all intend to do something or be something and not meet the bar set by that intention. But despite our falling below expectations there was some effort. Working intentionally is different. It means you have thought, and talked, and worked and built a coalition to deliberately impact something in some way.

In this city, and across the country I see a lot of people with good intentions, but I don’t see enough people working intentionally, with a specific end in mind…at least not on my side of most issues. And that’s why I think we’ve been losing ground for so long. We haven’t been working intentionally as a group toward specific and tangible goals. Until those goals are defined and expressed to our government, from political leaders to low level government workers, the partnership will remain broken, and so will so much of what could be here in Memphis.

Ed. Note: I’ll have more on ways to get involved and informed in an upcoming post. Stay tuned.

I haven’t lived in Memphis for long, but there’s been something going on in this city for a long time that I saw back in Little Rock for the 20 odd years that I lived there. The Cycle of Flight is what happens when upper middle class people move out of a neighborhood or community for a newer better community with supposedly less crime, better schools, or lower taxes. These somewhat savvy and financially liquid “habitual movers” are replaced by families seeking to move up into the bracket of the former who are also looking for less crime, better schools, and lower taxes. This cycle will go on for years until the afore mentioned area eventually becomes “the hood”. This continues until it is no longer cost effective for developers to build out. Developers then buy up all the land in a previously developed area and call it a “revitalization”.

But hey, I’m not gonna complain about opportunistic developers and shady land deals. Nope, my bone to pick is with you flighters.

You gave up, you wussed out, you ran away. Maybe there was a legitimate reason for some of you, but by choosing to move into the burbs of Shelby Co. or N. Mississippi you have done the city a double disservice.
1. You have deprived a city desperately in need of leadership of your voice and your vote.
2. You have deprived the city of the financial means to fix the problems that you ran away from.

This one, two punch of heart strings and purse strings has damned you to a life of crappy chain food restaurants and and perpetual migration that can only be likened to that of birds.

You think you’re settled? Think again. Once the next shiny development breaks ground just over the horizon promising safety and affluence you will see the second most popular lawn adornment in the metro area, for sale signs, popping up like crab grass in a cotton field. In your mad dash to keep up with the Joneses, perhaps you can get out with some equity, but in reality, you’ll probably get stuck with a neighborhood full of “those people” you were trying to get away from in the first place.

I don’t and have never understood America’s love affair with sprawl. Sprawl is the physical manifestation of all that is wrong with America psychologically. The idea that you can physically remove yourself from a problem, be it personal or societal, without that problem coming to look for you is perhaps one of the most moronic ideas I’ve ever had to consider. Still, for whatever reason, people continue to do it.

I will not go so far as to call all sprawlers racist, or classist, or whatever. You know why you’re still running, why don’t you just stop and become part of the solution instead of perpetuating the problem.

Or is that too far out of character?

See, every time you move further out into the hinterlands you strain the utility system, the police, the fire department, the schools, the roads and God only knows what else. And then, you bitch about it.

I don’t know what kind of arrangement MLGW has with Shelby County and the burbs and all that, but I would like to suggest a special tax on all the folks who choose to live outside the city limits. It’s only fair. If you’re not going to be part of the solution, at least you can help pay for it. Maybe that would slow down some of this foolishness for a while.

In the mean time, enjoy your prefab “which one is mine” home in the hinterlands. Your next move is probably only 3 years away.