Successful cities invest in good planning, public safety, public spaces and their citizens—especially those on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum.
That, at least, is the recipe Andy Berke has followed—and with considerable success—since becoming mayor in 2013 of the rapidly expanding Chattanooga, Tennessee.
In a keynote address this afternoon at the Louisiana Smart Growth Summit, Berke discussed the steps his city has taken in recent years to leverage its growing tech sector and become one of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S.
In 2010, Chattanooga built a citywide fiber network and officially became the first city in the U.S. to offer gigabit internet speed. In the years since, tech companies have flocked to the city and quality of life indicators have improved. In 2014, the city had the third-highest wage growth in the nation. Unemployment today is below 5%. And for the past 68 days, there hasn’t been a single gun-related homicide.
But bringing high speed internet to a city that, until recently, faced many of the same socioeconomic challenges as does Baton Rouge, isn’t what transformed Chattanooga. Rather, it was the way in which the city leveraged its investment in being a “smart city.”
To that end, Chattanooga has set up various committees and commissions to increase citizen involvement. It has increased its emphasis on good planning, and enforcing the rules and codes on the books. It has invested in civic green spaces and creating public art spaces on the bare sides of bleak, gray buildings.
It has also invested in city recreation centers and turned them into hubs for “digital equity,” where low-income residents can take courses in computer literacy and other job-training skills.
“Digital equity is about making sure we live in a place where technology is driving fairness,” Berke says. “It’s not just about access but making sure everyone has the skills and are literate, because more and more economic development takes place on the internet.”
Chattanooga has also begun to invest more heavily in public safety—setting up a witness resource fund to help witnesses that come forward to testify in criminal cases—and is emphasizing community policing.
Berke says Chattanooga was able to focus on improving the quality of life of all its citizens by emphasizing with employers—and potential employers—the importance of paying fair wages. The city even finds itself in something of a catbird’s seat; able to turn its nose at companies that want to relocate to the area because they mistakenly think they can get away with paying low wages to unskilled workers.
“To those companies, I say, ‘those are not the jobs I’m aiming for,’” Berke says. “We need to build the skills of our residents so they can get higher wages, higher skilled jobs—because that is the way we will grow our economy for everybody.”
—Stephanie Riegel
