A midsize southern city with a bustling waterfront, historic downtown, strategic transportation routes and high poverty — Chattanooga, Tenn., it would seem, shares a fair bit in common with Savannah.
Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke highlighted some of these parallels during a speech Wednesday to the Savannah Downtown Business Association, discussing the factors that led to Chattanooga’s revitalization and economic growth.
“In 1969, Walter Cronkite called Chattanooga the dirtiest city in America,” said Berke.
The city earned the distinction due to its smog-spewing metal and fabrication factories. Yet after these plants started closing and its population started to shrink, Berke said community leaders recognized the town would have to fundamentally change course.
He said one of the biggest ways leaders did this was through the building of the Tennessee Aquarium, now the anchor of Chattanooga’s Riverfront. Although many were skeptical of the project, the aquarium spurred tourism and development, with the building of an Imax, children’s museum and riverwalk now forming the crux of the city’s entertainment district.
“Now you look at that aquarium today, it’s been enormously successful. You see all the development that has been spurred from around,” said Berke, who boiled down the formula to: Vision, boldness, leadership and execution.
By comparison, Berke said, his city was now showing up on lists as a top place to live and was just designated by “Outdoors” magazine as the “Best Town Ever.”
“You don’t want to be the mayor when you lose that particular distinction,” Berke said.
Since coming to office in 2013, Berke said, he had focused on reducing crime, youth and family development and economic growth. Many of those in attendance said Savannah could take cues from Chattanooga’s turnaround.
“It was a good speech and hopefully the right people were in the room to get motivated to do something,” said Charisse Bennett, program director of nonprofit Creative Coast.
“We need the city of Savannah to be more supportive of ideas that might not seem as familiar and are new or interesting,” said Bennett, pointing to Chattanooga’s large bike-share program as an example.
While Savannah has just launched its own bike-share with two stations, Bennett said the city would need to expand the program and give it time to succeed.
Roger Moss, the SDBA’s vice president and co-founder of Savannah Children’s Choir, was raised in Chattanooga and saw its turnaround first hand. He contacted Berke’s office and asked him to speak here.
“I remember you couldn’t go downtown and there was nothing to do, and I saw how the city was able to form that vision and totally transform Chattanooga into this bustling, wonderful place,” said Moss.
“Savannah is its own unique place, but what they’ve done in Chattanooga, there’s a mindset there that goes, ‘We’re great, but we can be greater,’ and that’s how things got done,” said Moss, who said a large degree of Chattanooga’s success was owed to public-private partnerships.
President of the SDBA, Ruel Joyner, said he felt there was a similar momentum building in Savannah for public-private cooperation.
“There’s willingness for cooperation between leadership of government and private citizens. You have people that are energized and ready to work together to make Savannah flourish,” said Joyner.
“Even with the things he was talking about with crime, those are very tactile, obtainable things that can be done — and they’re low-cost measures,” said Joyner. “But city government can’t do it alone. They have to have the support of the citizens.”