For the last couple weeks, Savannah has been locked in head-to-head battles with other southern “towns” in an online contest at Garden & Gun magazine.
On the afternoon of April 1, it looked as if Savannah might lose in a matchup against Asheville, N.C., and then a flurry of activity propelled us to the next round.
Amidst that last-minute push, I posted a link to the contest on my Savannah Unplugged Facebook page. That post was shared 29 times, appeared in more than 6,000 news feeds and resulted in more than 600 clicks. I don’t know how many of those interactions actually led to votes for Savannah, but it’s still a pretty impressive number.
And those views and clicks paled beside the contest’s exposure through other local websites and social media outlets. A March 31 post about the contest on Visit Savannah’s Facebook page was shared almost 1,200 times and attracted almost 13,000 “likes.”
Was Garden & Gun’s Greatest Southern Towns Bracket worth so much time and energy?
First, let’s acknowledge that there’s a certain silliness to contests such as these.
The rules are hazy at best. Garden & Gun’s competition was limited to 32 “towns” with fewer than 150,000 people, but many of those municipalities are part of much larger metropolitan statistical areas.
The Savannah metro area, for example, has about 370,000 people.
In the final round of Garden & Gun’s contest, Savannah was pitted against the “town” of Franklin, Tenn., of which I knew literally nothing.
Franklin, which seems like a quaint, well-promoted city, has a population of about 65,000 people, but it’s also part of the larger Nashville metro area, with about 1.7 million people.
So, if we’re talking about “towns,” Savannah vs. Franklin hardly looks like a fair or even relevant matchup.
On the other hand, despite all the silliness, contests such as this have some real impacts.
Consider the enthusiasm that was generated among residents who are proud of where they live. Silly or not, there’s something inspiring about seeing such a wide variety of folks willing to tout Savannah’s virtues to the world.
Consider, too, that Garden & Gun has a particularly affluent readership.
Even if we find such contests reductive, the simple truth is that Savannah is competing every day against other southern cities for the time, money and attention of individual tourists, convention planners, journalists and others whose choices have profound economic impacts.
In earlier rounds, Savannah defeated two small cities with which we frequently compete in a variety of respects, including in the public imagination.
I’m talking about Asheville and Charleston. Both are lovely places, and both are at the center of more populous areas than ours.
The Charleston metro area, which has at least 300,000 more people than the Savannah metro area, is even home to Garden & Gun.
But somehow Savannah managed to beat both Asheville and Charleston in the online voting.
It’s hard to ignore those numbers.
Considering the Broughton streetscape
Tuesday’s City Talk column reviewed the new Funky Brunch Café at the northeast corner of Broughton and Lincoln streets.
The Funky Brunch is right next to Blick Art Materials.
Just east of Blick is the historic Berrien House, which sat blighted for many years before Andrew Berrien Jones purchased the property in 2012 and began the ongoing restoration.
Despite all this investment and activity, much of the public enhancement of Broughton Street ends mysteriously at Lincoln Street.
So the north side of Broughton west of Lincoln has amenities such as street trees and lamp posts, but the block east of Lincoln does not.
I guess one could argue we don’t need to invest in such enhancements if the block between Lincoln and Habersham has become a centerpiece of private investment without special public attention.
But the counter-arguments are equally obvious. Those who have invested in that block deserve the same type of public support as the property and business owners to the west, and additional amenities on the street are likely to fuel even more private investment and lure more foot traffic.
Making Lincoln Street the boundary for Broughton streetscape enhancements might have made sense at one time, but the decision now just seems short-sighted.
Savannah is known the world over for the friendliness and beauty of its public spaces, but that’s no reason to rest on our laurels.
City Talk appears every Tuesday and Sunday. Bill Dawers can be reached via billdawers@comcast.net. Send mail to 10 East 32nd St., Savannah, Ga. 31401.