A few days after I was asked to speak to you this evening I was walking down Gay Street and passed a car sporting a 10 year-old bumper sticker from marketing campaign we attempted for the city when I worked at Knoxville Chamber Partnership. The campaign was called Knoxville – naturally! And other than a MetroPulse article calling for Knoxville to become a nudist destination, the campaign never gained any traction. In fact, it seems only really successful thing about the campaign was our incredibly durable bumper stickers.
The campaign was not successful – and rightfully so. At the time, there was very little that was natural or authentic about what we were trying to do to revitalize Knoxville. An above ground pedestrian walkway. A planetarium on State Street. A prison on Gay Street. A mausoleum on the World’s Fair site. All were big ideas from smart thinkers with the best intentions. And I supported all of them at the time. Anything, it seemed, was better that nothing. Hindsight is 20/20, or 50/50 as a friend once said, but perhaps they didn’t work because they truly weren’t natural or authentic to whom we are.
Today it’s a different story. When we stepped back from campaign and slogans and let Knoxville’s downtown revitalization be driven by a genuine celebration of our history and architecture, by an enthusiasm for creating gather places for arts, music and entertainment, and by the natural tendencies by young professionals, empty-nesters and urban adventurers to want to live, work and play in the same place, we got the thriving downtown that we enjoy today.
Now we have a bustling Farmers’ Market on Market Square, the site of the old Farmer’s Market.
A park in World’s Fair Park. Old storefronts filled with new shops. What could be more natural?
Chattanooga discovered this a few years ahead of us.
Their mantra was to return to the river and they stayed true to that vision.
With a focus on natural beauty, a commitment to conservation, archaeology and history, and the goal of developing a world-class tourist destination, Chattanooga’s return to the river is nearly complete. Their riverbanks are lined with an aquarium, art museum, children’s museum, carousel, theaters, green space, public art, and pedestrian bridge and promenades. You can check out a bike at lunch and bike across the river to restaurants cafe and a green grocer. Or camp on an island in the heart of the city.
Other cities have discovered this, too.
- In Austin, Texas the city council recognized that their beautiful natural environment was one of Austin’s most important economic assets, responsible for helping draw 800 businesses to the city over the past 20 years. The city protected its Barton Creek watershed that runs through downtown Austin and then established a 5,000 acre desired growth zone surrounded by protected open space parks, creek-side greenways and trails.
- Seattle announced the “Mountains to Sound” Greenway along their Interstate 90. It is designed to preserve the forests and vistas along the highway and create “urban separators” between the new communities that are springing up there. Quick access to the out of doors is what Northwest living is all about, and the sense of the outdoors at their doorsteps is one of the regions big draws for businesses and residents. They recognize this urban Greenway is a way of accomplishing that.
- Jacksonville, Florida’s Mayor is proposing a $312 million land conservation program that protects approximately 10 percent of its remaining developable property over the next five years. The Mayor has made it clear that this is more than just a traditional parks measure, but an effort preserve the quality of life on which the city’s economic future depends.
Next month Nashville will host a summit on Creating, Enhancing, and Preserving Places That Matter. It’s called Nashville naturally. Imagine that.
So learning from others and doing what comes naturally has become the work of many individuals and organizations, including Legacy Parks Foundation.
And the opportunities are all around us.
Protecting our ridges and views is certainly a natural thing to do. We are a ridge and valley community. Black Oak Ridge. Sharps Ridge. Beaver Ridge, McAnnally ridge. Over 60 percent of our remaining forested land is on our ridges. So the two –year effort of MPC staff and citizens on the Ridgetop and Hillside Protection Task Force is important work to retain the natural character of our community and value our incredible gift of geography.
Like Chattanooga, returning to the river should be natural for us, too. If you asked folks who live here to describe Knoxville in two words, very few of us would say “river city”. But we are. The Tennessee River bisects our downtown. In fact the Tennessee River begin just north of downtown where the French broad and Holston Rivers meet. While we’ve not done a great job of being mindful of that in the past – building a municipal building, water treatment plant, gas tanks, and assorted industry along our downtown waterfront – we are trying to do so today. We have a well-used greenway and city park on the north side of the river and wonderfully ambitious plans for the south waterfront. Opportunities for recreation and enjoyment abound along our rivers. Just like our ridges, our rivers are incredible assets we look at everyday and perhaps don’t really see.
Taking care of our natural assets is more than esthetics or recreation or conservation. It just makes good business sense.
Ten years of research that tell us that parks and open space increase property values, residential and commercial and in broad ways. For example:
- Lots bordering permanently conserved forests sold for 19 to 35 percent more than lots more distant from the preserves.
- Homes immediately adjacent to parks were worth 22 percent more than home a half mile away from a park.
- There is an 18% – 37% increase in market value for “treed” lots vs. lots without trees.
- There is an 8% increase in value for just having a view of park
- Rental Rates were 7% higher for commercial property having quality landscape.
- Shoppers spent up to 12% more in business districts with trees.
Parks make a difference.
Our natural assets were the key to Knoxville’s economic success as a community in the early 19th century. Our location at the confluence of three major rivers made us a regional merchandising center and the third largest wholesaler in the south. Perhaps it’s time to take a lesson from the past as we develop new models of the types of industry we want to drive our future.
The Outdoor industry in Tennessee annually contributes more than $6.3 billion to the economy, supports 67,000 jobs, generates $297 million in state tax revenues and produces $4.6 billion in retail sales. Outdoors is an industry.
Tourism is a $9 billion industry and the 2nd largest industry for the state.
Eco tourism – the practice of travelers choosing to visit natural areas that conserves the environment – is one of the fastest growing segments of the tourism industry.
What could be a more natural fit for us?
The Urban Wilderness and Historic Corridor is an opportunity to begin to test a new model of industrial recruitment. This 1,000 acre urban forest along our south waterfront holds the promise of more than twenty miles of hiking and biking trails, ten city parks, three civil war forts, a nature center, bike and boat rentals, neighborhoods, shops and restaurants. It’s the kind of place you read about in Southern Living and decide to visit on a weekend. Only now it’s in your own backyard. And it is the place others will read about and want to visit on a weekend.
Imagine the potential.
A destination, that takes full advantage of the tourism industry. A place of adventure, that takes full advantage of the outdoor industry. Neighborhoods with increased property values because they are near parks and trails. A place where you want to shop and spend more than you would at a strip mall or less interesting place.
And it’s all there. Or mostly there. Trails need to be connected. Signs made. Parks improved. And then it needs to be embraces, marketed And recognized as the new industrial development.
Doing business differently to create economic benefit from our natural assets also means thinking differently about what we do with our land. Our board chair, Tommy Schumpert, constantly reminds us that today it’s harder to say that a piece of land is undevelopable. New technology, new design and a scarcity of what we considered good land has changed all that. Development has crept up ridges thought too steep to build on and ebbed down into bottomland thought too wet to attempt.
Fortunately, The slowdown in economy provides us an opportunity to pause, think about what we really want to happen on our remaining greenspace and apply new approaches, new tools and new design that have proven to be smart and profitable by other community. There’s a whole toolbox of conservation tools out there for planners, builders and developers and now is the time give them a try.
The slow economy also gives us the opportunity to adopt a different attitude. While we may not be able to do more, we can certainly do more with what we have and our parks are a great place to start. Fort Dickerson Park on Chapman Highway, where we will host our mayors’ luncheon for the parks in October, is a beautiful 85 acre park in the heart of the city just waiting to reach its potential. Currently it has a single road to a single pavilion and overlook. Fortunately, it is man-hours more than money that will transform that park into our own central park with walking and biking trails, a beautiful lake, picnic areas and other amenities. Again, it’s an attitude and an opportunity, not money. If we make it important we can make it happen.
So that’s what I know. This room is filled with incredible smart and talented planners, builders, designers, innovators and thinkers. Each of you knows in your own way what is naturally good about our community. I hope you will do your best to help sustain that for generations to come.
At Legacy Parks Foundation will continue to champion the Urban Wilderness and Historic Corridor, preservation of our ridges, access to our waterways, connected greenway and preservation of our invaluable greenspace.
And since I seem to have a love of bumper stickers, last year I came up with bumper sticker for the Foundation. It says “Get Out and Play”. That’s one I do hope I see 10 years from now.
Thank you for having me.
