Not to interrupt your snark with a serious note, but Chattanooga is kicking tail. What's the secret to their success?
Well, there have been entire books written on that subject, but mainly it was a group of city leaders about 30 years ago who set a vision for downtown, and a handful of wealthy private citizens who were willing to invest their own money to see it through. To me, that's the big differentiator- if they had relied solely on public funding, it never would have happened. Most of the cornerstones of our downtown redevelopment (Aquarium, Northshore, AT&T Stadium, etc.) have been built with mostly private funds.
And once downtown was in shape, it was a lot easier to attract big job creators like VW, Amazon, Alstom, etc.
All is not perfect here. While a few areas like the Southside and St. Elmo have started to see some revitalization in the past decade, most of the inner city
outside of the downtown core remains a crime-ridden wasteland. And our interstate system is woefully outdated (although it's not as bad as Knoxville, which is the worst I've ever seen for a city that size). Just this week, a proposal was put forth to build a bypass around town. That should've been done a couple decades ago. But in today's climate, any big road project it going to face a ton of opposition constituencies that will tie it up in red tape for years. I doubt it will get done in my lifetime.
But all in all, Chattanooga is a great place to live. This town today is unrecognizable from the industrial wasteland I grew up in.
