Judd's article on tourism pointed out things that most of already knew. Nowadays, cities and states compete to bring tourists to their area in order to create tourism jobs in the service industry and also to build a bigger tax base for the city/ state through sales tax and hotel tax etc. Anyway, I went and did a little research on the tourist industry in Memphis and found these statistics from the Greater Memphis chamber website. According to the chamber, tourism contributes $3.1 billion to the Memphis economy and generates $131 million in state and local taxes. Additionally, about 52,000 jobs are created by the tourist industry. These numbers are pretty big, but I wonder how much money the city is putting into building the tourist economy. What kind of tax breaks are being given to private industries to help redevelop downtown? How much is spent on marketing Memphis? Would it be more beneficial for the city to give tax breaks to manufacturing companies that could provide more jobs?
Relating to Squire's article- another thing we must consider is how investing in private industry effects the public sphere and specifically the urban poor. I think this issue is really apparent in the redevelopment of downtown and the "beautifying" of the neighborhoods surrounding downtown. Getting rid of the projects that surrounded the downtown area might have created more aesthetically pleasing buildings, but the displacement of people from these communities has a lot of effects that the city probably did not envision when it gave the go ahead to private developers to redevelop these areas.
I was shocked to read from Judd's article, "Promoting Tourism in U.S. CIties", that state and federal spending for the promotion of tourism is so incredibly low. I don't know if it's because I am from New Orleans and the city gets so much money from tourists therefore I have such faith in it but I just find it unbelievable that certain local and state governments and our national government don't invest more. Investing more in tourism, doesn't only lead to the betterment of local businesses, but also to the infrastructure of cities! Also, investing more in the infrastructure of cities is crucial to increasing tourism. Fixing roads and increasing mass public transportation, for instance, will better a city's reputation and increase tourism. This is where federal spending should go.
ReplyDeleteI read an article the other day about how tourist spending is at a record high this year in New Orleans. I believe this is because like Judd says, New Orleans has a real sense of "place". Even though New Orleans is infamous for its extremely high crime rates, tourism is still booming because people want to experience a place that is so unique to any other. Other cities, including Memphis, need to work on building off of their history in order to create an exceptional individuality that can’t be paralleled. Memphis has a great deal of things going for it, such as the great Bar-b-que, to the Civil Rights aspect, and its proximity to the Mississippi River. These, and other aspects, need more funding in order to spread Memphis’s pride. Many people don’t know very much about what Memphis had to do with the Civil Rights other than the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and I believe that if Memphis embraces the revolution from slavery and racism to one of integration and harmony, this will not only educate a greater population but will also prove Memphis to be a city defined by integrity and vigor.