City: Memphis, Tennessee

Reporting to: Special Assistant to the Mayor

The Challenge

Memphis, Tennessee’s downtown area is one of the city’s most visited neighborhoods, celebrated for its rich cultural and historical significance. Mayor Paul Young often refers to the area as the “living room of the city,” emphasizing its central role in Memphis’ vitality. When downtown thrives, so do the surrounding neighborhoods and the entire city. However, downtown and other parts of the city are struggling to contain urban blight.

The Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) has made strides in combatting this issue. In 2023, trash collecting personnel were increased with staggered work schedules, 16 trash cans were installed along Main Street, and the DMC reported collecting 11,000 pounds of trash. In July 2024, the city of Memphis also rolled out a new initiative called Blight Zero. Through Blight Zero, a neighborhood with significant challenges is saturated with city services over one week, including street sweeping, structural demolitions, litter pick up, and grass mitigation. Between June and August 2024, the city led Blight Zero Initiatives in four different neighborhoods (Airways-Carnes, Austin Peay, Hyde Park, and Soulsville), completing more than 6,600 neighborhood improvement actions. Still, complaints continue—and have been joined by criticism from residents who believe more affluent zip codes receive priority for city services.

Identifying additional ways to address blight through the 311 system is crucial to improving Memphis’ service delivery. Currently, the city’s 311 system does not have the functionality to respond to blight complaints quickly. For example, a resident may call in a complaint about trash in an alleyway, and the system will acknowledge the request, but the proper department may not be contacted immediately. As a result, the trash remains in the alleyway until the resident reaches the mayor’s office. Due to the system’s inefficiency, the city is unable to track data and proactively focus on high-need areas. In October 2023, the city migrated to a new 311 platform. This platform was custom-built with the expectation that it would integrate better with other systems used by departments like Public Works, Code Enforcement, Solid Waste, etc. However, it has been problematic since its debut, and the 311 integration has not yet been solved.  By improving how the city captures data to address and respond to blight downtown, Memphis hopes to develop and replicate efficient processes in every neighborhood.

The fellow will help the city identify evidence-based strategies for addressing blight in downtown Memphis, including identifying untracked data points that could improve service delivery. They would also provide actionable recommendations for using data to track blight and deliver services more efficiently. This data could help determine whether equity issues truly exist (i.e., whether more affluent neighborhoods receive more services than poverty-stricken areas), create more transparency around service delivery, and help to prioritize services so that they are equally distributed across the entire city.

Key questions include:

• What is the best way to address blight in Memphis? How can proactive efforts help reduce problems before they lead to complaints?
• How can 311 complaints be better automated to route to relevant departments?
• What patterns can we identify in the current data related to the origin and frequency of requests?
• Are city services being distributed equitably across the city?
• How should data be collected, managed, and analyzed to ensure accuracy and relevancy and allow the city to report on progress over time?
• How can findings from downtown be used to improve services in other neighborhoods?

What You’ll Do

To address these questions, the fellow will engage stakeholders from city departments like Public Works, Solid Waste, Public Services Corps, and Communications, and external partners such as Memphis residents who are chronically impacted by blight.

Key deliverables from this work are:

1. Detailed report covering:
   • Key findings from the analysis and audit of our 311 data and metrics such as requests by location and frequency
   • Descriptions of current challenges and/or gaps in responding to residents’ requests
   • Insight from other cities
   • Recommendations for improvement

2. Draft survey or other engagement tool for the city to gather feedback from residents

Presentation of the work to key stakeholders, including the mayor, and representatives from key departments

What You’ll Bring

• Data analysis
• Design thinking
• Qualitative interviewing and analysis
• Mapping (GIS)