Founded as an agricultural community, South Memphis was stable and close-knit until the 1950s when businesses and families began relocating to the suburbs. Ill-conceived “revitalization” in the 1980s leveled many early buildings and accelerated the decline. Today, it is one of the city’s most economically challenged but culturally rich neighborhoods. The Soulsville area attracts thousands of tourists each year while resident-led revitalization has steered recent investments towards an area farmers market as well as a childcare and family center. South Memphis is also home to numerous community gardens, LeMoyne Owen College, and the famous Four Way Grill.
If I drive in South Memphis, or North Memphis or Frayser, I see more pawn shops, more payday loans than anything. If I drive in Germantown, if I drive in Cordova, you have to have a magnifying glass to see one. They flash across the TV screens here. It's more in our neighborhood than other neighborhoods.
Since the beginning of the year, Clean Water Memphis has been meeting weekly to discuss the issues that compromise the integrity of what's considered some of the purest drinking water in the country.
Advance Memphis can't repair decades of disinvestment, generational poverty and community decline, but the nonprofit can set ZIP 38126 on the right path by connecting entrepreneurs with resources to start their own businesses.
Children from disadvantaged neighborhoods are less likely to interact with music and arts programming. The Memphis Music Initiative removes those barriers by investing and supporting neighborhood and school-based art programs.
Located at 575 Suzette, a warehouse maintained by Advance Memphis hums with activity. Residents of ZIP 38126 can walk to work to fulfill short-term contracts or use the warehouse as a space to incubate their own businesses.
Through the Federal New Markets Tax Credit Program, the new TAG Truck Center is set to complete construction of a new facility that will offer new education and job training opportunities on the Mall of Memphis property.
For many, babysitting a short-term gig. For Ashley Gladney, she's turned that old fashioned model into a business thriving in South Memphis with low overhead and a host of clients.
Girls Inc. of Memphis plans to renovate part of Georgia Avenue Elementary, which has been shuttered since 2012. In the building, Girls Inc. will install a 30,000-square-foot center unlike anything else in its Mid-South footprint.
Friends of the Fairgrounds hope to partner with the City of Memphis on a comprehensive plan to restore the Fairgrounds as a public attraction.
EPIcenter and Little Bird Innovation announced the first recommendations for a development plan using data from the Made By Project, a first-of-its-kind qualitative and quantitative research of more than 300 makers, artisans and micro-manufacturers in Memphis and Shelby County.
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