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Our Purpose | Current Funding Priorities | How We Work | Two Rivers Pavilion | Whom to Contact GREATER KNOXVILLE COMMUNITY RESEARCH: By Cornerstone Foundation of Knoxville March 2003 In the last three months of 2002, Cornerstone Foundation of Knoxville http://www.cornerstoneofknoxville.org/ updated research that was first conducted when the foundation was formed in 1997. The purpose of our research is to determine the most effective strategic actions that can be taken to reach our full potential as a community. [1] Almost 100 diverse leaders from throughout the Greater Knoxville area were interviewed to help identify the greatest obstacles to reaching that potential and the greatest strengths on which to build. In addition, focus groups were conducted with selected cross-sections of youth, young executives, and Leadership Knoxville http://www.leadershipknoxville.com/ alumni. Finally, major new national studies on the impact of specific economic and social characteristics on communities were reviewed to determine their implications for Greater Knoxville. This document summarizes our major findings. The interviewees were optimistic that our community is moving in the right direction. When asked, “How optimistic were you five years ago that we were moving toward our potential, and how optimistic are you today?”, with very few exceptions the answer was much higher today. On a scale of one to ten the average answer for five years ago was 4.68, and 7.4 for today. The reason most often given for this dramatic improvement: changes in leadership at the University of Tennessee http://www.utk.edu/, Oak Ridge National Laboratory http://www.ornl.gov/, TVA http://www.tva.gov/, the Knox County Commission, and the school system, and the quality of candidates for Mayor. The second most often cited reason was the sense that downtown revitalization is finally gaining momentum. The interviewees and focus group members most often cited the following as the greatest obstacles or challenges to reaching our full potential: A Shortage of Connection. Although most thought that we are doing a better job of building bridges between resources in the community, our traditional penchant for extreme independence (cited as a top concern in 1997) still creates problems. We have difficulty working together; organizations that should cooperate do not; and we need more cooperation between governmental bodies (or even unification), more regional cooperation, and better racial relationships. There is a call for more inclusiveness, trust, and tolerance, and a perceived need to connect the faith community—often referred to as one of our greatest untapped resources—to the real needs of the community. In short, we need more of what social scientist Robert Putnam calls “bridging social capital.” Our Talent Drain. There is a belief that we are losing our best and brightest. We are not fully competitive in retaining and attracting what researcher Richard Florida terms “the Creative Class,” the drivers of the new knowledge or “creative” economy. There is a concern that our regional workforce is educationally underprepared for the new economy. Respondents also expressed worries about a lack of decent-size corporate headquarters in our region and an inadequate support system for entrepreneurs. A Need for Confidence and Leadership. There is a desperate need for successes; we have had too many starts and subsequent stops. Downtown revitalization is seen as the key to creating confidence—we must build on current successes there to create an urban heart of which the entire region can be proud. We must deepen the pool of “servant leaders” with high standards and a willingness to take risks. Environmental Concerns. Respondents are increasingly worried about air and water pollution as well as urban sprawl. There is a sense that we gradually are destroying one of the dominant strengths that makes our area so special—our natural environment. Dysfunctional Families. Five years ago the overwhelming top concern was the breakdown of the family and its effect on kids. During the current set of interviews, dysfunctional families and the plight of disadvantaged children were still mentioned as obstacles, but not nearly as often.
Economic Building Blocks. We have in our backyard two major assets for the new economy that haven’t been effectively used but must be tapped now—the University of Tennessee and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Enhancing the importance of these two institutions is the great confidence and optimism that surrounds their new leaders—Dr. John Shumaker at UT and Dr. Bill Madia at ORNL. Dr. Shumaker recently released a plan, with a performance scorecard http://scorecard.tennessee.edu/, to raise UT to international prominence by 2010. The renaissance of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory under Bill Madia’s leadership is already under way, with ambitious plans to upgrade facilities and personnel to propel the institution to the status of the premier federal research lab.ORNL is the leading location in the world for materials science research and has internationally recognized core competencies in other technological fields, including computational science, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and energy research. The partnership between UT and Battelle Corporation to manage ORNL brings the educational, research, and private sectors together in a way never before seen in this region and greatly enhances the potential for commercializing technology. Social Capital Building Blocks. A common thread among
those interviewed was the belief that people here have a basic
goodness, a strong work ethic, a giving, generous, and compassionate
spirit, a love for Knoxville, a relative absence of racial discord,
a respect for the importance of family, a spirit of volunteerism,
and a hunger to improve the community. The potential of the faith
community to be more active in improving the community was often
cited as a strength. Also cited were the way the region has been
brought together by Nine Counties. One Vision.
http://www.ninecountiesonevision.org/
and the potential to build on Awareness of our need for cooperation is increasing. Generational changes in leadership and a broadening of the base of leadership were seen as positives. It is relatively easy to become involved in the community, and there is at least one place where we almost all come together—around UT football. Another major social capital building block is the size and nature of the community. It is large enough to have plenty of opportunities and options, but small enough to have solvable problems. It has good, effective, honest institutions such as Knoxville’s Community Development Corporation (KCDC) http://www.kcdc.org/, the Public Building Authority http://www.ktnpba.org/, and the Airport Authority http://www.tys.org/. Most of our children (91%) attend public schools, and most public schools are perceived as good. Project GRAD is optimistically seen as a solution for those that are not. Quality-of-Place Building Blocks. In addition to the economic and social strengths, there are some exceptional place-related strengths. We live in one of the most beautiful parts of the world, symbolized by the Great Smoky Mountains National Park http://www.nps.gov/grsm/. East Tennessee enjoys a four-season climate, excellent recreational opportunities, and a central crossroads geographic location. The culture of the area is unique, with a strong tradition of music, folk art, and storytelling. The arts and culture community is a potentially strong building block, and the history and historic stock of buildings downtown provide a great opportunity, as does the current redevelopment momentum. This is considered a comfortable place to live and do business. The cost of living is well below the national average. The community, for all the economic, social, and physical reasons cited, is seen as a great place to raise children. Turning from the intuitive responses of interview and focus group participants to the more rigorous world of economic and social science studies, three major recent compilations of studies are extremely relevant to our question: The State of the South 2002: Shadows of the Sunbelt Revisited (Chapel Hill, N.C.: MDC, Inc., September 2002) http://southnow.org/publications/sos2002report.pdf. This report for the Southern Growth Policy Board and the Southern Governors makes it clear that the days of economic growth through recruiting low-wage, low-skill manufacturing are over in the era of globalization and rapid technological change. Incentives and tax breaks provided today to attract those types of jobs will be worthless tomorrow as the jobs move to places with much lower costs elsewhere in the world. Southern states, Tennessee included, are not prepared for the new economy. The report emphasizes three interrelated strategies to become more economically competitive and more equitable for all of our citizens:
The Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida (New York: Basic Books, 2002) http://www.creativeclass.org/. Carnegie Mellon Professor of Regional Economic Development Richard Florida, drawing on his own research and other substantial studies, concludes that the regions that are succeeding in the new economy have high concentrations of creative people—what he calls the new Creative Class. “Access to talented and creative people is to modern business what access to coal and iron ore was to steel-making. It determines where companies will choose to locate and grow, and this in turn changes the way cities can compete” (p. 6). He distinguishes the Creative Class from the much lower-wage Working Class and Service Class as people who, instead of being paid to execute a plan, are paid to create, and have considerably more flexibility than the other classes. They are scientists and engineers, architects and designers, artists and musicians, educators and researchers, and those who use creativity in business, law, and health care. They now represent 30% of the U.S. workforce, over 38 million people. They are what our interviewees referred to as the best and brightest, and they are choosing places to live based first and foremost on the quality of the place. Companies are moving to places that have a thick concentration of the Creative Class, and other companies are forming and growing up in those places. Therefore cities that retain or attract the Creative Class are outperforming other cities in economic growth. They also are places that have the energy that comes with a critical mass of bright, creative people. Florida finds the Creative Class attracted to places that have what he calls “the three T’s—Talent, Technology, and Tolerance.” The Creative Class is attracted to places where there are other creative people (“Talent”). They are attracted to areas that have a high technology base, and by being there they help build an even stronger technology base. Finally, they are attracted to places with high tolerance for diversity. The Creative Class values individualism, self-expression, and openness to differences. Florida’s research created an index to measure these three T’s for every city-region in the country. The Knoxville region ranks 89th out of 331 U.S. metropolitan areas on Florida’s Creativity Index. We rate at about the national average for U.S. metro areas on talent, above average on measures of general entrepreneurship but below average in technological entrepreneurship (although we hold a solid number of patents per capita, we need a better culture for supporting technological entrepreneurship), and we rank below average in measures of tolerance. The ultimate importance of this study is that it shows a country of rapidly developing economic winners and losers—a widening divide between high-Creative communities, with high wage, wealth, and economic opportunity, and high-Working and -Service Class communities with much less economic opportunity. The result will increasingly be a loss of the latter communities’ best and brightest. Florida’s research also outlines how to build a Creative Community—a place where creativity can flourish. “Communities need to be open to diversity and invest in the kind of lifestyle options and amenities people really want” (p. 283). Specifically:
Florida’s study concludes that the high-yield economic strategy of the future will focus on creating a great people place where creativity can thrive, rather than on incentives for traditional industrial recruitment. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert Putnam (New York: Touchstone, 2001) http://www.bowlingalone.com/. Harvard Professor of Public Policy Robert Putnam details study after study showing a disintegration of a sense of community, or social capital, in America and how it has affected us over the last thirty years. He states: Over the last three decades a variety of social, economic, and technological changes have rendered obsolete a significant stock of America’s social capital. Television, two-career families, suburban sprawl, generational changes in values—these and other changes in American society have meant fewer and fewer of us find that the League of Women Voters, or the United Way, or the Shriners, or the monthly bridge club, or even a Sunday picnic with friends fits the way we have come to live. Our growing social-capital deficit threatens educational performance, safe neighborhoods, equitable tax collection, democratic responsiveness, everyday honesty, and even our health and happiness” (p. 367). Putnam lays out an agenda for community change to yield a “more civil, more trustworthy, more collectively caring community” (p. 402). That agenda includes:
The East Tennessee Foundation http://www.easttennesseefoundation.org/ took part in Putnam’s national benchmark studies of social capital. Twenty-one counties were included in the East Tennessee study. Compared to national results, East Tennesseans ranked lower in measures of trust and tolerance, particularly in the rural counties, and higher in faith-based measures and generosity with time and money. One disturbing fact is that many of the communities that ranked
highest on Richard Florida’s Creativity Index ranked lowest in
Putnam’s measures of social capital. It appears that the places
that nourish creativity and therefore have the greatest economic
opportunity are the places that have the least traditional community
as measured by Putnam. As Florida states, in a passage
worth special emphasis in this research summary, In analyzing our community’s strengths and challenges, as well as the important research of MDC, Florida, and Putnam, Knoxville has a unique opportunity to become a new model community that achieves the balance Florida celebrates. We should have a vision to become a great place that nourishes creativity and also has a strong and tolerant bridge-building community. We can be a community known for talent, technology, tolerance, trust—and togetherness. The research summarized in this report affirms that the strategic actions we need to take as a community to achieve that vision are as follows: Talent. Create a world-class human environment through:
Technology. Build on the research and development assets of the region by:
Tolerance, Trust, and Togetherness. Although seemingly at opposite ends of the individuality spectrum, the strategic actions required to encourage both tolerance for diversity and togetherness (stronger community) in Knoxville are the same—that is, building bridges and new levels of trust between diverse people. The strategies:
The result of success on these strategies will be a place that has both great economic opportunity and a great sense of community. We can be a place where we want our kids to grow up, and a place to which they will want to return. [1] The purpose statement of Cornerstone Foundation of Knoxville is “to be a catalyst to reach our God-given potential as a community.”
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