With the release and subsequent endorsements of its Neighborhood Blight Elimination Charter, Memphis has charted a new course in its long history of fighting blighted properties and offers other cities a potentially new path.

Sheila Jordan Cunningham, executive director of the newly established Blight Authority of Memphis (BAM), and Sohil Shah of Polsinelli PC, delivered a presentation about their work at the Neighborhood Blight Elimination Summit. Learn more about BAM and what they can do to help transform our community by downloading a PDF of their presentation here.

The Memphis Blight Elimination Charter, developed by a team from the public and private sector and coordinated by Neighborhood Preservation, Inc., sets up a framework for tackling the issue and paves the way for the development of a blight elimination team and action plan.

“Unfortunately, without some larger coordinating framework to guide and inform these actions, we end up doing a good job of treating the symptoms without addressing the deeper sources of the illness.”

“While other major American cities have adopted blight elimination plans and frameworks, Memphis will still be the first city to adopt a comprehensive neighborhood blight elimination charter,” says attorney Steve Barlow of Neighborhood Preservation Inc. (NPI), the nonprofit agency spearheading the charter process.

Over the last several years, government, business and philanthropic entities have increasingly realized that it takes collaboration to make a dent in the community’s social ills. The Blight Elimination Summit and the Memphis Blight Elimination Charter are another fulfillment of that reality.

Blighted properties, overgrown lots and abandoned buildings are not unique to Memphis. But Memphis is the only city with a blight elimination charter that affirms cross-sector commitment to uproot the causes of blight and prevent further decline.

After several months of discussing the city’s blight crisis, a group of grassroots advocates, corporate leaders, elected officials and land use experts have unveiled a 23-page document to set the tone moving forward.

There are 13,000 structures and vacant lots in Memphis that qualify as blighted, according to an estimate by local anti-blight advocacy group Neighborhood Preservation Inc. Among them are thousands abandoned houses that become havens for criminals as well as multistory apartment buildings where children sometimes play.

Memphis has more than 40,000 abandoned properties. Some call it blight, while others call it a missed opportunity.