Robert Winslow
There are times when cities choose their future. Chattanooga defines itself by having seized that opportunity in its darkest moment and gained a new life, transformed into the place we live today.
Right now is such a time, when both the fruits of the last generation’s work and our own potential can be seen more clearly. This may not be our darkest moment, but the stakes are just as high and the opportunity is just as big.
When I came back after growing up here and leaving, I was blown away by how quickly and enthusiastically Chattanooga was changing. At the time I was bootstrapping a documentary webseries about civics and reaching across the deep divisions in American society. I was a 24-year-old looking for answers about the future coming into shape, and I saw in my hometown all of the most dramatic aspects of change in the American city.
For a year and a half I was able to follow a few major stories about local initiatives for innovation, industry, education, and interviewing those leaders and others all around the city about how they saw the change over the last generation and the next. Throughout I asked one main question: Chattanooga’s success in urban revitalization and economic diversification came at the same time as persistently increasing poverty and racial disparity. How did that happen?
At about the same time, the Chattanooga Times Free Press had undertaken The Poverty Puzzle, a long-term investigation into extreme poverty and inequality in our city. And at about the same time, some community leaders began to take a hard look at how our public school system creates economic opportunity or the lack thereof, presented as Chattanooga 2.0. These joined other local advocates to paint a broader picture, which some politely call the Tale of Two Chattanoogas.