Cooper: Creating the best 2040 Chattanooga

In the early 1980s, Chattanooga's only vision was to stay afloat.

Perhaps that's harsh, but manufacturing was quickly disappearing from the city, the last person who left downtown at 5 p.m. rolled up the streets, and the city had little new to offer tourists who had seen Rock City, experienced Ruby Falls and ridden the Incline.

That wasn't good enough for a few Chattanoogans, who understood the city's collaborative spirit, gloried in its natural beauty and lived amid the friendliness of its people.

Thus was born Vision 2000, a process of directing the city's eyes toward, and its planning for, the years leading to the new millennium.

Though the visioning process discussed more than physical realities, the physical realities of a revitalized downtown, a vibrant waterfront and the Tennessee Aquarium were among the outgrowths of the effort.

Fast forward 34 years, and many area leaders believe another look forward is needed for Chattanooga, which annually makes national lists for the "Best This" and the "Top That." But it is the realities beyond what catches the tourist eye that a new visioning process seeks to better.

Just as it did more than three decades ago, such a process should seek the opinions of all manner of area residents. Minus that component, anything accomplished may as well be said to be a product of the "Power Structure," the anonymous collection of the rich, the wise and the well-born that was purported to be responsible for anything that got accomplished in the city before Vision 2000.

Though the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce is spearheading the new drive with the help of the city and county mayors and the city's major foundations, it has sought and is seeking input from every Hamilton County resident ages 18 and older.

Where the input for such a wide range of people was sought but scarcely possible in the mid-1980s, it is possible through the internet today. Anyone with internet access can take a survey. Even giving the few survey questions considerable thought, completing it takes 10 minutes or so. And its demographic questions are optional.

However, the demographic results give survey compilers the knowledge they, indeed, have received input from a diverse group of area residents.

The survey itself asks respondents to choose five among 16 things they "think will affect you and the people living here in 2040."

The "things" deal with jobs, education, population, wages, health care, health, diversity, and wild cards such as self-driving cars, the safety of the power grid, and computers and robots taking our jobs.

It doesn't ask if Hamilton Countians want a water park, a new minor league baseball stadium in the Southside, revived rail transportation or a bullet train to Atlanta.

It then asks respondents to choose three things, among 11 items combined from the original 16, that should be done first.

Those 11 are these:

» Build trust among residents, local government and people that are new to the community.

» Make good jobs available to people who struggle to earn a living, including women and people of color.

» Train the workforce in the skills they need for good jobs.

» Improve transportation so we can easily go where we need to go.

» Help more students graduate from high school.

» Make sure students have what they need to learn.

» Provide ways for residents to live healthier lives.

» Develop and promote new leaders among women and people of color.

» Make sure everyone in the community has a chance to earn enough money to live.

» Improve roads, sidewalks and bridges to meet the needs of the community.

» Create career paths and job opportunities for less advantaged people.

Scan your eyes up and down the list, and see which of the 11 can be completed by several rich Chattanoogans writing a check. Correct. None of them.

That means those area residents who only want the next cool thing - a bouldering path up the side of Lookout Mountain, say - will be disappointed with the survey and not care about Velocity 2040. But those who do will understand that improving, if not solving, some of the items on the list has the opportunity to improve or solve other problems on the list.

For instance, making sure students have what they need to learn and helping more students graduate from high school are ways of training the workforce in the skills they need for good jobs and creating career paths and job opportunities for less advantaged people. The improvements build on each other, and suddenly Chattanooga is a city that makes additional "Best of ... " lists for reasons other than its tourist trade and scenic beauty.

That's a city we all want and - though harder to achieve than an aquarium - is one that we have a chance to create together.