America’s crisis is not abstract. It’s not cultural. It’s not even partisan. It’s economic and it’s lived every day in cities like Jackson, Mississippi. The defining promise of this country has always been the Right to Rise: the belief that if you work hard, contribute to your community, and play by the rules, you and your children’s lives can get better. That promise is breaking down in plain sight. When people say the system is rigged, they’re not talking about ideology. They’re talking about lived experience. Rent eats half a paycheck. The grocery bill grows faster than wages. Small businesses struggle just to get started, let alone scale. Downtowns hollow out while talent drains away. Parents work more hours for less security. Young people leave places they love because they don’t see a future there. Jackson knows this story all too well.
This breakdown didn’t happen by accident. It’s the result of decades of downward mobility and disinvestment in the very places where opportunity is supposed to be born. As goes Jackson, so goes Mississippi. As goes Mississippi, so goes the United States. If we want to save America, not rhetorically, but practically, we must restore the Right to Rise. And the fastest, most durable way to do that is by rebuilding opportunity in the flyover and forgotten cities that have always powered this country. I know this because post industrial cities have been my obsession for nearly thirty years; from Chattanooga to Detroit, Akron to New Orleans, and now here in Jackson. Cities are where the American economy is made real. They are where productivity happens, where ideas collide, where culture is created and where inequality is felt most sharply. When cities like Jackson work, America works. When they don’t, the entire country pays the price. For too long, we have tried to fix cities with slogans, one-off programs, and disconnected grants. What we need instead is a grounded, muscular, relentlessly practical agenda for urban renewal that rebuilds opportunity at scale. Jackson Rising shows what that might look like in practice. Jackson Rising is not a branding exercise or a wish list. It was a disciplined process that brought over 300 business leaders, residents, institutions and public officials together to answer hard questions about Jackson’s future and then align around suggested priorities. The process, the strategy, and the measurable outcomes are documented openly at jxnrising.com, because this work matters only if it can be understood, tested and replicated. It starts with a vision for the place you actually are. Every city needs a clear, shared answer to a simple question: What are we trying to become? Not a glossy pitch, but an economic vision rooted in local strengths, history, and ambition. Cities that win are cities that decide. They choose abundance over scarcity and take the disciplined risk that working together might actually work. In Jackson Rising, that means aligning land use, infrastructure, workforce development, entrepreneurship, and capital around a future Jackson can realistically build, not one imported from somewhere else. Vision is not fluff. It is economic infrastructure. Without it, money scatters, talent leaves and public trust erodes. With it, capital and ideas can finally compound. Next, we must unleash thousands of small businesses and social enterprises here in Jackson and across America. Our country does not lack entrepreneurs. It lacks systems that let them survive. Permitting is slow. Capital is misaligned. Procurement shuts out local firms. Technical assistance is fragmented. The result is an economy dominated by a few giants and a long tail of people locked out of ownership. If you want upward mobility, you need ownership of businesses, properties and ideas. Cities must become startup engines for lifelong residents, not just venture-backed founders. Jackson Rising explicitly looks at small business formation as core economic development, not a side project, aligning philanthropy, public dollars, anchor institutions and policy to make local enterprise viable. A city that helps thousands of lifelong residents start durable businesses does more for mobility than any single megadeal ever will. We must also learn to harness what I call the “Economic DNA” of cities. Every city has a unique mix of industries, institutions, skills, culture and geography shaped over generations. Too often, cities chase the same generic future: the "Silicon Valley of Somewhere Else". That’s how you get sameness without success. Jackson Rising takes a different path by grounding future opportunity in Jackson’s real assets: its cultural capital, its institutions, its land, its people, and its role in the broader Southeastern economy. This is a strategy, not nostalgia. Economic mobility accelerates when people can build a future without leaving home. Finally, we need transformative projects driven by serious public-private partnerships. Not ribbon cuttings. Not vanity projects. But catalytic investments that change how the city works: reclaiming blighted corridors, rebuilding the downtown hub as a mixed-income employment center, converting vacant land into housing and light industry, modernizing infrastructure to support new businesses. The government can’t do this alone. The private sector won’t do it without public leadership. The deal has to change. Jackson Rising demonstrates how cities can set the table by demanding public value in exchange for private capital, and moving with urgency when that alignment exists. These projects create jobs immediately and opportunity for decades. They rebuild confidence, one of the most undervalued economic assets we have. Restoring the Right to Rise is about results, not ideology. People don’t need to be convinced the system isn’t working; they already know. What they need is proof that someone is finally serious about fixing it. That seriousness looks like focusing less on national abstractions and more on local outcomes. It looks like measuring success in businesses started, wages raised, neighborhoods stabilized and young people who stay because they finally see a future. The American experiment has always depended on the idea that progress is possible where you are. Not just somewhere else, for someone else. The path forward isn’t mysterious. It runs straight through cities like Jackson, Mississippi. Restore the capacity to generate opportunity, restore the Right to Rise, and America rises too.Josh McManus is a facilitator at Jackson Rising. He was the keynote speaker at the Greater Jackson Chamber Partnership's annual meeting last week. The column posted below was the foundation of what was an entertaining speech. The Chamber should post the video online. Posted below is Jackson Rising's 2050 plan.
31 comments:
People want to be paid a "living wage," or "work" from home, etc., but they have not bothered to acquire any skills or qualifications, and often have no work ethic. Fix that and the problem is largely solved.
Jackson Rising, Working Together Jackson, Jackson This, Jackson That. Not a damn thing in the presentation is new and hasn't been mentioned ad nauseam before now. Only thing missing is the Prophet predicting that a zillion people were poised and immediately ready to move back into downtown. Who is the world green lighted paying for this fluff? Horhn?
First, let’s look at the work ethic, education and culture of the people living in Jackson. I think you will see an uneducated population, fatherless kids, and a high percentage on government assistance.
I applaud this guy for trying to do something good.
But I don't think anyone can make much progress until the answer to the following question changes:
"What does it take to get things done in Jackson?"
Hopefully, it's changing under the Horn administration.
Get government out of the way, quit expecting socialist bailouts from government - it does not 'take a village' - it takes individuals being responsible for their own well being while helping others. Reward hard work and results and forget the 'equity' idea which is poison to productivity and success. Hard work and discipline still provide rewards, but you have to earn them over time, not expect immediate gratification.
Somehow, I get a "leave page" prompt. I assume some quasigovernmental entity has invaded my computer, even though I was careful not to run the cursor onto the linked garbage. Will have to clear cookies, and hope I don't have to trash another computer...
While I do love the effort and the excitement. Literally the only thing holding Jackson back is the crime. It’s the crime. Again, it is the crime. Even in the CCID, which is generally safe, if you can hear gunshots off in the distance (usually west of State St), you don’t feel safe. Jackson would flourish if we would stop playing the ‘hug a thug’ game. Throw people under the jail for minor offenses, and watch all the major offenses stop.
Schools matter too. Hard to land economic development when your school district ranges from F to C.
The coming crisis will soon enough make Jackson just another domino that fell before hundreds of other municipal dominos that will take a hard economic fall. Artificial Intelligence will cause a basic reorganization of economies on a global scale unseen since the industrial revolution. It will be a very dangerous time, as people who think they are economically safe find they are not.
They do, but who in their right mind sends their kids to public schools if they have the money anyway? The middle class practically doesn't exist in big cities anymore. Not worried about city schools. Stop the crime and redevelop neighborhoods (tailor them to rich folks) and things get better. Let the middle class enjoy good schools in suburbs.
Some very fundamental things that really work and help people want to live here:
Stop blaming and accusing the producers and high earners of racism, bigotry, hate, etc. Those are all just excuses for poor effort and work ethic. Nobody hates anybody, they're just tired of dealing with their BS. See the recent Magee Wal Mart and Hattiesburg convenience store incidents for examples of fatigue inducing events.
Stop hating the rich people who make jobs. Do things to make job producers who are already here stay here . See the Honda dealership recently , where city councilmen got mad about the city paving around their property. Make things easier for the people who make the money and pay the taxes around here. Every time some official starts with the hate Whitey garbage, tell them to shut up . If hating White people was treated the same as hating other races, it would stop.
Pick up trash. Pick up the damn garbage on the streets. Clean the streets. Pave the streets , maintain them, sweep the crap off the streets and sidewalks. Repaint the lines on the streets. if theres a pothole, fix the damn thing. There was a orange cone on Fortification street for 6 months before they fixed it. Clean out the ditches and drains. Spray the weeds on the curbs and corners. One man, Locke Ward, cleaned up more trash than a city full of "workers". Put new bulbs in street lights. Go round up all these homeless vagrants and take them somewhere. I don't care where, just not at every intersection and major street. There are plenty of homeless places for them to go . Profile the hell out of every shady sketchy looking person walking around aimlessly , the cops are great at that if they just try. Sit at night and listen for gunshots. Investigate them . It ain't hard.
"Profile the hell out of every shady sketchy looking person walking around aimlessly , the cops are great at that if they just try.".... Start in 39211. It sets a world record in perfectly healthy men, 25 to 45, aimlessly waking around all day, especially down Ridgewood and Old Canton Roads. A "new" phenonemon in the last few years as the ward "changed".
Public-Private Partnership is an economic oxymoron which 9.9 times out of 10 means public taxpayers financing projects that private investors will not.
Seems to me we could use a dose of anti trust busting nationally.
John Horhn is the new Harvey Johnson.
Tell me how any of this differs from the Chamber's Vision 2022/One Voice of 10+ years ago? Only thing missing is the Creative Class claptrap.
What a complete and utter load of bullshit.
First and foremost Josh mentions absolutely nothing about crime. If you have a business in Jackson and people won't come because of fear, guess what, you don't make money. If you can get insurance after you get broken into or vandalized for the second or third claim, your insurance rates are jacked up or the policy is cancelled. Then of course you must have an expensive security system installed.
Secondly dealing with the COJ and Hinds county to get anything done is a nightmare that would only be solved if you fired everyone and then hired competent people, and what are the chances of that happening?
Thirdly the pool from which to hire workers is probably the dumbest, laziest, least motivated and entitled workforce in the history of man. Most of which are so dumb they don't know how to operate a mop or broom. They show up and think they should be afforded some manner of "respect", when they have not proven themselves. They want to play on their phones all day, produce no work and be paid a "livable wage".
If you want to make more money learn a skill, trade or get an education.
Last but not least Jackson is run by democrats, a party that saying is anti-business is an understatement. Their answer for getting more money is to raise taxes. These idiots couldn't even keep clean water flowing to businesses. They can't competently provide the most basic of services like drivable roads.
"Right to rise" is a slogan, and this whole thing sounds like just another grift.
Jackson's problem is simple to see. For years our government and politicians have been buying votes from people. People in Jackson have become used to not working for what they want. People like that do not have any pride in anything as they didn't invest anything to get it. People who work for what they have tend to not like to live around these people. Get rid of these people and Jackson does not have a problem. To get rid of these people the politicians who buy votes need to be replaced by people who get votes by what they do. This is not likely to happen in Jackson because the population is made up mostly by people who do not work for what they have. Jackson has to bottom out before it can rise.
@12:54pm, Rupert Lowe, who will hopefully be the next PM of Britain, has excellent plans for how to tackle all the "rubbish" in their country. He loathes the filth that plagues the roads and countryside. He knows it is the 3rd world that is majority to blame for it.
The same could be said for Jackson and all major cities in the south. The 3rd worlders are running the show, they literally do not even notice litter. It is completely normal to them for the ditches to be chock full of trash. It is not even slightly a concern.
At least John Horhn notices it. He was interviewed yesterday saying they have got to get it figured out and fast. He wants MDOC/Hinds County to use prisoners again.
And praise God for Locke Ward who has got Jackson looking good again in the pertinent areas. Driving 55 is so much better now compared to a couple years ago.
(Hitting LIKE button robustly)
1:31 nailed it. I see more every day that proves how utterly sorry and just plain dumb a huge chunk of the work force is around central Mississippi and the Delta, all the while being totally entitled and convinced of their competence by schools and media , I suppose.
Liberals (democrats) think businesses exist to provide jobs, conservatives (Republicans) know businesses exist to provide the owner/s profit.
These people confuse opportunity with right. There is as much opportunity as there has ever been. How hard are you willing to work to get what you want? No one owes you anything. The world doesn’t care whether you exist or not.
Jackson's projected population:
2030 133,070
2040 119,105
Some of these comments sound like the conversation in the TV room of a retirement home, with the TV permanently stuck on Fox News.
Detroit started losing population in 1950.
Hopefully Jackson isn't worse than Detroit.
If it is there's just a few decades of decline left.
Only thing missing is the Prophet ...
"Ben Allen, president of Downtown Jackson Partners, said at the press conference that he has seen figures showing that, with all the residential development downtown in the form of loft apartments and condos, that in 10 years there could be as many as 25,000 people living downtown, tripling traffic on Pearl Street and Pascagoula Street."
-- Mississippi Business Journal
-- March 3, 2008
Yet the comments are, in fact, true.
Good grief. The Jackson Kush Plan 4.0. Do they even try? Explicit racial bias for AAs to have ownership of the means of production by the black working and middle class. Wealth transfer 101.
How many seconds did it take AI to write this for him? Bernie and Malcolm X mated and this is Gen III spewing failed black centric fantasy. Right out of ‘65.
In the advertisement for right to rise it mentions one of the reasons for Jackson’s failures is the “Unhoused community” wait, what happened to calling them homeless?
Saw a man jogging in my Non-Jackson neighborhood at lunch today and carrying a bag to pick up an trash he spotted on the ground. It (along with the story of the dead body in my former NE Jxn neighborhood this week) reminded me how thankful I am that I sold when I did.
People who work hard to acquire assets value them. That is why my area is thriving.
Generations of welfare babies will never make good neighbors.
And Liberals cant hold office without the government dependent votes.
So it is naive to think Jackson will be fixed in my life time. They have so much farther to fall before they are ready to make the difficult changes required. And they are counting on the next Democratic president to just stroke them a check anyway.
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