Jackson Rising Facilitator Josh McManus penned this guest column.
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.
22 comments:
The right to rise is blocked by the refusal to let someone fail. Social safety nets ensure a lack of desire to rise. Take away the safety nets and people will fail, horribly. Then they will decide to have desire to rise and succeed. Look how many immigrants arrive with nothing and are super successful within a decade. Hard work ensures success. Not hand holding and social think tanks.
Wonderful mission statement. Safety and cleaning up the streets where businesses stop having to pay private security is first and foremost. Write another column down the line with some evidence of improvement and show me the money!
What a bunch of nonsense.
Jackson is in the shape it’s in because of rampant crime and corrupt leadership.
Bastard children running the streets.
Police that don’t enforce laws.
Judges that don’t hold criminals responsible.
Jackson is a joke. Write all you want abut it, but facts are facts.
Want to know who Josh McManus is? Take a look at his LinkedIn.
While quickly reading this entire column, did I miss the part about dealing with Jackson’s crime? If not, write these words down:
It Is the Crime Stupid!!! It Is the Crime Stupid!!! It Is the Crime Stupid!!! Learn it, Know It, Live It.
And since Democrats cannot maintain control of cities like Jackson without violent crimes rate high enough to keep the flight in place, get ready for the fight of a lifetime dealing with reversing soft on crime Democrat policies, catch & release, etc.
P.S. “Business leaders, residents, institutions and public officials” will get behind anything if they think it will line their pockets. Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffett), Amazon (Jeff Bezos) and many, many others got on board with the literal r____d Black Lives Matter Defund and Abolish the Police Scam, while they themselves lived safely in protected environments, knowing full well that lives would be lost, including the lives of children.
Can we teach people that “having a business” means something other than burning through business loans and grants for trinkets and submitting fictitious Schedule Cs. I see so many local “entrepreneurs” and “bosses” that do nothing but peddle a line of bullshit until they declare bankruptcy. Those people would be much better off with a sustainable W2 job instead of attempting an endeavor they are far from equipped for.
Lemme try to rise while the out-of-state megacorp flies into town and lobbies the legislature to make it impossible for me to compete. Lemme rise while tech oligarchs lobby for more H1Bs to take away white collar tech jobs. Lemme rise while the president pardons welfare fraudsters. Lemme rise while he also spirals inflation for wars less than 1% of the population wants.
I would rather just be left the hell alone!
What about people who don’t want to rise, preferring instead to just sit down and have others on the ‘rise’ pay their way?
The COJ is in a bottomless pit. The pull of gravity prevents its rise.
As goes Jackson, so goes Mississippi.
Contagion Theory. FALLACY.
In twenty years columns like this will be written about hundreds of communities around the country big and small who will look more like Jackson today. If we take an honest look around we can already see the signs of the coming economic shakeout which will come when those who think themselves secure middle class today find that they are the excess cheap labor of tomorrow. The middle class created by the industrial revolution and the rise of the cities is going in reverse whether we ignore it or not. If you are under 50 years old don't be so quick to laugh at Jackson.
Here we go again. The next Richard Florida. Seen that movie already.
Guaranteed that this latest prosperity-around-the-corner peddler will tell us that we'll need to dump more money into Downtown with pablum about public-private partnerships and "this is a strategy, not nostalgia" nonsense.
Like Florida, Josh McManus will make his money and move on to the next city who will pay his fee.
This is all true, but it quite literally is the crime. And the fact that downtown Jackson is surrounded by ghetto housing. If someone were to buy up Midtown and south of Fortification/Belhaven area and gate off streets and build nice houses it could work. Capitol PD is working. Extremely effective policing. But the buildings have been crumbling so long that it would take a Marshall Plan to redo it all. UMMC plans to expand a lot in Jackson. They are about to open a new clinic right on State Street by Baptist in an old building and have almost raised the money to build a cancer center on State Street at the Vet. Somebody needs to buy up some of that cheap property around Belhaven/Fondren and redevelop it and put cameras on every corner and it could work. Jackson also needs new grocery stores badly. Mind you, Jackson is small and always has been, but if the right funds come together to make UMMC a powerhouse you could draw from all over the region. I don’t know how much industry could come to Jackson, but it should absolutely be the trucking/logistics hub of the South. Smack dab in the middle of it all. We need more recreation. More parks and more trails. People bitch about LeFleur’s Bluff getting millions but it needs it. Most popular park in the area and should have miles of trails. “Things to do” that the ghetto crowd doesn’t participate in. This is just plain and simple truth. Botanical Gardens and Golf. It’s worked in every city that’s been revitalized. Cater to a nicer clientele and they will come. Certainly need a new DA and the wimpy state leadership needs to do something about these idiot judges letting people loose. Jackson could be such a beautiful town. It’s a blank canvas for redevelopment and close to lots of other cities. Already has several great restaurants in spite of it all. Fondren is chock full of beautiful houses that could be worth millions if it were just a guaranteed safe place. The truth is somebody like John Horhn is the man to do it (uniter) but he needs to go Frank Melton mode on the crime. People are so sick of not feeling safe. And hearing gunshots in the distance at night. Jackson is tiny compared to other cities, a small swell of population could correct most of the issues. Just my $0.20 (inflation).
That was a lot of words to say absolutely nothing of value, "business ownership equals upward mobility?" Thanks captain obvious, what about all the bastard children, murder capitol of America 5 years in a row, corrupt politicians, racism from the majority demographic of jxn towards literally every other demographic that they blame for their failures and lack of business ownership. Just a bunch of words, he should write speeches for Kamala's 2028 campaign
Thanks for bringing us your wet fart of an opinion Clay. Do you have any actual solutions to include with your racist observations?
How about the gentleman from this article, what pie in the sky advice does the author have for him?
http://kingfish1935.blogspot.com/2026/04/nothing-ever-gets-done.html
9:07, what part of that was racist? Since I have been back to MS, the most racist things I’ve heard have been from Black people to Black people.
It's a bird, it's a plane, no it's a helluva wall of text.
Small, but absolutely sure and immediate criminal act correction needs to be a policy. So, say for example, you are littering. We need to have (50) LDR cameras along each of the major road segments in Jackson and they should be monitored overnight by sworn officers who just happen to live /work in the Philippines, where it would be daytime and the rate reasonable. Station (2) cruisers at each intersection and they just stop/ pick up whomever is reported once they get to the intersection at a roadblock. Then the certain part happens, their car gets towed unless they can pay the fine onsite by cash/card, and they are brought to overnight detention, where at 4:30 AM they are given the option to sign a plea, don an orange jumpsuit and start picking up trash until 6:00 AM to work off the fine or if they refuse they get sent to trial. Yes - permitting stinks in Jackson, and that should be fixed, but first the people simply doing illegal stuff need to get stopped for certain.
Jackson is part of a metro of over half a million people with real economic strain reflected in income levels around the $40K range and persistent structural challenges. But treating it as an isolated problem misses how metro economies actually work.
Suburbs don’t function independently—they depend on the core city for employment concentration, healthcare systems, infrastructure, and regional investment signaling. When the core weakens, the entire system becomes less efficient and less competitive.
We’ve seen comparable dynamics in places like Indianapolis, where regional coordination helped align the city and surrounding counties into a more coherent economic unit rather than a fragmented one.
The real question isn’t “what’s wrong with Jackson?” It’s “what does a stronger Jackson unlock for the entire region?”
That's a lot of paragraphs to not say anything. Two questions that must always be asked to shut down the shysters:
1) What is your plan?
2) How are you going to implement said plan?
Tell me more about 'employment concentration' in the 'core city' of Jackson.
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