Editor's note: News-Sentinel business-environment reporter Bob Caylor recently visited Chattanooga, Tenn., where a group of Fort Wayne business and government leaders will visit. They'll be gathering ideas for Fort Wayne development.


“It's a Rust Belt city that has turned itself around,” Invent Tomorrow Executive Director Cheri Becker said, explaining why the Fort Wayne revitalization group is organizing a trip Oct. 11-13 to Chattanooga, Tenn.

Certainly, Chattanooga's downtown is vibrant and beautiful. Tourists flood its top attractions by the hundreds of thousands each year. Private developers are building homes downtown and in the central city — thousands in the last 10 years. A forest of cranes is raising new offices, restaurants and housing.

Most Chattanooga residents seem to support the focus on the riverfront and downtown. This revitalization has continued, through changes of administrations, for more than 20 years.

Chattanooga retiree Dexter Clem is typical in his enthusiasm. “It's marvelous. We've got some real good leadership,” he said. “They're visionary.”

Unemployment is around 4 percent, and it hasn't been higher than 5 percent for a decade. But reviving the downtown hasn't been a panacea for this city. Despite its similarities in size and economic history to Fort Wayne, poverty in Chattanooga remains significantly higher than in the Summit City.

Its residents' average income is lower than that of Fort Wayne-area residents. And the businesses that benefit most from downtown revitalization — tourism and dining, for example — are not high-paying fields on which to pin a city's hopes.

A boom that has left many workers' wages behind is reflected in broader surveys of people in Chattanooga and Hamilton County, in which Chattanooga is located.

In 2006, Chattanooga's Community Research Council surveyed 1,000 Hamilton County residents and found that only 28 percent rated the employment situation as good or excellent; 68 percent said it was poor or only fair.

The numbers were barely better among those with college degrees. Sixty-five percent said the employment situation was poor or fair, compared with 32 percent who said it was excellent or good.

They had reason to be glum. During the period of downtown, riverfront and south-side revival, the percentage of people in poverty and near poverty has increased by many measures.

♦The Census Bureau estimated the percentage of Hamilton County residents in poverty at 14.5 percent in 1989. That percentage declined steadily to 12 percent in 1999. But it has risen to 14.6 percent in 2004, the last year for which census estimates are available.

♦The number of Hamilton County women receiving aid through the Women, Infants and Children program increased from 1,049 in 1990 to 1,803 in 2003, an increase of 72 percent in a period when the county's total population increased only 8 percent.

♦The average number of households in the county receiving food stamps monthly was 7,193 in 1998-99. By 2002-03, it had risen to 15,602, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Tennessee Department of Human Services.

♦The percentage of children qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches in Hamilton County's public schools has risen from 42.6 percent in 2002-03 to 55.2 percent in the 2005-06 school year.

As in many Rust Belt cities — the old Midwestern centers of heavy industry — the last 20 years in Chattanooga have seen steep decline in manufacturing employment.

In 1990, manufacturing accounted for 24 percent of the employment in the county; by 2004, that figure had dropped to 15 percent.

According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, average annual pay in “production occupations” in the Chattanooga metro area was $26,930. That's less than the average of $33,690 in the area, but it's still much higher than the low-skill jobs created by the boom in tourism.

Robert B. Doak, president and CEO of the Chattanooga Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, says tourism can offer six-figure incomes, such as those of scientists at the Tennessee Aquarium.

But tourism generates many more low-paying jobs, such as the 490 people the BLS estimates work as hotel, motel and resort desk clerks in and around Chattanooga; they earn an average of $17,000 yearly.

Tourism is a boon for restaurants, and the Bureau of Labor Statisticsestimates that 19,750 in the Chattanooga area work in “food preparation and serving-related occupations” for an average annual wage of $15,910.

Of course, there are many high-paying jobs in the city, too. It has a large workforce in insurance and financial services, for example, and competition for skilled workers keeps those wages exceptionally high.

But if Chattanooga's success in reviving its urban core inspires people, it also shows that the appearance of prosperity downtown is no guarantee that every tier of society will benefit.