Suburbs

The recent rumblings about a new county bring research, musings and studies of previous attempts for the suburbs to split from Memphis and Shelby County.

The idea of a suburban secession seems to arise in alternate time frames from consolidation – the concept of merging Memphis and unincorporated Shelby County into one government.

And just to be clear, both approaches have about the same chance. Whether it is the suburbs leaving Shelby or meshing parts of the county with Memphis, the odds of it happening are minuscule if at all.
Probably most likely not at all.

Still, the talks emerge. In this case, they accompanied the concept of a suburban utility district. Michael Waddell, our suburban freelancer in Northeast Shelby County’s suburbs, wrote about it recently. Former Daily Memphian reporter Omer Yusuf, wrote an in-depth story on the idea two years ago.

The basis for a new county dates to 1990 when the six suburban mayors announced their intent to form Neshoba County, a crescent-shaped area that encompassed all the outlying incorporated cities. At that time, the idea waned and eventually disappeared into a memory.

Oh, occasionally, when someone wasn’t happy with Memphis or Shelby County, they would invoke the idea, but it never gained much more traction beyond that.

As Waddell noted in his coverage, there are a lot of hurdles to clear and a lot of financial considerations to ponder. That is probably the reason Tennessee hasn’t created a new county since Chester County in 1879.
The finances, the geography of the county lines, the legal issues and the sheer convincing people that it is the right idea makes the whole thing a difficult sell.

Sort of like consolidation, which will never work as long as the suburbs outside of Memphis have a separate voice before such a merger could occur. The law calls for such an idea to pass inside of Memphis and separately outside the major city.

That’s just not happening. Suburban voters will not endorse consolidation.
So, while there are discussions about a separate county, and they are interesting, nothing has happened since Neshoba County was brought up more than 30 years ago.

And I don’t expect it to happen even over the next 30 years. - Suburbs editor Clay Bailey

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