Memphian Against Annexation

Why is Memphis still annexing? What can we gain from this? OK, short-term, we gain the taxes of the new Memphians, but how long will that last? While I suppose it's possible that those citizens moved to unincorporated Shelby County without knowing it was unincorporated Shelby County, most probably chose it because it was not Memphis. How many will stay once they are part of Memphis? And once they're gone, the city will still have to provide all of its services to those that remain. Forever. We'll have stretched our land-mass even further for a short-term gain in taxes and an immediate and eternal responsibility to the new parts of the city.

Further ramblings on the subject:

• Memphis does not need Memphians who don't want to be Memphians. Unwilling Memphians easily become permanent Memphis trolls.
• Memphis needs to grow, but it should grow up and in, not out. Anyway, given the population decline of Memphis over the past three decades, it appears that annexation hasn't even produced growth. Annexation is a failed, outdated and -- I would have hoped -- discredited policy from the 1960's.
• The Memphis of the future has to be the creative Memphis of today, not the sprawl-addicted Memphis of yesterday. Annexation is more than a distraction from the problem-solving and idea-creating we have to do -- it's another problem.
• Annexation will hurt Memphis.