Steve Cohen (D-TN09) took to the floor of the US House yesterday and defended Memphis in the wake of an article in Forbes that called Memphis America’s Third Most Miserable City.
From a report in the CA:
“They didn’t consider the best barbecue in the United States of America. Some of the greatest music. Beale Street. A great tourist center. Gorgeous sunsets on the Mississippi River. They didn’t consider the people of Memphis or the creativity that’s emanated from there,” he said.
snip
Inviting Forbes to revisit, Cohen also noted that the city has “a great optometry school.
“Sometimes it’s in the eye of the beholder,” he concluded. “Maybe they’ll leave with 20-20 vision.
While I doubt that the speech will have any real impact on the Forbes’ coverage of Memphis, we need to keep the good things about our city in mind, even if much of what we hear in the media focuses on the challenges we face. That doesn’t mean ignoring the challenges, but working together to address the challenges rather “accepting” them through passivity.