MEMPHIS, Tenn– To say the least, it wasn’t a pretty picture of Memphis.
Trash illegally dumped not far away from the busy intersection of Winchester and Ridgeway in the Hickory Hill area made for an eyesore.
A.J. Kelly, who lives in Memphis, told WREG he’s bothered by just how bad the problem has gotten.
“I think Memphis could be a lot better. It’s dirty down here. I think it should be cleaned up and everything,” Kelly said.
It was hard to miss as city work crews used heavy equipment try to remove tons of garbage.
It was all in response to the outcry of people wanting areas such as this one cleaned up.
City Councilman Berlin Boyd appeared on WREG’s Live at 9 to talk about efforts to reduce blight.
“I think once we tighten up on legislation to address that issue, we will have a full way and initiatives of fighting our blight in our city,” he said.
While he’s looking to the law, others have taken to the streets to get things cleaned up.
Memphians gathered together to fight blight in what’s being called Bluff City Snapshot Initiative.
To help fight blight, volunteers used cell phone apps to keep track of which properties needed to be cleaned up.
City leaders will soon begin reviewing data collected on more than 200,000 parcels of land.
“We have to figure out where it is, the severity of it and when can we look to put our resources because we have limited resources,” said the Memphis Public Works Director Robert Knecht.
“Cleaning up this city and cleaning up the trash, cleaning up the blight is very important to me. That’s why we wanted to jump on this in the first 30 days. We need to measure where we are and then work on cleaning it up” Mayor Jim Strickland added.
It’s a clean up plan that could lead to a more picturesque view of Memphis and one with less blight.