So you see no issue whatsoever with a blatant gerrymandering of the jurisdiction to protect only high income residential areas for something that is allegedly targeted at improving general public safety? Ok then.
If every residential area wanted to be safer, I would have a problem with it. And I would be all about letting any contiguous area vote to be a part of the district. But they generally aren't going to vote to be part of it. If they would, they would just elect better judges and city officials in the first place.
I don’t really follow this logic. There’s not a single employer out there (public or private) that considers your commute or where you live within a given metro area when determining how much to pay you for an in-person office job within that area. And the increasing trend of remote work has made this even less important.
There are two parties to any employment arrangement. The employer may not care about how far the employee drives, but I guarantee you the employee cares. Employers have to pay more to compensate for shittier parts of the job. Sometimes you can get lucky with somebody that actually likes something unpopular (like maybe a good engineer that likes working in BFE at whatever manufacturing plant). But on the whole, you have to pay more or accept worse employees if the job comes with negatives like living in an undesirable place or having to have a big commute to live somewhere decent.
You are arguing about stuff way out on the margins here. And also I’m not sure if you’re aware, but a 30-45 minute commute is pretty common for metro area residents of all major cities, even those that are smaller and safer than Jackson. That’s just not really a problem at all in the grand scheme of things, as far as the state is concerned.
A 30-45 commute is pretty common, but most of those places involve nicer suburbs, or cities, or usually, both. The commute is generally longer because the city is desirable and expensive, not because the city is ****** and you have to drive that far to get away from it.
It’s not going to go a long way (or any way) to achieving your stated goal to get the population of Jackson to actually start growing again. Those days are long gone. The best case for Jackson is that the annual (and inevitable) DECLINE in population of top earners and taxpayers becomes manageable enough and slow enough to where businesses can still remain open or at least have some stability to be able to plan relocation or contingencies for continued negative economic conditions, and also give city government a more reliable picture of the long term tax revenue planning. A course reversal is not possible. It’s not ever going to be a growing city again, and that fate was sealed long ago. But if it achieves the above, its still better than nothing, and I’d be all for it if I were a Jacksonian.
My stated goal is to make it viable. It'd be great if it grows, but it would be a big deal just to give more people the ability to live and work in Jackson without it being a major sacrifice. Make Jackson a little bit safer and convince them it won't be a risky investment, and you'll see people give up their commute for a home closer to work. Make it safer and put some sort of voucher/school choice program in place to take the sting out of paying for private school, and there are tons of families that would by happy to gain an hour a day by shortening their commute.
And you'll also pick up some people that have Mississippi ties but want to live in some sort of city, even if it's small.
