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The decline of Memphis has been sad and predictable.

I grew up in the Mid-South; back in the late 70s/early 80s, Memphis was the place to go for a concert, eat at a decent restaurant, or enjoy an event like the Beale Street Music Festival.

It was also a decent place to live. I had an aunt and uncle who lived in Whitehaven, a suburb sandwiched between Graceland and the Mississippi state line. Nice, middle-class neighborhoods, decent schools and relatively low crime (in those days).

Now, after decades of one-party rule, Memphis is the urban wasteland you describe. Parts of downtown look like a war zone; I was back in the area for a conference three years ago, held at the downtown Marriott, barely a mile from Beale Street. We were told not to walk beyond the hotel parking lot at night. If we planned to go to Beale, drive your car—stay off public transportation. Beale was relatively safe, but if you ventured more than three blocks beyond the clubs and restaurants, you were taking life in your own hands.

Whitehaven, which was once a peaceful suburb, is now the hood, gang and crime-infested. Virtually anyone able fled the city long ago and now lives in eastern Shelby County, Fayette County, or DeSoto County, Mississippi. Even the large private hospitals like Methodist and Baptist tore down their urban locations and now have smaller hospitals outside the city limits. If you’re sick or injured downtown or in places like Orange Mound, you wind up at The Med, which probably handles more gunshot cases than any facility this side of Baghdad. Or Chicago.

In 1960, Memphis and Atlanta had roughly the same population. Fifty-five years later, Atlanta has left Memphis in the dust. True, Atlanta has its share of problems (including a corrupt ruling class), but the city has also attracted companies that helped spur regional growth. Memphians should thank their lucky stars that Fred Smith decided to move FedEx from Little Rock to Memphis; without it, Memphis would be in far worse shape.

Mayor Wharton is living proof that Memphis’s ruling class is just as adept as the Reverend Jackson and Al Sharpton in diverting attention to non-issues while the city literally collapses around them.

More that a decade ago, Holiday Inns—a company founded and built in Memphis—moved its corporate headquarters to Atlanta. That alone speaks volumes about the decline of Memphis.