A Modest Proposal: The 51st State of Deltania
Once again, long stories on the woes of Memphis and Jackson, MS in the Wall Street Journal this week set me to thinking of constructive solutions.
Welcome to Deltania — the 51st state, capital in Memphis. The boundaries are Mississippi west of I-55 and north of I-20 to include Vicksburg, Greenville, Greenwood and Tunica; northeast Arkansas east of Little Rock to include West Memphis and Helena; Tennessee across the Tennessee River, past Jackson, to the Shelby County-Memphis border.
Pretty much The Cotton Kingdom of Olden Days.
Alternate 51st state name: BlackandBlue. Memphis would be the most populous city, an obvious choice for the new Capitol building, and room to grow at more than 300 square miles. The humdrum name “Mid-South” used to pertain to, among other things, the coverage area of The Commercial Appeal.
The suburbs of Arlington, Germantown, Collierville, Lakeland, Bartlett and Millington — already practiced at the do’s and don’ts of secesh from the school district fiasco of 2011 — would stay in the state of Tennessee with their friends in Middle and East Tennessee.
Secession? Such a shocking word. School district secession was actually a relatively easy thing after the hostile surrender of the Memphis City Schools charter in 2010. Statehood is a tougher nut, but who is to say it is impossible in today’s political climate and federal government shutdown? Lawmakers can do most anything if they set their minds to it. Bipartisanship and assimilation are yesterday’s mashed potatoes. This could be the rare movement that brings Red and Blue together.
Deltania is not a new idea. Memphis magazine put it out there as a flight of fancy many years ago, before Bush, Clinton, Obama, and Trump. Now it seems to have real legs. Tennessee is red hot, especially the future verdant megalopolis from Nashville to Murfreesboro to Chattanooga that has real estate developers drooling over the site of the music festival Bonnaroo in Manchester.
Statehood would spark a revival of the downtown Memphis office market. Well, perhaps not. Jackson, MS downtown is pretty lifeless since the days of lawmakers dining and drinking at the Sun and Sand Motel, George Street Grocery, and the Mayflower Cafe when I was a cub reporter there in 1980.
Still, the details can be worked out. In 1990, Mississippi lawmakers created a booming casino industry as an afterthought. There is no shortage of incentive to seeing the Blacks and Blues go their own way under a new flag.