Cities 108 (2021) 102987

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Cities
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cities

Grey to green: Tracing the path to environmental transformation and T

regeneration of a major industrial city
Bernard M. Kithekaa, , Elizabeth D. Baldwinb, Robert B. Powellb
⁎

a
Kinesiology Department, Missouri State University, 901 S National Ave, Springfield, MO 65897, United States of America
b
Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, Clemson University, 271A Lehotsky Hall, Clemson, SC 29634, United States of America

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: The current study investigates the environmental transformation of Chattanooga, a city imbued with environ-
Chattanooga mental paradoxes, in the context of turning points and trajectories. The research analyses events beginning the
Turning points industrial prominence of Chattanooga in the post-World War era, environmental decay in the late 1960s and
Sustainability early 1970s, to the present day ‘green’ economy. Twenty five key informants were interviewed one-onone. Data
Environmental history
was corroborated with review of documents and archival records, and field observations. Findings show distinct
Citizen engagement
trajectories and turning points in the city's environmental history, backed by key decisions that helped transform
reliance on heavy manufacturing to environmentally cleaner industries and a thriving service industry. The
study captures urban resilience and the power of citizen visioning and community engagement. Lessons could be
used to inform United States' rustbelt cities that have the same natural endowments and are still struggling to
revitalize themselves socioeconomically.

1. Introduction
Cities are complex dynamic systems that reflect strong feedback
loops between social and economic forces and the physical environment
(e.g., McNeil, 2003). While the natural environment provides crucial
ecosystem services to urban residents, a city's impact on the environ-
ment is mainly negative (Satterthwaite, 2008). As cities grow in size
and function, they change the natural environment through extraction
of natural resources to support industries and meet needs of the con-
centrated populations. In the process, cities inevitably create massive
wastes and by-products, which are deposited into the air, ground and
waterways. However, cities can make adjustments and reduce the ex-
tent, intensity and effect of these negative impacts (Coaffee, 2008;
Pickett et al., 2004). This study investigated the recent environmental
transformation of the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, U.S.A., and how
changes in its production and socio-economic facets are reflected in,
and have impacted the physical environment, and the people living
there.
Between 1940s and 1960s, Chattanooga established itself as a major
industrial center manufacturing steel and ammunition for WWII and
other United States military needs. However, this industrial growth,
supported in part by favorable geography and federal policies, led to
massive pollution issues. In the late 1960s, this pollution level culmi-
nated in the city being declared ‘the dirtiest city in America’ (Marston,
2012). Economic woes of the 1970s, including collapse of the industrial
economy, loss of skilled workers and dereliction of physical infra-
structure further worsened the natural, economic, and social fabric of
Chattanooga. Evidence of revival would not be seen until the late 1980s
when socioeconomic and environmental conditions started to change
improve. The story and lessons learned from this urban revitalization
provides potential guidance for other cities in need of post-industrial
recovery (Kitheka et al., 2019).
Chattanooga's transformation has received national and global
media attention (Marston, 2012), but to date no detailed study has been
conducted to document the city's environmental history or con-
textualized the turning points in the context of environmental trans-
formation. This study is an attempt to capture Chattanooga's transition
from industrial powerhouse through environmental and economic
decay to recovery within a period of less than two decades. Towards
this end, key turning points are isolated with specific focus on factors
leading to its current ‘green city’ status as highlighted in media (e.g.
Eichenthal & Windeknecht, 2008; Marston, 2012). The study is focused
on the following questions: What key events mark Chattanooga's en-
vironmental history? What were the turning points in the city's grey to
green transformation? Who was involved and what were the key de-
cisions that let to building green infrastructures? Are there lessons for
similar cities in the United States and beyond?

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: mkitheka@missouristate.edu (B.M. Kitheka), rbp@clemson.edu (R.B. Powell).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2020.102987
Received 22 November 2019; Received in revised form 1 July 2020; Accepted 28 September 2020
0264-2751/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
B.M. Kitheka, et al.
Fig. 1. Study site (map courtesy of Dr. Toby Dogwiler, MSU's GGP Department).
1.1. Contextualizing the study site
Previously known as the ‘place where corn and cotton countries
met’ (Livingood, 1995), Chattanooga (Fig. 1) lies on a fairly flat plain in
the southeastern corner of the state of Tennessee. With a populations
exceeding one hundred-eighty thousand people (U.S Census Bureau,
2019), the city is surrounded by mountains and steep ridges on almost
all sides including Signal Mountains (north), Lookout Mountain (south),
Missionary Ridge (east) and the Elder Mountain (west) (Briney, 2014).
Chattanooga and the surrounding region were originally inhabited
2
Cities 108 (2021) 102987
at varying times by different Native American tribes, including the
Chickamauga and the Cherokee Indians. Archeological evidence shows
human presence in the area over 10,000 years ago (Ezzell, 2013;
Walker, 1968). Granted city charter in 1839, Chattanooga is the seat of
Tennessee's Hamilton County. Nestled on the banks of the Tennessee
River, the city's origins are based on river commerce, largely because of
the utility of Ross' Landing which was built in 1816 (Eaton, 1921;
Lange, 2008).
During the civil war era, Chattanooga served as a strategic location
for distributing resources to support the South's army and was the site
B.M. Kitheka, et al.
of significant battles (Hull, 2008). After the Civil War when rail began
replacing rivers and canals as the principle modes of transportation,
several rail lines were built through Chattanooga connecting eastern
United States and the western frontier (Zimmerman, 1998).
Post-WWI, Chattanooga became a major manufacturing center in
the South, earning it the label ‘Dynamo of Dixie’ (Hull, 2008; Veal,
2011; Wallace, 2008). The city was particularly known for its iron and
steel products, chemical plants, glass manufacturing, plumbing and
heating equipment (Briney, 2014; Eichenthal & Windeknecht, 2008). It
was also the country's largest manufacturer of TNT (Briney, 2014). With
time, smoke and particulates emanating from these industries, and
congestion issues in the urban core caused many residents to relocate
from the traditional residential enclaves in the downtown (i.e. Cameron
Hill, Alton Park and Ridgedale) to the northern suburbs (i.e. Missionary
Ridge, Brainerd and Shepherd Hills.) After World War II, with the
construction and intersection of three interstates, Chattanooga became
a major travel hub that connected four major regional cities: Atlanta,
Nashville, Knoxville and Birmingham (Hull, 2008).
In mid-to-late 1960s, the industries that had propelled the city into
economic prosperity started spelling its doom - the mountains that
provided the city's scenic backdrop gradually became engulfed in pol-
luted air and the waterways were filled with industrial effluents (Poste,
1955). The cascade of the negative events, especially release of toxic
fumes and particulates, culminated into the 1969 federal government's
declaration that, among all the largest industrial cities, Chattanooga's
air was the most polluted in the country. Its heavy industrial past left
the city with serious air and water pollution, dilapidated buildings and
brownfields within its urban core. Reports show that, by the late 1960s,
particulates were three times the levels designated as safe by the En-
vironmental Protection Agency. The Tennessee River riverfront also
became heavily contaminated with industrial effluents (Bunnell, 2002;
Johansson, 2000). Fig. 2 encapsulates some of the environmental issues
and an example of the improvements.
Despite this tainted environmental past and the accompanying so-
cial upheavals, modern-day Chattanooga is celebrated as a regional,
national and global model for citizen-driven urban sustainability and
regeneration. Following failures of the federal government's urban re-
newal program in the 1970s, Chattanooga focused its energies on de-
veloping support from its residents, private businesses and local
charitable organizations to revitalize its city. Millions of dollars were
spent re-designing the downtown, which has transformed the city to a
socially and economically vibrant city. More recently it has won nu-
merous nation-wide environmental improvements awards (Davidson,
2008) including the 2009 Governor's Award for Environmental Ex-
cellence and in 1996 it won the first U.S. President's Council Award for
Sustainable Development, among others (Table 1). Its current economy
is based mainly on environmentally cleaner industries, and because of
better regulations, emit far less toxic materials. Chattanooga has also
repeatedly has been voted a top destination for families in the South
(Davidson, 2008). Furthermore, Chattanooga is the only city in Amer-
ica's history to lose its population and regain it within a period of
10 years – between 1980s and 1990s (Allison & Peters, 2010).
2. Literature review
2.1. Environmental history
Environmental history is the study of the reciprocal relationships
and feedback loops between humankind and the natural environment
across time (McNeil, 2003). Applying a historical lens to the study of
coupled social and natural systems provides the unique ability to isolate
cause and effect, and the implications of changes in one system on the
other while extending moral consideration to the natural world in the
process (Sutter, 2013). For example, the industrial revolution of the late
19th through the 20th century, coupled with policies and politics that
supported unfettered economic growth and an assault on the
3
Cities 108 (2021) 102987
environmental commons led to the worst environmental degradation in
human history (Cronon, 1990; Glover, 2012). These environmental
challenges led to a social response, the formation and growth of the
environmental movement in the 1960s and early 1970s (Asdal, 2003).
Earlier efforts by John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and others,
inspired America's environmental movement through their writings,
but it wasn't until the compromised water, air, and soils s directly im-
pacted urban resident's quality of life that national environmental
protection policies (including Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and
the Wilderness Act) were implemented (Cronon, 1990; McNeil, 2003).
Although citizens often were unaware of how to engage with the
specifics of environmental degradation nationally, people often did so
in the place they lived. However, cities were often excluded in early
environmental reporting. Therefore, understanding cities, their re-
sidents, and how the residents affected the growth of the city, and their
response to their place of nature, is an essential examination (Melosi,
1993). This can be done through the practice of story and narration,
“documenting the environmental consequence of historical change”
(Sutter, 2013). Sutter (2013) notes that solving “global environmental
problems requires a historical perspective”. Sutter's proposition comes
from working through the history of a place, documenting changes and
shifts that happen over time. These changes are often referred to
turning points, and trajectories, and are used for the basis of under-
standing how people in a specific place made changes, what these
changes were and why they made them. Such data in turn will offer
both intrinsic and instrumental lessons from how things worked, or
didn't in a particular place.
2.2. Trajectories and turning points
A trajectory is the continuation on a direction, and a turning point is
the disruption in a trajectory or a deflection in a path (Gotlib &
Wheaton, 1997). A turning point in the history of a place is usually an
action, event, or an idea that directly or indirectly causes a decisive
cultural or social change, ultimately impacting society's way of thinking
or acting (Pritchard, 2013). Turning points often involve particular
experiences, or awareness that result in changes in the direction of a
pathway over the long-term (Teruya & Hser, 2010). Thus, a turning
point is defined by the changes that come after an event rather than the
event itself (Dick & Launius, 2009).
The main challenge with environmental-history turning points re-
search has been arriving at unanimously agreed ‘points of no return’
and the periodization of environmental history outside the general
history of humans and the natural world (Uekötter, 2005). Uekötter and
others appear dismiss the search for turning points in environmental
history arguing that a search for the specific sharp points often proves
elusive because ‘nature does not jump.’ However, there seems to be
some agreement that, if environmental histories are broken into various
fields (e.g. agricultural environmental history or urban environmental
history), it is possible to isolate key turning points in each sector since
the two industrialized at different phases.
To environmental historians, turning points have variably been
described as distinct shifts from ecologically benign lifestyles to either
destructive, or environmentally sustainable, ones (Uekötter, 2005).
Further, some scholars have applied the concept of turning points to
investigate the relationship between per capita growth and environ-
mental degradation, a relationship referred to as the Environmental
Kuznets Curve (EKC) (Cole et al., 1997; Stern, 2004).
This study attempts to delineate the phases of environmental dete-
rioration in Chattanooga and surrounding areas, the subsequent phases
of improvement to the currents state, and the political processes in-
volved. These phases of deterioration and improvement are regarded to
align with economic and environmental perturbations in other regions
and cities in the United States (Grossman & Krueger, 1995).
B.M. Kitheka, et al. Cities 108 (2021) 102987

Derelict building near the bank of Tennessee River in 1980 (l) (courtesy of Cropp, 2012) and
heavy smog in 1960s (r) (courtesy of Chattanooga History Center)

Units storing raw materials for making TNT (l) (courtesy of Chattanooga Library) and heavily
contaminated soil (r) (courtesy of Chattanooga History Center)

North Chattanooga before (l) and after revitalization (r) (courtesy of Cropp, 2012)
Fig. 2. Representations of environmental issues in Chattanooga.

2.3. Urban environmentalism and sustainability
Sustainability is often used to refer to balancing the use of the
planets resources by the current generations so that future generations'
quality of life and economic prosperity is not compromised or jeo-
pardized. As delineated in the United Nation's Our Common Future re-
port on sustainable development, the environment-people-economy
relationship should ensure immediate and long-term satisfaction of
environmental and economic needs (Finco & Nijkamp, 2001; WCED,
1987). For cities, Giménez et al. (2013) argue that sustainability is
based on using available wealth to: 1) make the city economy profitable
(economic viability); 2) enhance welfare and wellbeing of urban re-
sidents in terms of housing, health care, livable environments, cultural
preservation and provision of amenities (socio-cultural viability); and,
3) minimize negative environmental impacts while preserving green
spaces (environmental viability).
Sustainable transformation for cities is, however, much broader
than just making policies that reduce industrial emissions. The ‘green-
path’ transition involves adopting and adapting a full range of coherent
and complimentary technological, institutional and organizational
strategies and policies (Hou et al., 2009; Schilling & Logan, 2008). Due
to the complexity of these coupled human and natural systems, tra-
veling on this sustainability path requires continuous collaborative ef-
fort, continuous collective learning and adaptive management and
openness to change (McGinley & Finegan, 2003).

4
B.M. Kitheka, et al. Cities 108 (2021) 102987

Table 1
Summary of Chattanooga's environmental milestones.
Achievement Details

Citizen engagement in environmental initiatives 1990 feted as global model for community visioning and partnering for sustainability because of its citizen-led, community-driven
air pollution control board.
Free Electric buses Launched 1991 through collaboration between Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority (CARTA), Public Art
Chattanooga and River City Company.
Tennessee Aquarium and Walnut Street Bridge 1992+ recreation and tourism amenities created which are imbued with environmental symbolism.
Sustainability and livability 1996 won the first U.S. President's Council Award for Sustainable Development.
Bike share Launched 2009 with seed funding from Lyndhurst Foundation in partnership with CARTA. Over 33 stations and 300 bikes operate
downtown.
Urban Forestry 2009 won the Outstanding Tree Board Award for preservation, creation and enhancement of urban forests and green spaces.
Citizen awards 2012 attorney Allen McCallie receives Douglas Ferguson National Award by the Trust for Public Land.
2002 environmental educationist Sandra Kurtz wins Tennessee's Environmental Education Association Distinguished Service
Award.
Volkswagen Chattanooga 2014 wins the World Environmental Center's 30th anniversary Gold Metal Award.
Chattanooga Airport 2014 recipient of the Governor's Environmental Stewardship Award for the Pursuit of Excellence.

3. Methods cultural realms of the city-system.

This research follows case study qualitative methodological pro-
tocol. Case study research helps to capture complexity of phenomena in
the context where events are still unfolding (Hartley, 2004; Luck et al.,
2006; Stake, 1995). Through the use of multiple data sources, the ‘case’
approach provides opportunities to triangulate and verify a phenom-
enon (Baxter & Jack, 2008; Yin, 2003). A case study can be both in-
trinsic, focused on the detailed aspects of a case, and have instrumental
components that can be useful to other similar cases (Stake, 1995). This
study began with the focus on the case of Chattanooga because of its
documented status as an exemplar case to study city environmental
regeneration. Here, the city of Chattanooga is the unit of analysis.
Findings can be used to help understand, in the context socioeconomic
changes, environmental trends and turning points in similar U.S. cities.
3.1. Sampling procedure
Key informants were identified through purposeful sampling.
Although there is no universal criterion for determining who they are
(Hasson et al., 2000), key informants are people whose positions in the
research setting affords some specialist knowledge about the people and
processes that is more extensive and detailed than ordinary people
(Marshall, 1996; Payne & Payne, 2004). Payne and Payne (2004) note
that key informants (also referred to as experts) should have the ca-
pacity to speak about the place, events or phenomenon from their own
perspective. The key informants were drawn from different sectors
(including city officials, city council members, heads of non-profit or-
ganizations, retired major, lawyers, university professors, business
leaders and community leaders, among others) with a long history of
work and engagement within the city. The study particularly targeted
people who were born in Chattanooga by the late 1960s, or who had
lived in the city since the early 1980s, a period identified in reports and
through informal interviews as ‘the watershed moment’ for Chatta-
nooga.
Recruitment of interviewees followed a sampling process where the
lead author asked well-situated people in the city leadership and the
community for recommendations about individuals that were well-in-
formed about Chattanooga's transformation and lived in Chattanooga
for an extended period of time. The first group of key informants then
helped identify additional people with expertise and experience in
Chattanooga's revival. A pool of candidates was generated from the list
provided. The first interviewees were selected from a list suggested by a
senior officials with the city government, a Chamber of Commerce se-
nior staff, former senior staff of Chattanooga Ventures and a University
of Tennessee at Chattanooga professor. Efforts were made to draw
participants from all public and private sectors in the city with re-
presentation from political, economic, environmental and social-
Two exceptions regarding length of time in place were made in the
interviewee pool; one for a director of Chattanooga's Chamber of
Commerce, and the other for a director of Chattanooga History Center
(CHC). The former arrived in Chattanooga in 2002 to take up his senior
position at the chambers, the institution behind establishment of the
Chattanooga Air Pollution Control Board, and the decision to allow a
leading auto plant to set its North American hub in the city. The di-
rector of CHC was selected partly because of his position, but largely
because his thesis while at UTC in the 1990s focused on Chattanooga's
history.
3.2. Data collection
Face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted in partici-
pants' work places, the downtown public library and other public
places. Interview sessions lasted between 34 and 126 min over a period
of three months, between July and September 2014. To schedule an
interview, the lead author made calls or sent out email requests for
availability. Upon agreeing to participate, a suitable venue and date
were set for the interview. Interviews were digital recorded followed by
detailed note-taking. Interview questions focused on the city's general
history and personal experiences and memories of specific crucial
events.
In total 25 participants (75% male, 92% white) were interviewed.
Twenty of these were Chattanooga-born, three were transplants (1950s,
1971 and early 1980s) and the other two were the aforementioned
exceptions. The participants were between the ages of late 40s and mid-
80s.
Additional data were obtained through the review of archival data
and grey literature, and observations from multiple visits to the city
over a three year period. These visits provided a deeper understanding
of the system and geographic reference points in the city discussed in
the interviews. Documents reviewed included newspaper reports,
books, company reports, memos, maps and images offered by the
Chattanooga Public Library. Multiple site visits and participant ob-
servations allowed the researcher to participate, both actively and
passively, in the ongoing activities at the study site (as recommended
by Guest et al., 2012; Patton, 2002). Photography and site visits to
places discussed in the interviews allowed in-depth understanding of
the study site, and verification of information provided by the partici-
pants.
3.3. Data analysis
Immediately following completion of the interviews, all recordings
and notes were reviewed. Data collection continued until data satura-
tion related to important turning points. Transcription was done word-

5
B.M. Kitheka, et al.
for-word and cross-checked for accuracy. Open coding of the interview
data was conducted using MAXQDA data analysis computer software.
This inductive procedure involved buildings codes, establishing themes
and categories related to natural environment, manufacturing, pollu-
tion and sustainability issues in Chattanooga (as suggested by Guest
et al., 2012). Photos taken by lead author and images obtained from the
local public library were also used in building codes and themes, and
informing the case's narrative.
3.4. Verification
To control potential researcher's bias and ensure instrumentation
rigor in this study, review of documents and archival material, detailed
field notes and field observations were employed to complement key
informant interviews as recommended by Chenail (2011). To limit bias
during the interviewing process, survey questions were reviewed and
pilot-tested by doctoral students at Clemson University. Further, ver-
batim transcriptions followed interviews to guarantee accuracy of data.
Member checks, involving soliciting feedback on scripts from the par-
ticipants, were used to guard against transcription and coding validity
challenges as recommended by Maxwell (2013).
To enrich interviews, the lead author made three field visits to
Chattanooga lasting multiple days and conducted informal interviews
between 2011 and 2013 before the actual data collection events started.
This also helped identify interviewees and pertinent environmental is-
sues. Further, second and third authors spent time personally
throughout their life visiting the area, and professionally, both bringing
students on annual class trips and to attended national and interna-
tional conferences in Chattanooga. Lastly, deliberate efforts were made
to interview people from as many sectors and races of the local com-
munity as possible. However, it was impossible to completely eliminate
coverage error due to time and resource constraints. Future research
using both interviews and surveys to explore more about Chattanooga's
environment and socio-economic linkages, should involve larger sam-
ples of residents, non-residents and also people who left Chattanooga.
Follow-up studies should also consider more diversity among partici-
pants especially women, minorities and youths.
4. Findings
Study findings are presented in chronological order showing distinct
events in Chattanooga as described by the participants and supported
by secondary sources and other archived materials. The current section
is organized under the broad themes of: essential geography; rise of an
industrial power; America's dirtiest city – a sobering label; an inspira-
tion to rebuild; and, capital investment and environmental citizenry. To
protect the participants' identities, data were coded confidentially and
information associated with participants made unidentifiable. In re-
porting, participants were randomly assigned codes, P01 to P30.
4.1. Essential geography
To understand the environmental history of Chattanooga, especially
how the city became a major heavy manufacturing industrial city
leading to serious air pollution, one has to first appreciate its location.
Participants underscored this geographical attribute of the city, citing
the fact that Chattanooga is surrounded by mountains and ridges that
exacerbated pollution by making it difficult for the air to circulate or
heat to escape creating what is known as temperature inversion. P20
recounted:
The heavy industries were pretty much in the downtown area. They
contributed to the smog. If you've been in the mountains, and you come
over the ridge-cut, you can see that Chattanooga sits in a bowl, sur-
rounded by mountains. The industries were in the inner core, especially
along the river, and the pollution they created got trapped - they call that
6
Cities 108 (2021) 102987
‘temperature inversion.’ You could be on the mountain and you couldn't
really be able to clearly see buildings downtown because the dirty air
would just hover in the bowl.
A former Editor of Chattanooga Times (P29) recalled the days of
pollution and temperature inversions in the era when smoke stacks
dominated the city's skyline:
You could walk out, late afternoon, and it would appear like you had this
massive fog that had rolled in. If you had a white shirt … it would be
soaked in soot. It was because the way Chattanooga city is situated, the
beauty part of Chattanooga which everybody talks about – we sit in a
bowl. So, we would have these heat inversions, and all the soot and the
pollution coming out of these plants got caught in this bowl; it wouldn't go
any place, it would sit there. And so, part of what has made Chattanooga
the place where people want to come is also part of the reason those times
it was holding a lot of these emissions and made it the dirtiest city in
America.
A prominent politician and civil rights activist (P21) also had vivid
memories about how the natural setting of Chattanooga played into
degradation of its air quality:
It felt bad to be declared the dirtiest city in the country, and I knew that it
was true because I lived here when we had what was called the ‘inversion’
where all the smoke was coming up and would go up to the top of the
mountains and it would be so hot you couldn't escape it, so the haze
would come back down in the form of a haze.
4.2. Rise of an industrial power
Chattanooga's industrial growth achieved national prominence be-
tween 1920s and 1950s with source of wealth and employment pegged
on heavy industries including textile mills, foundries, steel and glass
manufacturing, TNT manufacturing, furniture making and patent
medicines (Eichenthal & Windeknecht, 2008). However, during this
pre-dating environmental movement, federal agencies or policies to
regulate air and water pollution were non-existent as observed by P15:
From the1940s our strong point was our manufacturing industry. At one
point in time we were the 9th largest industrial city in the country.
Chattanooga and Birmingham were kind of sunbelt-snowbelt cities that
were stuck in the South. They were heavy, heavy manufacturing com-
munities, like Pittsburg. And then it kind of started to change. It changed
because we, by virtue of having so much manufacturing, it was ruining
our air because, they didn't have federal rules in place to keep the pol-
lution down.
Notably, the World War era is marked by major events in the city
besides growth of manufacturing. It is also the period of America's Great
Depression, which prompted President Roosevelt to establish the
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to help spur economic growth and
control flooding along the Tennessee River Valley along which
Chattanooga is located. One of TVA's first tasks was to build the
Chickamauga Dam, situated nine miles from downtown. The dam
changed environmental and economic landscape of the region. P05, a
keen student of Chattanooga history recalled:
TVA closed up the dam at Chickamauga in late 1930s and opened it up
in 1940. So, you've got flood control of the city for the first time. The
industries that were down the river were not concerned about the river
flooding anymore. I mean, you used to have floods going back all the way
to the National Cemetery in feet-deep water, two to three miles from the
riverfront. Incredible floods in 1867 and 1973. A steamboat coming
down the river turned up Market Street and went up the street. It was that
badly flooded. It was picking people up 2nd and 3rd floor windows.
Another identifiable moment around this time came after the vic-
tories of WWII after American soldiers returned home bringing a sense
B.M. Kitheka, et al. Cities 108 (2021) 102987

of pride to the entire nations. The U.S. had: suddenly realized that it was
Chattanooga had three kinds of pollutants: sulfur dioxide, particulates
the strongest power in the world. The Soviet Union had not yet taken off, and
and oxides of nitrogen. The EPA studied Chattanooga because oxides of
Europe was devastated from WWII, Japan was still in ruins, England was
nitrogen are basically what come from combustion and automobiles.
still on its knees, and all of a sudden, the U.S. is, and all those millions of
And, so, the catalytic converter and other things, were designed based on
guys who'd been in the service came out of the service, the American
studies in Chattanooga, based on Chattanooga's Community Health
economy began to explode and take off, and the South too. (P01)
Environmental Surveillance System Study by EPA. We were one of the
Heavy manufacturing peaked in the late 1950 through the 1960s
first cities to set up its own Air Pollution Control Board, which still op-
and continued to dominate Chattanooga's economy way towards the
erates.
1960s. However, so after industries started closing or relocating to
other countries because of stringent regulations. The single biggest polluter then was the defunct Volunteer Army
Ammunition Plant which manufactured TNT, in the process emitting
In 1960 there were foundries, a boil maker for combustion, various
toxic plumes, particulates, fly-ash and ‘red water’ as reported by
heavy manufacturing or cast iron foundries, making fire hydrants and
Chattanooga Time in June 1968. The most polluted parts of the city
break assemblies for cars, cast iron pipes. We had tanneries, a glass
included the area between McCallie Avenue and the 9th Street, South
company, and a lot of heavy manufacturing. Until the late 60s, over 70%
Broad Street and the area near the Federal Building. Chattanooga was
of jobs in Chattanooga were still in ‘dirty’ manufacturing, but disaster
between a rock and a hard place with pressure growing from the
was brewing for our economy and workers; things started changing,
Chamber of Commerce and APCB, but mostly by the federal govern-
people started losing jobs and companies started relocating to other
ment.
places.
(P23) And so, EPA, which was established around 1969/1972, under the
unlikely presidency of Richard Nixon, began to impose rules.
Chattanooga was basically being pushed had to clean up by federal
regulations, which many people here who owned factories resisted. The
4.3. America's dirtiest city – a sobering label
local pollution control board began to figure out: ‘so what are the ways
that we can reduce the emissions, meet federal guidelines, but keep
A major occurrence, and perhaps the one which most of the parti-
running foundries.’ So, somebody in Washington basically said ‘you can't
cipants referred to as the ‘defining moment’ for Chattanooga, was 1969
keep doing what you are doing.’
when pollution reached its peak and the Department of Health,
(P15)
Education and Welfare declared Chattanooga's air the worst polluted in
the country. The news was also broadcasted on national television.
Some people who witnessed this moment have also called it a ‘sobering’ 4.4. An inspiration to reimagine
moment in the history of the city (Bunnell, 2002).
A national event, the moon landing, brought about an awakening of
I think that news cast with Walter Cronkite on CBS TV was the turning
cleaning up the air in Chattanooga and other cities in the United States
point. Because it did not only change the city-community and the
was recalled by P11. The view of the earth from the moon was a global
economy underpinning the community, it embarrassed everybody. It
phenomenon, and demonstrated here as a local phenomenon affecting
really did. And at the time you did not have Facebook or things like that.
change. Ostensibly, P11 was widely cited by many participants as being
I mean this is Walter Cronkite and it's huge, huge. So we were screwed.
one of the five key individuals behind the renaissance of Chattanooga
You could walk out, late afternoon, and it would appear like you had this
while at the helm of a prominent local foundation:
massive fog that had rolled in.
(P29) There are some of us who think that when people landed on the moon in
1969, and for the first time we saw a picture of the earth from the moon,
Newspaper reports in the late sixties, however, show that this an-
this beautiful blue globe that was the beginning of the transformation.
nouncement was not news to some concerned residents of Chattanooga.
Our consciousness about where we are was awakened - if you look
Many active civic people including doctors, educators, Chamber of
around and you see sooty air and you see oily water, and then you look
Commerce workers and journalists were already aware that the city's
at that picture of the earth (from the moon), you question yourself: ‘you
air was severely polluted and had started to demand for action, espe-
want the earth to be like that, you want your place, your community to be
cially to reduce high rates of chronic bronchitis and respiratory ill-
like that?’ I honestly believe that picture of the earth was one of the
nesses. In fact, on December 25, 1968, Chattanooga Times, the leading
beginning, and it was important that it was an image not a lecture. It was
local newspapers then, had reported, almost a year before the an-
a picture that reshaped our sense that we have a beautiful place, but also
nouncement was made on national television:
sense of a small world within the universe. It was through that con-
‘Chattanooga presumably will remain one of the dirtiest cities in the sciousness that the federal government made the decision to begin to
United States until outsiders come in and set up proper criteria and de- regulate what we did to our air and water.
mand a healthy atmosphere for wives and children’ because ‘the city
The period between 1970 and early 1980s did not feature promi-
could not meet clean air standards.’
nently in most participants' recollections, but P29 recalls a particular
The aforementioned group of concerned citizens initiated the socioeconomic rousing:
Chattanooga Air Pollution Control Bureau (APCB) in 1969, among the
This is the period of transition going on. The then Mayor was trying to
first in the country – APCB also instigated formation of the
lower the city footprint through annexation. Chattanooga was one of the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which was mandated to im-
10 cities that were under a court order to integrate schools; to bring more
plement the Clean Air Act of 1970 (EPA, 2013). The birth of EPA was
balance into school system. But you had the beginning influence of pri-
coincidentally preceded by celebrations of the first Earth Day in March
vate foundations that came from a number of businesses that were
1974, inherently a culmination of events from increased consciousness
headquartered here: the insurance field, Coca Cola Bottling, and so you
about the health and future of the environment in the United States
had a very significant philanthropic footprint to draw from in this period
(Earth Day Network, 2014). Further, studies of air pollutants, mainly
of time – Chattanooga started questioning; “are we competing with
sulfur dioxide, particulates and oxides of nitrogen in Chattanooga are
Atlanta or are we going to be satisfied with who we are?”
credited with invention of the catalytic converter. A former senior city
official (P27) recalled: Other isolated events participants recalled around this time include

7
B.M. Kitheka, et al.
the construction of the downtown Public Library in 1976, and the
change in Lyndhurst Foundation (the leading philanthropic institution
in the community) management Bunnell (2002). Bunnell also reports
on the 1976 Downtown Plan to beautify the city through tree planting.
Following collapse of industries, Chattanooga experienced mass
exodus because of loss of employment. Bunnell (2002, p. 83) records:
“Between 1980 and 1990, Chattanooga lost over 10% of its population,
the ninth greatest percentage population loss of any American city with
a population more than 100,000. Also, in the mid-1980s, the city's last
department store was closed”. The early 1980s would also prove to be
significant to Chattanooga. With funding from Lyndhurst Foundation, a
renowned architect opened the Urban Design Studio. The facility al-
lowed architecture students from the University of Tennessee to in-
vestigate Chattanooga's ‘inherited footprint’ and model a future, sus-
tainable city by “strengthening and reinvigorating the public realm”
(Bunnell, 2002, p. 84).
The next major undertaking for the city was the 1982 formation of
another ‘game-changer’, the Moccasin Bend Task Force, a joint city-
county government's initiative. A voluntary effort with open and vo-
luntary style of participation, the task force was mandated to study and
make recommendations on the future of Moccasin Bend, a strategic
publically owned tract of land formed by Tennessee River near the base
of Lookout Mountain. The task force drew the 1985 Tennessee
Riverpark Master Plan and appointed River City Company as the im-
plementing agency. A prominent civic leader (P08) recollected:
Their assignment was to look at the Moccasin Bend and what could be
done there. They immediately recognized that they had to look at
Moccasin Bend in the context of the river that is about 600 acres of
county-state owned land – it became a much bigger challenge than the
600 acres. It became ‘what do we do about the 20 miles of the river from
the dam to the county line, which includes the downtown? How do we
make this the key element of our community? How do we see ourselves
differently because we see the river; that is what makes our community?’
1983, the year the Chattanooga Ventures (CV) was formed, was
vivid in all participants' memories. CV was a community-based, non-
profit entity funded by Lyndhurst Foundation that engaged on a public
visioning process called ‘Vision 2000’ on ways to positively transform
the forlorn city. However, according to one of its former directors, the
terms ‘environment’ and ‘sustainability’ would not appear in the first 40
goals and 200 projects of Vision 2000 until the second planning
document, ReVision 2000, ten years later. P06 added:
Health and the environment were bumped so low such that in the first
round of vision the word environment cannot be found. If you went back
and did a search of it now, it is not in there, not one word. Health issues,
not there. But that changed in the second plan.
One of the main features of ReVision 2000 was facilitation of
community-based environmental forums that ran for two years, and
sponsorship of environmental mini grants to support community-led
environmental initiatives. By matter-of-fact, the word environment
appears in almost every goal of the revised document.
The early to mid-1990s, confidence started soaring among residents.
There was a collective sense of accomplishment in the community when
the Air Pollution Control Bureau announced that the city had, for the
second year in a row, met air quality standards set by EPA.
In the 1990s when we reached clean air attainment, we had a sense of
confidence that we could do things; that the clean air designation meant
something to us – it spurred an effort to do more. That is about the time
the word ‘sustainability’ begun to be used. The ‘environmental city’ was
the theme that we used at that time. Chattanooga Venture sponsored a
conference called the ‘environmental forums’ in 1991 and 1992, which
were very instrumental in turning around public opinion. We in-
tentionally brought together both pro-business and pro-environment sides
and we were making the point that you could have a good pro-
8
Cities 108 (2021) 102987
environment and pro-business economy. So, by bringing those people
together in the same forum, we created an atmosphere that had never
existed in Chattanooga. Up to that point there was a great deal of tension
between pro- environment and pro-economy forces.
(P08)
4.5. Capital investment and environmental citizenship
Between 1992 and 1993, Chattanooga made two bold environ-
mental investments that still reverberate today. First, the opening of the
Tennessee Aquarium and second, the re-opening of the Walnut Street
Bridge purely for pedestrian use. A retired professor and director of a
local research institute (P20) reminisced:
The Tennessee Aquarium was the first major big change. The aquarium is
now 25 years old I think; and if you really think about that, the first thing
that Chattanooga did was an environmental thing, because the Tennessee
Aquarium is the largest fresh water aquarium in the world. It is all about
the streams and the rivers that serve the environment. I think that is very
interesting…when we think about the rebirth of Chattanooga, we think
about the neighborhoods, the fabric downtown, the places to eat, the
places to play; but the first thing was about the physical environment.
The aquarium was largely the idea of the Lyndhurst Foundation,
Tennessee's first privately-owned grant-making organization, which put
in seed money and eventually largest financial contribution for its
completion. Then, an aquarium was a far-fetched idea in the region,
particularly for an inland, middle-sized city like Chattanooga, but it was
exquisitely executed. The aquarium became a catalyst for downtown
revival and for bringing back residents to the urban core. However,
although it has been largely successful, not everyone received it en-
thusiastically:
Chattanooga is a Hamlet, and so to build an aquarium in Chattanooga
was arrogant; it was an act of hubris! And one of the things that made it
work was the decision ‘don't go copying any other aquarium, make this
the world biggest freshwater aquarium’.
(P01)
From recollections by P01 and P19, the theme of the aquarium was
to ‘focus on the rain drop that falls on the Smoky Mountains and follow that
rain drop to the Gulf of Mexico’. Ross Landing, the site where the
aquarium is situated was classified as a brownfield previously having
had been used a tire store, radiator shop and car wash. About a year
after completion and opening of the Aquarium, rehabilitation of the
Walnut Street Bridge (… then, and still is, the longest pedestrian-only
bridge in the world - P15), was finalized and opened as a pedestrians'
only bridge. The conversion project was jointly funded by the federal
and city governments. Reports show that the direct cost of demolishing
the bridge, not estimating the externalities and the future recreation-
based financial savings from use of the bridge, would have been double
the rehabilitation cost (Bunnell, 2002).
The opening of the two institutions and their affiliated infra-
structures stimulated a cascade of other developments which had con-
siderable environmental themes: opening of the first segment of the
Tennessee River Park (1994), the Creative Discovery Museum (1995),
and the IMAX Theatre (1996). These novelty downtown recreation
amenities would eventually become anchor for modern Chattanooga's
thriving tourism industry (Kitheka et al., 2019).
The years between 1997 and 2008 were pivotal in the clean-up ef-
forts not only for Chattanooga but also for the entire Hamilton County.
Following additional tightening of federal regulations, the county put
extra efforts to clean up its environment and urban precincts. Using
revised pollution standards, Hamilton County managed to further re-
duce air pollution and improve air quality. The county was designated
to have attained federal standards for ozone in 2005, and significantly
managed to scale down pollution-related illnesses in 2008 (Bunnell,
B.M. Kitheka, et al. Cities 108 (2021) 102987

Table 2
Summary of Chattanooga trajectories and turning points.
Period Events Main actor

1933: Tennessee Valley Authority
1940–1950: WWII
1969: Most Polluted City
1970: Earth Day
1972: Air Quality
1978: Lyndhurst Foundation
1984: Chattanooga Venture
1985: Riverpark Master Plan
1989: Air Quality
1992: Aquarium; Electric Shuttles
1993: Walnut Street Bridge; Re-Vision
2000
2008: Air Quality; Volkswagen
Post-2015: Gig City; Cleaner Industries
Headquartered in Chattanooga, TVA was established to stimulate economic development along the USA government
Tennessee Valley in the states of Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Kentucky. TVA constructed
Chickamauga Dam late 1930s to control flooding in Chattanooga.
Chattanooga becomes the 9th largest industrial city in the United States, fueled by World War II USA government and City of
economy particularly TNT manufacturing. Chattanooga
Unregulated emissions from industries and coal furnaces cause unprecedented air pollution. The USA government
federal government declares Chattanooga air the most polluted city in the nation precipitating
formation of Air Pollution Control Board.
The United States celebrate the first Earth Day and Chattanooga declares environmental health a USA government
major goal going forward; Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established.
The 1969 Air Pollution Control Ordinance is attained, an achievement that receives national City of Chattanooga
attention and is celebrated with Clean Air Week event in the city.
Originally created in 1938, Lyndhurst changes direction leadership and mission towards Lyndhurst Foundation
community initiatives.
The community think tank is established and draws Vision 2000 through public engagement. Lyndhurst Foundation
Commitment includes initiatives such as Tennessee Aquarium and Tennessee Riverwalk.
Moccasin Bend Task Force's 20-year plan, published in 1982, becomes blueprint for riverfront Lyndhurst Foundation
development and downtown. River City Company is chosen as implementing entity.
Chattanooga again meets federal health air quality standards, a huge milestone for the city and City of Chattanooga
county air pollution control agencies.
The freshwater aquarium opens symbolizing the city's reconnection to the river and anchoring Lyndhurst Foundation; City of
tourism in the downtown area. A free downtown electric shuttle services begins operations. Chattanooga
Originally constructed in 1891 for vehicular use, the bridge is restored after a decade of closure to City of Chattanooga; Lyndhurst
become ‘world's longest pedestrian bridge.’ Chattanooga Venture draws Re-Vision 2000 with Foundation
emphasis on environment.
EPA certifies Chattanooga's air quality attainment status under stricter air quality guidelines. USA government; City of
Volkswagen N. America starts operation in Chattanooga, providing jobs for more than 12,000 local Chattanooga
residents.
EPA declares Chattanooga air significantly cleaner. There is increased advocacy for more citizen USA government; City of
participation to clean the air further through alternative transportation. Chattanooga fast growing Chattanooga
as a hub for tech industries. Volkswagen and Amazon inject more capital in the city.

2002; Marston, 2012). one of the Chambers primary people on that recruitment project, was
In 2008, German car maker Volkswagen established its North they'd gone out to Enterprise South, this would have been May of 2008,
American auto assembly in the Chattanooga, outcompeting several and the comment of the leader of the VW site selection team that was
other large cities in the country. The main reason for choosing looking across Enterprise South, the former brownfield site that we re-
Chattanooga over bigger cities, in terms of economy and population mediated, we were pitching to them and it was covered with trees and the
such as Huntsville AL, and irrespective of better tax incentives, was comment was ‘Chattanooga is in first place as a city compared to two
because of Chattanooga's commitment to ‘quality of life’ of its residents other competitors.’
evidenced by numerous recreation amenities and environmental im- (P10)
provements. The site that Volkswagen chose was also a superfund site,
…when VW elects to come to a community and build a new plant, they
previously used by the Volunteer Army Ammunition Plant to make
look at good places for employees to live, and to work, and to be engaged.
TNT. The President of VW is reported to have proclaimed that
And what we had in Chattanooga was a community that attracted in-
Chattanooga's ‘intangibles’ had been translated into ‘tangibles.’ As of
dustry because it was a great place to live. He said, you have to balance
the time of conducting this study, Volkswagen Chattanooga was the
industry and the incentives and the taxes and all the kind of things that
only auto plant to have attained Leader in Energy and Environmental
are true, factors in industry, you have to balance that with a quality of
Design (LEED) Platinum certification in the world, underscoring the
life place that people will want to work and live in.
company's commitment to environmental sustainability (Marston,
(P17)
2012).
Entry of Volkswagen has encouraged entry and retention of other
When Volkswagen came here, it made the announcement from the
environmentally ‘cleaner industries’ in health and service sectors.
Hunter Art Museum up on the river, which was a very changed en-
Present day Chattanooga is also known as the country's ‘Gig City’ be-
vironment in 2008 from what it had been 25 years earlier. The President
cause of its growing tech industry. The city is reputed to be one of the
of VW America said, ‘you know, people will think we came here because
first in the world with internet at speeds of over one gigabit per second
of the financial incentives, the tax breaks and all those things that people
(BBC, 2014). Other positive reports are captured by The Guardian:
like to talk about. But when you compare the financial packages of the
“Chattanooga has gone from close to zero venture capital in 2009 to
various that were in competition for this billion-dollar plant, all the fi-
more than five organized funds with investable capital over $50m in
nancial incentives were about the same. We are coming here because of
2014 – not bad for a city of 171,000 people” (Rushe, 2014). And things
the intangibles.’ Behind him was the Walnut Street Bridge which had
are looking up for this ‘living, breeding city-lab.’
been renovated and turned into a pedestrian bridge; Coolidge Park across
the river…he waved his hand and said, ‘Volkswagen is coming here be- Our biggest recruitment tool is we have got a quality of life, outdoor
cause of Chattanooga's commitment to livability and the environment. mecca, an entrepreneurial team that is growing. So, that whole talent
This is a place where our executives would want to live and bring up their piece of ‘what gets you here is what keeps you here’ has been part of the
families.’ city vibe. Yes, we've got the fastest internet; we believe that's a hook for
(P27) entrepreneurs. So, the notion of being a smart, entrepreneurial, connected
city we believe is a part of our future and will help us harness our
…one of the turning points when we were recruiting them, and I have was
competitive advantage for the future. And we think we are part of being a

9
B.M. Kitheka, et al.
living, breeding city-lab.
(P28)
This excitement and sense of optimism was shared by nearly all the
participants except P12, a scholar, who submitted that Chattanooga's
progress in environmental improvements maybe overshadowed by
retrogressive politics, and conservative social agendas. He cautioned
against complacency and residents resting on the proverbial Laurus
nobilis. Table 2 summarizes the various events and turning points that
identify Chattanooga's environmental history as gathered from the
participants and confirmed by archival and other secondary sources.
5. Summary and conclusions
The aim of this study was to trace Chattanooga's environmental
history post-world war to the present day and present the various
turning points and decisions processes along the city's rise-fall-rise
trajectory. Findings illuminate distinct phases from its former industrial
heights through the period of enormous air and water pollution issues,
to the current day of cleaner, livable vibrant community that it has
become. Shared recollections about the city's history combined with
individual memories and experiences also highlight how the city has
been transformed to a national and global model urban sustainability
epitomizing resilience, regeneration and collaborative power.
Vivid in this story is the crucial role played by the local residents
and the joint visioning process involving visionary individuals, private
citizens, local business, and charitable organizations. City and govern-
ment officials participated in the process only as members instead of
being the agenda-drivers in contrast to other communities around the
country. As amplified in the interviews, the residents were not scared to
take risks, flow against the current, or venture in unchartered waters.
As reported, Chattanooga story is the first of a kind in the U.S. in: 1)
Community visioning for revitalization; 2) Aquarium investment for a
city below five hundred residents; 3) Losing and regaining its popula-
tion in a period of 10 years; 4) Installing internet with ‘gig’ speed; and
5) Building LEED Platinum auto assembly plant in North America.
Success has been attributed to favorable geography and foundations'
money. Further, as captured by the Metropolitan Policy Program report
(Eichenthal & Windeknecht, 2008), the sustainability transformation is
linked to strong leadership, strategic visioning and planning, strong
collaborative portfolio among stakeholders, and the focus on the city's
natural capital.
5.1. Study implications
Chattanooga's resurgence has attracted positive media attention
nationally and internationally. The city is as example of urban rebirth
based on environmental clean-up and improvement. It is not only a
great place to do business, but has also repeatedly featured as one of the
top: livable (Thompson, 2011), travel destination (Wildman, 2012), and
live-and-play (Tuff & Melville, 2008) cities in the country, among other
accolades. The intangibles finally became tangible.
Lessons on the urban transformation process for others cities are
many; First, focus on the natural assets of place. The same geography
that led to the exacerbation of pollution was the key to building en-
vironmental citizenship. The officials helped residents see the city in
the context of the surrounding natural environment and this grew the
identity of place to include these areas, and has led to support for
projects focused on this connectivity like the Walnut street Bridge,
kayaking on the Tennessee River and the trail along the river to
Lookout Mountain. Second, make your city great for the citizens first
and listen to your citizens. Chattanooga city officials offered visioning
sessions to solicit input from residents, and most importantly build their
trust, confidence and sense of ownership. Third, be open to gifts from
donors and not always rely on the government to solve your problems.
Although the city was working on the park by the river, the gift by a
10
Cities 108 (2021) 102987
private donor to build the TN Aquarium, notwithstanding controversial,
still proved to be a major catalyst and game changer. Fourth, in-
corporate public art – art stimulates the creative side of citizens, and
can be a major pull to residents and tourists alike to previously desolate
spaces towards a sense of place and attachment.
Finally, these findings also reveal an interplay between the national
turning points and the receptivity to these at a local level. When we
examine the overarching trajectories and turning points in
Chattanooga, data demonstrates a focus on national trends in the first
three sections, and how they influence Chattanooga locally. This shifts
to an impetus for action locally, and this in turn influences a national
model of a sustainable city. There are local turning points within this
overarching relationship to national forces. The first three sections of
the history follow the story of the final years of Chattanooga rising to a
place of national embarrassment and in the section Americas Dirtiest
City we find the overarching turning point of “outside in” influence to
an “inside out” approach to problem solving and an effort to re-frame
and re-define the city. This can be framed as an external-to-internal
locus of control and is demonstrated by investment and re-framing the
city. There is also the refusal to be like another place, but instead to
embrace Chattanooga and solve problems from the place of being the
best Chattanooga possible. This effort to highlight the environment as a
crucial element was the driver for the later capital investment and
environmental citizenship that provided a national model.
However, this positive story also comes with some other lessons –
despite the reported improvements physically and socioeconomically,
the regeneration process was no way near linear. Change took a long,
costly process to meet minimal federal standards for clean air and
water. The local government also wanted to maintain the status quo of
heavy manufacturing and economic bottom-line at the expense of
health and well-being of the people and environment. Third, some so-
cial justice issues were ignored until later on in the process at the ex-
pense of the needs of minorities especially the African American com-
munity. Respondents were quick to acknowledge, despite the manifest
successes, that the local community does not have it all figured out.
There are still issues to address including environmental injustices,
socio-economic and education inequalities, and brownfields. However,
as noted by one participant “people in the right places are now com-
mitted to ensure the mistakes of the past do not happen again.”
Chattanooga not only has a bright future, but other cities have a lot
to learn from its focus on environmental improvements and green in-
frastructures to rebuild a community bottom-up. As it is evident in this
case study, a holistic environmental transformative journey and im-
proved quality of life, hinges on intentionality in building partnerships
and fostering citizen engagement. With better monitoring, proper po-
licies and investment, environmental quality will only continue to get
better.
Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to Dr. David White, Dr. Dan Harding and
Dr. William Norman for their support and mentorship during project
conceptualization.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Lead author (Dr. Kitheka) and co-authors (Dr. Baldwin and Dr.
Powell) worked diligently on the study and production of this manu-
script. The roles were shared and overlapped, but some of them are
summarized below.
Dr. Bernard Kitheka (first author):
• Study conceptualization
• Investigation
• Data analysis
• Writing original draft
B.M. Kitheka, et al.
• Review and editing
Dr. Elizabeth Baldwin (second author):
• Study conceptualization
• Supervision
• Mentorship
• Methodology
• Review and editing
Dr. Robert Powell (third author):
• Literature review
• Revisions
• Mentorship
Appendix 1. Semi-Structured Interview Protocol (questions not
ordered)
i. Why do you think Chattanooga is given the label of a green city?
ii. As far as you may remember, when did Chattanooga begin its
renewal program?
iii. In your opinion do you consider Chattanooga sustainable/green?
iv. In your opinion, what caused fall of industries and eventual decay
in the city?
v. What are the key indicators/measures of sustainability in the
city?
vi. Why do you think sustainability worked for Chattanooga?
vii. Two to three words that you can use to define sustainability?
viii. What main components do you associate with sustainability in
Chattanooga?
ix. What do you think sustainability worked for Chattanooga?
x. What were the shortcomings of the renewal program?
xi. In your opinion, what should the city focus its resources on?
xii. Why do you think people want to live in Chattanooga?
xiii. Would you attribute tourism growth in the city to its green
image? And why?
xiv. What were the barriers to the city's sustainability transition?
xv. How do think the visitors can help enhance the city's green
image?
xvi. Where do you see Chattanooga in the next 5, 10, 30 years?
xvii. Where would you take first-time visitors to experience
Chattanooga best?
xviii. What attracts individuals, families to the city?
xix. If you were to change something in the city's approach, what
would it be?
xx. Please tell me your favorite place to visit in Chattanooga and
why?
xxi. Historic preservation or new buildings for downtown? Why?
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