I think all of us Maytown political junkies got our fix this week with the publication of UT’s economic impact study.  The headline writers over at the Tennessean must’ve gone into a post-rush nod, since the study by no means “supports” Maytown, though, to be fair, today’s headlines are much more measured.

The purpose of the study , as it carefully states, is only to show the good stuff:  what benefits would roll in, IF absolutely every detail in every Maytown publicity and development dream came true. 

That’s a lot of ifs—and we haven’t even gotten to the maybes and buts. I’ve picked just a few, to give the general flavor of the challenge. 

IF: Maytown indeed magically attracts those corporations that who otherwise would not come  to Davidson County.

IF: These corporations are not offered tax breaks, like the $166 mil Dell got when it moved here, or the $200 mil to lure Nissan to Williamson County. 

IF: the executive types scheduled to work and play in Maytown are ok with a school system with a 30% dropout rate and a 72% pass in Gateway algebra.  (Actually, the city could save $34 mil by busing Maytown kids over to Cumberland Elementary instead of building a school.  I also like the idea of the young masters of the universe attending Whites Creek.  It’d be educational for everybody.)

IF: TDOT and the other transportation mavens approve of every jot and tittle, even those not yet spelled out, of required road projects, including cloverleafs, widening of interstates, and bridges. 

IF: the 8 million feet of office space are fully rented  and haven’t pulled too many customers away from downtown, Green Hills, and West End.

IF: thousands of customers with money to spend, who did not shop at Bellevue Mall, Fountain Square, or the Church Street Center,  regularly patronize the 600,000 square feet of boutiques and high-end retail.

IF: the Sewer Fairy, and all the other municipal and state funding fairies, produce, at no cost, a water treatment plant, electrical substations, water supply, all those interstate improvements mentioned above,  and enough property to widen Cockrill Bend Industrial Boulevard.  (Note to Road Fairy: keep wings tucked in around the razor wire at the Charles Bass Correctional Complex—it looks lethal.)

You get the idea.  This study does exactly what it is supposed to do: It  lays out the economics of a Maytown that happens without a hitch, in an optimistic world of full occupancy and robustly mobile corporations and happy shoppers.  It is not supposed to lay odds on the chances of success, in either that rosy corporate heaven or the actual economy as we know it. 

Neither does it compute risk—risk of a deserted downtown, when vacant offices in Maytown undercut downtown prices and pull tenants away, risk of gridlock and unhappy neighborhoods coping with streams of traffic, risk—make that certainty--that you and I will be on the hook for the Sewer and Road Fairys’ generosity.

But, you say, the payoff is huge!  Maybe the chance of perfect success is only 5 %, but if it works—Metro is in clover forever! 

Well, here’s what the UT study says Metro’s big windfall will be, in a Maytown-perfect world:  $26 million dollars a year.  Sounds like a lot, I know, but it’s 1.6% of Metro’s yearly budget.  The big payoff wouldn’t even be two cents on the revenue dollar. 

Unknown but extremely unfavorable odds, big risks, tiny payoff.  Wanna bet?

Call your councilman now.