(I Think It's Going to Rain Today by Randy Newman) ♪ Broken windows ♪ In the empty hallways ♪ Pale dead moon ♪ and the sky treated with gray - [Narrator] By the 1980s, Chattanooga was a city in severe decline.

For all intents and purposes, it has lost its way.

♪ And I think ♪ It's going ♪ To rain today - When I first came to Chattanooga, it was like a smoke town, because of the foundries.

- Chattanooga's still wrestling with coming out from under the cloud of smoke and ash that have made us the dirtiest city in America.

- Chattanooga was in a a God awful spot.

It was a foreboding place.

Downtown was practically vacant.

- There was nobody downtown.

The downtown, it was sort of like the city was rotten from its core.

- What mainly Chattanooga looked like was a city that was down on its luck, down on its energy, felt no sense of the future or possibility.

- [Narrator] Depressed downtown, dying waterfront, no real sense of community.

Chattanooga's future was bleak.

But there were a few visionaries who realized that to save their city, the time to act was right now.

It was then that the Chattanooga Venture was born.

- Chattanooga Venture was an organization created to rethink Chattanooga's future at a very critical time, in the mid 80s when Chattanooga was really down and out and hemorrhaging jobs and we knew something had to be done.

- It was a consortium of people who had taken lessons from another community.

We were in the habit of making trips to different cities to find out what makes them tick.

And the trips to Indianapolis was particularly exciting.

- We decided that what we really needed was an organization to implement the lessons we learned there and then from other consultants that Lyndhurst had brought to them.

so we created Chattanooga Venture.

Had a large board, 60 people.

That's a very large board.

But the point was to get as many people in the community involved as possible.

From all walks of life.

The Mocassin Bend task force under Rick Montegue's leadership had already had a series of public meetings and then come up with the idea of the Riverwalk.

And I think the aquarium was on that.

Walnut Street Bridge may or may not have been on that.

But many of these initiatives were sort of there and people knew they needed to be done.

And this kind of gave them the spark.

- Chattanooga Venture was an organization that came together to bring people together.

See what could we do to make changes in the city of Chattanooga.

Both physically, environmentally, culturally, whatever it took to lift us up and lift our spirits up to put us back on the map again.

- I think everybody saw Chattanooga Venture as an organization that was trying to do something to make Chattanooga a better place in which to live.

- The seminal event was when Jack Lupton took over or inherited his father's foundation and had Rick Montague and Jack Mo-ra and said, "I don't want to invest in the usual ways, "I want to change something."

- Those who got Venture started and couple thousand people who participated in Vision 2000 set something in motion that transformed the spirit of the community.

- [Narrator] But transforming the community's spirit was no easy task.

There had been many years of division, disenchantment, distrust.

Those would have to be overcome if their goals were to be achieved.

- Chattanooga was a polarized community, around every way it could be.

City versus county, black versus white, labor versus management, rich versus poor, mountain versus city.

And the energy was there, but the energy was unfocused.

- Organizations were pretty much isolated one from another.

Everyone was doing his own thing and it was no community effort.

- We had to change not just the physical environment at Chattanooga we had to change the cultural environment and the point of view of people as to whether or not Chattanooga had a future.

- We felt like we were really going to change the community.

We were going to have to get a lot of people involved and let them collectively come up with a vision.

Of course it was 80s so it was Vision 2000.

What they thought could be done.

- [Narrator] Undertaking a massive visioning process Chattanooga Venture opened the doors and brought in as many citizens as possible to help build an active planning agenda.

Several task forces were created in Vision 2000.

The process that would change the face of Chattanooga began to take shape.

- To me, that was the most impressive thing about this whole process.

Is that so many people who had small ideas but to them they were big ideas.

And they were willing to come and put them on the table and have them evaluate it by everybody else, in terms of setting goals and priorities for this community.

- Gene Roberts, the mayor and he was very helpful and instrumental.

Mainly because he didn't try to stop it or cause barriers.

And he made us feel that we had to do something in order to get the city to do something.

- And it was almost as if barriers melted when we came together.

People were listening in ways that they have never listened before.

And this was in an arena that we had created on the hope that it would work, and it worked far better because people had good will.

- [Narrator] It was that good will, that unified sense of purpose which brought about projects that have made Chattanooga what it is today.

One of America's most desirable and livable cities.

- We put together something called a commitment portfolio.

Which had a number of initiatives on it.

Including the aquarium, although it was small kept.

The Riverwalk, what became CNE the Tivoli restoration a spouse abuse center, Early Childhood Initiative, it went through a whole range.

- The aquarium of course was the big winner.

Nobody thought it was possible, to build an aquarium and have it be an economic generator.

And of course, its completely transformed this end of town.

- And I think one of the main things was return to the river.

To come up with some activities and look what we've done.

River park, the aquarium, Mocassin Bend being added to the national park register and that is one of historic places in the world, Mocassin Bend is.

- Things like creating a family violent shelter, which this city did not have up until that time.

And one very important element which did play a crucial role more than anyone really thought at the time which was reforming Chattanooga's government.

- The other goal was to figure out a way to accentuate the African American culture in the community.

And so the concept of establishing The Bessie Smith Hall.

And the Bessie Smith Museum emerged out of that process.

- There were after school programs.

There were youth programs.

There were lots of things that don't get the media attention.

But they made a difference to people and they changed people's lives and because people were able to act on things that were important to them, they bought into the whole process.

- [Narrator] And changing lives was exactly what this process had achieved.

And for all those who played crucial roles in the rebirth of their community, well, they were left with memories.

Memories that will last a lifetime.

- I think the collaborative effort, the creative effort of doing things together and doing them with people who I've said come out of a different life experience is very heart warming.

- One day, I was driving across the Veterans Bridge and lucky, it was a beautiful day, beautiful sunset.

And I was looking out over the scene of the aquarium and the river and the Coolidge Park, et cetera.

And I realized, everything I was looking at was new.

It had all happened in a span of 20 years.

And it was magic, it was a magic moment.

It was unbelievable.

- To say the citizens of Chattanooga set aside time to go to these meetings and to tell us what they thought, it was heartwarming.

And their ideas were so good.

Their love for Chattanooga was so real.

- Bill Evans was representing organized labor.

And to my knowledge, organized labor and the corporate sector in Chattanooga had never come together to benefit the community.

And I'll never forget a meeting where we were talking about the aquarium.

And after it was over, Bill Evans called me aside and he said, "I want you to level with me Rick.

"Who is this place for?"

And I said, "Bill, you heard the presentation.

"You know who it's for."

He said, "No, don't give me a lot of around the bush.

"Is this place for people like me?"

And I said, "yes."

Passionately.

And he said, "my people are with you."

- [Narrator] And it was the people, all the people who came together to make their voices heard that turned this community around.

Creating a future full of hope and endless possibilities for this city, their city.

- The whole span adventure I think what it left us with was what we now called the Chattanooga Way.

We now believe to accomplish anything positive and for the future you have to get a lot of people together.

And you want to get a lot of people together, and you want to listen to them.

- [Mayor] People didn't see their thoughts disappear into some kind of pile and never to be seen again.

They knew exactly what happened to it.

So at the end of the process, there was a purity about it.

- I don't believe all this would've happened if any of the main actors had have not acted.

And by them main actors, I mean the city, the county, and the private organizations like Lyndhurst, all of the foundations in Chattanooga which is one of our great assets.

- So, the mystery really, is when we look back at how little confusion there was, how little static there was, and really, a sense that, "you know what?

"We're all in this together, and we can all work together "and we're all gonna work together."

and it was, it would be stretching it to say it was a love end but it was pretty damn close.

- I see that God used not only me, but many many other people in this community to make this community a better place in which to live.

- [Narrator] And make this community a better place they did.

(Chatanooga by Sandra McCraken) Those who created and implemented Chattanooga Venture and all the people who participated in Vision 2000 came together, not only to make this city a place they are proud to call their home, but also set in motion a visioning process that has served as a model for projects around the world.

♪ So can I drive you ♪ To Chattanooga ♪ Where the city in October looks like fire ♪ Changing lanes on this restless highway ♪ Between this living and desire