by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 31st, 2005 2:24pm CDT | Comments Off
From Boston Globe: There’s something for everyone at the beautiful, civilized Millennium Park CHICAGO — This city’s new Millennium Park is the best urban public park I’ve ever seen, anywhere, and that includes some famed ones in places like Rotterdam and Paris. The downside for Bostonians comes when you compare it to what we can [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 30th, 2005 4:54pm CDT | Comments Off
From New York Times: An ‘Emerald Necklace’ May Grace Urban Atlanta City leaders are looking to transform an abandoned 22-mile railroad loop into a civic jewel of parks and public transit. ATLANTA — Kudzu smothers the old steel tracks. Broken bottles, chairs and grills litter the gray wooden crossties, and rusty chain-link fencing flanks each [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 28th, 2005 1:57am CDT | Comments Off
Yesterday, Leadership Memphis concentrated on a provocative question, “What Makes a Great City?” and it heard from a highly informative panel of five local leaders, from a noted national urban observer, and from Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, named as one of Time’s five best mayors in the U.S. Opinions were personal, impassioned and always illuminating. [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 28th, 2005 1:16am CDT | Comments Off
From Nashville Tennessean: Mayor Bill Purcell set about the business of establishing his legacy yesterday, telling his cabinet to use the next 22 months to “get ‘er done” on sidewalks, courthouse renovations and the other major projects of his administration. Twenty-two months, the time he has left as mayor of Nashville, is plenty for them [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 27th, 2005 1:12am CDT | Comments Off
City government has dug a financial hole that an elephant could fall into, and that’s only fitting, because there is an elephant in the room every time the city’s budgetary collapse is discussed. First, the hole. With this week’s announcement that the deficit for the fiscal year is two and half times larger than announced [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 25th, 2005 1:40am CDT | Comments Off
In last Thursday’s blog, “Lack Of A Green Vision Leaves The City’s Reputation Black and Blue,” we were critical of Memphis Mayor Herenton’s plans to sell neighborhood parks at a time when they are needed as pivotal anchors for urban neighborhoods’ health. In the interest of equal time, we need to acknowledge that Mayor Herenton [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 24th, 2005 1:28am CDT | Comments Off
Hurricane Katrina was an event that revealed clearly the fissures that exist in the divergent world views of whites and African-Americans. Tennessee Waltz is another. Here, white Commercial Appeal editorial writers flippantly dismiss African-American questions about the fairness of the federal investigation as off-base and without merit. In their responses, an FBI spokesman and a [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 23rd, 2005 7:40pm CDT | Comments Off
From the Nashville Tennessean: Mayor Bill Purcell said yesterday he will not seek a third term of office, ending months of speculation and creating a wide-open field for the August 2007 race for his successor. The timing of Purcell’s decision not to seek re-election caught some of the city’s political guard by surprise. The announcement [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 21st, 2005 1:08am CDT | Comments Off
You can forgive environmentalists for flashbacks to the Overton Park expressway controversy in the 1970’s as they watch the relentless push to to construct the massive Walnut Grove Road/Humphreys Boulevard redesign although a final decision hasn’t even been reached on the alignment and design of Kirby-Whitten Road through Shelby Farms Park. The city’s single-minded attitude [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 20th, 2005 1:50am CDT | Comments Off
There is an aphorism in local government that goes like this: “There’s always money for anything the mayor wants to do.” It doesn’t matter if the deficit is growing, it doesn’t matter if the budget is out of balance and it doesn’t matter which way the winds of controversy are blowing. If a mayor wants [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 19th, 2005 1:29am CDT | Comments Off
If officials in the Capitol are confused about the role of Homeland Security and the role of FEMA, they’re not alone. The same goes here. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, elected officials sought to reassure us that we should not worry, because in Memphis, we have a plan and people in charge. We’ve been [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 18th, 2005 1:36am CDT | Comments Off
Last week, the Tennessee Film Commission held a hearing in Memphis that focused on the need for tax incentives for film companies in our state. Chief among the witnesses was Linn Sitler, executive director of the Memphis and Shelby County Film Commission, who competes against states every day that offer incentives in the form of [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 17th, 2005 1:09am CDT | Comments Off
In a week when the Shelby County Board of Commissioners took a landmark vote to end “business as usual” and enact a moratorium on development, it was disappointing to see more of the same on two other fronts — the Memphis Regional Chamber and the Memphis City Schools Board. The week began with the first [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 16th, 2005 1:04am CDT | Comments Off
Mr. Rove, meet Mr. Haldeman. Or Mr. Adams. Or Mr. Lance. Or Mr. Sununu. Karl Rove continues to hang on for dear life following yet another date with the grand jury to testify about his Valerie Plame leak. Even owning the negatives isn’t likely to keep him from soon being the good soldier and falling [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 15th, 2005 10:47am CDT | Comments Off
From the Globe and Mail, Toronto: It’s time to shift the focus from blaming individuals for being fat to understanding how the environment we live in discourages healthy living, a scientific think tank has concluded. “We need to look well beyond getting more gym classes for kids and better food in school cafeterias,” said Diane [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 15th, 2005 12:20am CDT | Comments Off
Sixteen bullet points makes for a full Memphis agenda. (See “Kicking the Addiction to Tax Freezes.”) But here are four more to make it 20. Examine City, County and MLGW Compensation and Pension Systems and Report Their Status Annually. This one is obvious. If Memphis Tomorrow is looking for something to do, forget the efficiency [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 13th, 2005 1:47am CDT | Comments Off
Sometimes the best thing you can do is to admit that an idea, although well-intended, just doesn’t work. One of those ideas is the observation platform built at the tip of Ashburn-Coppock Park at the current southern terminus of the Bluffwalk. It probably seemed a good idea at the time. After all, the park offered [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 12th, 2005 1:20am CDT | Comments Off
In the beginning was the dial-up. Then dial-up begat DSL, and DSL begat the cable modem. And now, we have arrived in the land of milk and honey…and Wi-Fi. The problem is that Memphians will probably have to travel to other cities to take optimal advantage of it. While Wi-Fi is hardly the new, new [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 11th, 2005 1:03am CDT | Comments Off
The danger in being an opinionated member of a fact-finding task force is that sooner or later you do actually run the risk of coming face to face with the facts. That seems to be the source of the palpable discomfort displayed by Shelby County Board of Education Chairman David Pickler – a member of [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 7th, 2005 1:22am CDT | Comments Off
Great Balls of Fire. We haven’t been this excited since Commercial Appeal editorial writers rhapsodized about how important it was to Memphis that The Rolling Stones booked a concert date in the FedEx Forum. That’s right up there with getting all tingly when Hard Rock Café finally built its umpteenth restaurant on Beale Street. It [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 5th, 2005 1:31am CDT | Comments Off
Contrary to some of the overheated rhetoric, the future of Western civilization doesn’t hinge on the Shelby County Board of Commissioners’ vote on a moratorium on development. In fact, it would have little real impact, except as a political statement. And that’s reason enough for commissioners to pass it. It’s a largely symbolic vote, because, [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | October 4th, 2005 1:30am CDT | Comments Off
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to determine if tax incentives for business are legal, and taxpayers are crossing their fingers that finally the courts will do what the politicians don’t have the will to do. It was back on June 14 that we wrote that we might be “witnessing the beginning of the end [...]
by Bill Day. Memphian Bill Day is two-time winner of the RFK Journalism Award in Cartooning. His cartoons are syndicated internationally by Cagle Cartoons. Cartoons Archive →
Photograph by Amie Vanderford
This ongoing series of photographs is intended to show the daily lives of these single mothers in order to invoke recognition of their similarities to all mothers, along with understanding and empathy from the viewer of the strengths that these single mothers possess within the challenging situations they face. My hope is that newfound empathy with these mothers’ lives will give people some pause before they condemn single mothers when discussing issues such as welfare and other politically charged hot buttons.
