by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 30th, 2006 9:22pm CDT | Comments Off
Ok, we admit that downtown panhandling is a hot button issue for us, so we were doing our best to support the latest anti-panhandling campaign rolled out by Memphis Police Department, Center City Commission and others. Our patience was short-lived. Last week, leaving Calvary Episcopal Church’s Lenten Preaching Services, uplifted after hearing Temple Israel’s Senior [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 30th, 2006 1:05am CDT | Comments Off
Frequently, a government agency does something that just makes you shake your head and wonder, “Do they really think we’re that stupid?” That’s a regular reaction when it comes to the actions of the Memphis and Shelby County Industrial Development Board. And it looks like we’re about to have it one more time. This time [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 28th, 2006 5:49pm CDT | Comments Off
Temple Israel Senior Rabbi Micah Greenstein spoke at Calvary Episcopal Church’s Lenten Luncheons last week on Earth Day. You can hear it at: http://www.calvaryjc.org/homiliesLent/20060321.html Here’s an abridged text version: Whereas fundamentalists and evangelicals do a great job of saving souls and protecting the unborn, the preoccupation of mainline churches is saving lives and protecting the [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 27th, 2006 6:12pm CDT | Comments Off
Something seems to happen the moment that many legislators sit down in the chambers of the Tennessee General Assembly. They forget they represent every one in their districts, not just their narrow political bases. There was a time when such partisanship was reserved for the nation’s capital, but apparently, Potomac Fever is spreading downstream, and [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 26th, 2006 7:58pm CDT | Comments Off
A few months ago, 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 [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 24th, 2006 5:12pm CDT | Comments Off
From CEOs for Cities blog at www.ceosforcities.org: This week’s Sunday papers from around the country told a sad story about African-American children in America. The Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times examined two shootings in Englewood on Chicago’s South Side. Siretha White was shot dead at a party for her 11th birthday, only nine days after 14-year-old [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 24th, 2006 5:04pm CDT | Comments Off
The meltdown of the finances of Detroit city government is becoming a stimulus for new regional thinking by adjacent counties concerned about the shut-down or cutbacks of city servcies that are of course regional assets. Surely, if Detroit can begin to talk across county lines, we can do it. First and foremost, though, it requires [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 22nd, 2006 11:53pm CDT | Comments Off
Who knew that Christopher Reyes’ fascinating livefrommemphis.com website was just the beginning? In the coming week, there are two Reyes-conceived projects that offer us a fresh look at our city. If you haven’t visited the Live From Memphis website in awhile, you’ll barely recognize it. It now has added film and art in pursuit of [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 20th, 2006 1:58pm CDT | Comments Off
Does this feel familiar? From Otis White’s Urban Journal at governing.com: Must every issue in Detroit degenerate into name-calling and race-baiting? Apparently, yes. Take the seemingly easy issue of the Detroit Zoo. The city can no longer afford its $5 million a year subsidy for the zoo, but not to worry. A non-profit organization offered [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 20th, 2006 12:18am CDT | Comments Off
Let’s just go ahead and say this and get it out of the way: government doesn’t owe anyone a job. That’s why most taxpayers aren’t moved when some elected officials attack a change in operations merely on the grounds that it would cut the size of the workforce or lay off public workers. This outcry [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 15th, 2006 8:43pm CDT | Comments Off
Corrections Corporation of America and The GEO Group – private companies that manage correction facilities – don’t agree on much, but they do agree on this: privatizing the Shelby County Corrections Center and the Shelby County Jail fell prey to political considerations. Meanwhile, supporters of Shelby County Commissioner Bruce Thompson – who has announced that [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 14th, 2006 11:36pm CDT | Comments Off
The following message is from the Wolf River Conservancy: We recently learned that there’s no Congressional funding for the $12.5 million Corps Wolf River Restoration Project. Please take five minutes, now, to call or e-mail our representatives. The Corps’s Wolf River Restoration Project needs only a final Congressional add of $1.5 million to complete this [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 13th, 2006 10:38am CDT | Comments Off
Cities are doing a number of things these days to highlight and exploit their music heritages. There’s a theme developing in much of it, and it offers a seminal lesson for the Memphis public sector that talks proudly about our music and the foundation charged with reinvigorating the industry. The advice: invest in our creative [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 11th, 2006 10:34pm CDT | Comments Off
Our recent commentary urging Memphis City Council to pass a living wage resolution produced some lively responses, so to get the best perspective of the issue, we went to the best expert on the subject, David Ciscel, the highly regarded professor of economics at University of Memphis. In response to the questions of several readers, [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 11th, 2006 10:25pm CDT | Comments Off
A regular reader reminds us that rather than focus on glitzy projects, the Memphis Music Foundation should “start with a website.” It’s good advice, because the new music organization shut down the Memphis and Shelby County Music Commission website three years ago, and while it wasn’t perfection, at least there was something telling the Memphis [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 9th, 2006 12:34am CDT | Comments Off
It’s been five months since the Memphis Music Foundation imported the New Orleans Voodoo Music Experience to Memphis. The high expectations and meager results of those concerts are symbolic of much of the Foundation’s work since its creation, and comments by a knot of musicians listening to a concert seemed to say it all. After [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 7th, 2006 11:29pm CDT | Comments Off
It all feels eerily familiar – the politicians’ self-congratulations, the civic hyperbole, the bureaucrats leading the rounds of applause, the army of cameras and reporters. It’s one of Memphis’ favorite pastimes – another development plan for The Pyramid. This time, it was Bass Pro Shop that is the answer to realizing the building’s potential. Or [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 6th, 2006 12:34am CDT | Comments Off
If term limits are an idea whose time has come, perhaps a good place to start would be the members of the more than 150 public boards in Memphis and Shelby County Governments. Media attention regarding terms limits concentrates on elected officials, particularly those in Shelby County Government who were limited to eight years in [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 2nd, 2006 7:56pm CDT | Comments Off
Sometimes, to paraphrase Ross Perot (of all people), in Memphis, we think planning is the same as doing something. If that’s the case, we’ve been really, really busy. We’re not saying that a sound plan isn’t an instrumental tool in a successful public project. But it’s awfully hard to argue with the folks who say [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 1st, 2006 8:09pm CDT | Comments Off
More and more, cities and states are stepping in to address issues that traditionally would have been the province of the federal government. Last June, we wrote about the then 170 city mayors who had signed on to carry out the Kyoto Accord, an international environmental agreement that would reduce heat-trapping gas emissions. President George [...]
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.
