by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Taxation | March 31st, 2009 11:23pm CDT | Comments Off
Former Shelby County Commissioner John Willingham is a gadfly, a nag, a maverick, a loose cannon and a pain in the neck. We need more people like him. Last week, he was back in the news again, talking about the federal investigation into the misapplication of $20 million in federal funds in the construction of [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 30th, 2009 12:36am CDT | Comments Off
We can only hope that the president of Tennessee Education Association (TEA) is more concerned about the facts in the classroom than in the halls of the state capitol. After all, he regularly skewers them in his quest to become the educational version of the N.R.A., working to block any proposed legislation in the Tennessee [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 27th, 2009 10:20pm CDT | Comments Off
A century ago, only one in 10 people lived in an urban environment. Now, a majority of us calls a city home. Darren Walker brings us a fascinating global perspective on the Century of the City, the title of the new book from the Rockefeller Foundation that details strategies for creating livable cities in developing [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 25th, 2009 11:39pm CDT | Comments Off
Here’s something we don’t get to say too much: city and county governments were absolutely, completely right. We thought this as we listened to the Saturday morning discussion at the “Inbound for Memphis: Speeding Toward I-269” forum organized and hosted by the Coalition for Livable Communities with support from Community Development Council, Urban Land Institute, [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 24th, 2009 1:02am CDT | Comments Off
What we need up here might be an engineer from down under. Or at least that’s what we thought when we read about Sydney, Australia’s impressive water harvesting system. Its efforts to create water retention facilities for water are actually under the heading of “environment” rather than “engineering” on the Sydney city government website. That [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Memphis City Schools | March 24th, 2009 12:21am CDT | Comments Off
While the jury is still out on whether school districts’ police forces are worth the investments, Memphis City Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash is moving on with his foregone verdict that his district needs one. It’s hard to point to any definitive research that suggests that districts creating their own police departments are magically better, but [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 22nd, 2009 11:18pm CDT | Comments Off
It’s easy to understand the general frustration that exists about one more plan being undertaken downtown, this one about the future of Mud Island. We often seem so obsessed in Memphis with studying and planning and less committed to implementing and executing. And an idea like the skate park on the south tip of Mud [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 20th, 2009 12:01am CDT | Comments Off
For seven years, I walked out to my driveway each morning with a knot in the pit of my stomach. The morning bout of angst may have been bad for me, but it was good for Memphis. I was a reporter for the Memphis Press-Scimitar and the competition between the afternoon newspaper and The Commercial [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 18th, 2009 3:14pm CDT | Comments Off
Skateboarding Memphians Kris Gurley wrote this guest post: I would like to talk to you today about part of our city that I (and many others) think has tremendous potential for our city: Mud Island. How many times do you go to Mud Island? 3-4 times a year? No? Once a year maybe? If you [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 16th, 2009 10:40pm CDT | Comments Off
One operative in the Tennessee Capitol frequently refers to the Legislature as the Land of Oz, and if that is so, Germantown Senator Paul Stanley is the tin man. He needs to find a heart. More to the point, he needs to go on a quest for his core Republican beliefs, because at this point, [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Memphis City Schools | March 15th, 2009 11:52pm CDT | Comments Off
After 20 years of talking about it, it’s likely that there will soon be a single source funding plan for public education. It’s a landmark moment for two reasons. It is the first substantive action to inject fairness into a tax structure that punishes Memphians. Equally important, it is a testament to the benefits of [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 14th, 2009 5:45pm CDT | Comments Off
From the “we’re supposed to believe this is a coincidence” department: Faced with the pressing business of hiring a new superintendent, with addressing the concerns of a federal judge that it’s engaged in separate but equal decisions and with the glaring priority to improve a very average school district, Shelby County School board is spending [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 14th, 2009 4:23pm CDT | Comments Off
The Urban Omnibus is a multi-media collection of insights from journalists, scholars, architects, artists and citizens on the built environment of New York City. We’ll speak with Cassim Shepard, who is the project director, about creating an online conversation that reveals the choices that shape the city. We’ll also speak with Dr. Richard Farson. His [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Memphis City Schools | March 12th, 2009 11:17pm CDT | Comments Off
Old myths just won’t die. There’s the one that says that suburban sprawl is growth. The one that says that the state ADA (Average Daily Attendance) results in windfalls to Memphis City Schools. That the smaller towns have more efficient governments than Memphis and Shelby County Governments. Or that annexation is the wisest strategy for [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 12th, 2009 11:33am CDT | Comments Off
From Chris Johnston: 1. Greater Memphis Greenline, 13 miles of Rails to trails project work in progress!!!! Can’t wait. 2. The fact that Memphis is NOT on everyones got to Live there List. WE have lots of room for improvement, but the original soul and decaying original edginess are nice, like a fine ole patina [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 11th, 2009 5:15pm CDT | Comments Off
Here’s the latest in our continuing conversation about the things we love most about Memphis. Send in any lists that you have and we’ll post them here. Eventually, we’ll post a master list of everyone’s favorites. Here’s Jeff Cozzens’ list: 1. Approaching Memphis from the Arkansas side late at night and seeing the beautifully lit [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 11th, 2009 12:15pm CDT | Comments Off
Here’s part of a message from Park Friends regarding City Engineering’s plan to scar Overton Park: The city plans to destroy the Greensward in Overton Park, and we need your voices to speak up to defend it. The city engineers want to improve drainage in the nearby creek by digging out the entire field by [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Parks and Greening | March 10th, 2009 3:34pm CDT | Comments Off
This commentary was posted in October, 2005, and we post it again in light of the controversy of the mistreatment of Overton Park’s Greensward. In a time of economic crisis and fiscal stresses in local government, it would seem that it would be the perfect time to protect what we have: There is an aphorism [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 8th, 2009 11:49pm CDT | Comments Off
The #1 priority of the public, according to Sustainable Shelby, is for local government to create a great public realm for our community. Memphis’ large parks are some of city government’s most elite services, according to the City of Memphis Poll. Overton Park is a 342-acre monument to the late 19th century “Greater Memphis Movement,” [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 7th, 2009 10:05pm CDT | Comments Off
On Smart City, we’re digging into the issue of urban crimewith our guest David Kennedy. David is a criminologist and professor at the John Jay College in New York, but his field work in troubled neighborhoods has revolutionized law enforcement, and made cities safer. And, with the economy tanking and retail especially taking a hit,we’ll [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 6th, 2009 12:00am CDT | Comments Off
Today, Ben Self, co-founder of the company that invented the technology for the Obama campaign that transformed political campaigns as we have known them, laid out a glimpse into Memphis if it becomes the first city to apply the tools to city-building. It was a provocative presentation for the Lexington, KY, native who commutes to [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | March 5th, 2009 12:21am CDT | Comments Off
Overheard in a Midtown restaurant: “Do you play ‘World of Warcraft?’” The reply: “Yes, I ride my bike in Memphis.” It was humorous, but also symptomatic of how far Memphis has to go to get the fundamentals right, the kind that attracts new talent, new jobs, and new investments in other cities. Not too long [...]
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.
