by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 30th, 2009 10:40pm CST | Comments Off
Here’s the hypothesis: Tennessee’s liberal annexation law means that Memphis – unlike many similarly-sized cities across the U.S. – is not landlocked by small towns, and because of it, its population has been growing or relatively stable for several decades. However, if we use the 1970 Memphis city limits as the definition of the “core [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 28th, 2009 6:37pm CST | Comments Off
Memphis is a shrinking city. We’re not talking about the slight decrease in the raw population numbers since 2000. Rather, we’re talking about the practical impact of significant population losses in the traditional city – represented by the 1970 Memphis boundaries. It’s these areas whose neighborhoods need to be healthy and whose success is crucial [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 27th, 2009 10:53pm CST | Comments Off
We’re planning a big party to celebrate the victory in the Tennessee Legislature for all of us who hold our guns as close as our families. It will be held upon the close of the legislative session, and we hope you will bring your pistols with you as we are finally relieved of the unrighteous [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Taxation | April 26th, 2009 8:08pm CST | Comments Off
Memphis Mayor Willie W. Herenton sent a stern note last week to the Memphis City Council that said its members need to restore full funding for Memphis City Schools. It prompted memories here of the late Jesse Turner Sr., the civil rights leader and former long-time chairman of the budget committee for Shelby County’s legislative [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 26th, 2009 8:03pm CST | Comments Off
This week on Smart City we’re looking ahead for a view of the city in the year 2050. Maureen McAvey of the Urban Land Institute joins us to talk about what the city will look like 40 years from now, and what changes we need to make the future greener, richer, and most importantly, fun. [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 24th, 2009 10:53pm CST | Comments Off
Somehow, it seemed appropriate that the sadness that enveloped us when the historic First Methodist Church burned down returned and intensified when another downtown landmark, architect Jack Tucker, left us April 5. No one in downtown Memphis was more saddened than Jack by the loss of the church on the site of Memphis’ first meeting [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 22nd, 2009 11:11pm CST | Comments Off
There are those who are dismissive of Memphis Mayor Willie W. Herenton’s media skills.From where we’re sitting, he’s the master. On a day when FedEx founder Fred Smith ventured into the halls of city government, the mayor reminded him whose house it is. No one knows better how to upstage everyone else than Mayor Herenton [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 20th, 2009 10:19pm CST | Comments Off
Perhaps, the main lesson from the COGIC move of its convention to St. Louis isn’t that we took the saints for granted. It just might be that more to the point, we’re guilty of taking our tourism industry for granted. In recent years, our tourism and convention marketing – funded primarily by city and county [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 19th, 2009 10:54pm CST | Comments Off
aIt was one of those weeks that just wears on our souls. That’s why we’re hoping that things will be better this week. It would almost have to be. There was the expected: approval by the gun nuts in the Tennessee Legislature responding to the burning need for people to carry firearms into restaurants. There [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 17th, 2009 9:23pm CST | Comments Off
How do you create green space in one of the most industrial states in the U.S.? Tom Woiwode knows. As director of the Greenways Initiative, he’s raised more than $125 million to build and maintain trails, orchards and beautiful greenery throughout Southeastern Michigan. He’ll tell us how greening a city can help build community and [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Economic Development | April 15th, 2009 11:25pm CST | Comments Off
Sometimes, it seems that Memphis simply runs the risk of falling off the grid in the future. We admit to these thoughts when we look at maps showing critical plans for the new economy infrastructure and the platform from which cities like ours will compete in the coming decades. There’s the map of the high [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 13th, 2009 8:58pm CST | Comments Off
Natural Resources Defense Council’s Kim Ranney notifies us about an interesting new website feature that uses Memphis as a spotlighted scenario demonstrating the impact of simple design changes. Picturing Smart Growth, the new feature, “visualizes how communities ripe for transformative change can grow and develop while saving open spaces, revitalizing neighborhoods and reducing greenhouse gas [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 13th, 2009 12:40am CST | Comments Off
Who do the Memphis City Council members think they are? They continue to pass ridiculous ordinances without getting the blessings of Republicans in the Tennessee Legislature. We can only hope that the cowboy legislators who think that taking guns into restaurants and parks is acceptable will take immediate action to reverse the ordinance passed by [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 11th, 2009 11:06pm CST | Comments Off
Gates of Memphis is always required reading for us, and you’ll be reminded why it should be for you (if it isn’t already). It offers our first chance to tour the Greenline. In keeping with the sentiment of the blog post, we congratulate every one responsible for this impressive project, including the grassroots folks that [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 11th, 2009 9:37pm CST | Comments Off
The economic crisis has left many not-for-profit organizations in afinancial pinch. But a new funding mechanism run by our guest Robin Hacke is bringing investment into low-income areas of cities. We’ll speak with Robin about The Catalyst Fund, and why they provide loans to social organizations, instead of grants. And…what can high speed rail do [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 10th, 2009 12:16pm CST | Comments Off
As part of our continuing posts on “10 Things I Like About Memphis,” the following is a list we received from thirty-three rpm. If you have a list of your own, we’d love to post it. From thirty-three rpm: As a newcomer to Memphis, I can easily list the things that drew me here to [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Memphis City Schools, Taxation | April 9th, 2009 7:58pm CST | Comments Off
Yeah, right. The Tennessee Department of Education will refuse to fund Memphis City Schools which could force the district to shut its doors which means that the state has to operate the Memphis school system. Yeah, that’s going to happen. The educational bureaucrats in Nashville already proven that they prefer to avoid Memphis City Schools [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 8th, 2009 11:13pm CST | Comments Off
Normally, for a billion dollar economic opportunity, Memphis will do just about anything. For a lot less, we gave The Pyramid to Sidney Shlenker on little more than a promise and a few architectural rendering. That house of cards collapsed in bankruptcy with $16 million in debts. A few years earlier, we believed that we [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 6th, 2009 11:14pm CST | Comments Off
We know the primary job description for any reputable staff member of a Chamber of Commerce is to be a reliable cheerleader for Memphis, but there are times when we just want someone to tell us the truth. While we admire the dependable hyperbole that’s attached to all things Memphis, we are concerned that our [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 5th, 2009 10:36pm CST | Comments Off
Talent remains the top priority for Memphis. It requires us to align our energies and our strategies, but we run the risk of our penchant for big project answers to our problems – whether it is downtown redevelopment, neighborhood revitalization or economic growth – to keep us from the hardest work to create, attract and [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 5th, 2009 10:28pm CST | Comments Off
Talent remains the top priority for Memphis. It requires us to align our energies and our strategies, but we run the risk of our penchant for big project answers to our problems – whether it is downtown redevelopment, neighborhood revitalization or economic growth – to keep us from the hardest work to create, attract and [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 3rd, 2009 12:53pm CST | Comments Off
Memphis Art Park has a new website, and we hope you’ll visit it. This impressive, important project is continuing to take shape and needs our support. As you know from our earlier posts, we consider it one of the exciting ideas bubbling up from our creatives for ways to move Memphis ahead and create momentum [...]
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
Memphian Amie Vanderford is a photographer for peace and justice. Her portfolio includes photographs from Peru, Zimbabwe, Nepal, Indian, and her hometown.
