by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | January 29th, 2010 1:34pm CDT | Comments Off
While we’re on the theme prompted by New York Times about what a special place Memphis is, we want to throw the spotlight on five special people who make it so. The first two get our votes for Role Models for 2010, the second gets our vote for person who most reminds us why love this crazy place, [...]
by John Lawrence (RSS) Uncategorized | January 29th, 2010 11:17am CDT | 6 Comments
B.E.G.-2015 is a not-so tongue-in-cheek plan to: a) Spend $5 million to attract smart people or BRAINS to Memphis. b) Inspire commitment or ENERGY from existing Memphians to finish something big. The Power of 10 was discussed in the last post. c) Exploit profit motivations or GREED to keep the process rolling along. We have [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | January 29th, 2010 9:57am CDT | Comments Off
Hoping to do for roads what LEED has done for buildings and Energy Star for household appliances, Greenroads has unveiled a new rating system for sustainable road design and construction. In development since early 2007, the system seeks to encourage the more than $80-billion-a-year road construction industry to adopt standards that will build sustainable roads [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | January 29th, 2010 12:16am CDT | Comments Off
There’s nothing better than seeing our city through other people’s eyes. That’s why we are so proud to have Amie Vanderford’s distinctive eye on Memphis featured on our blog. Now the New York Times is reporting on the quirky, funky Memphis that we all know and love. I’m also proud to say that my sons-in-law, [...]
by John Lawrence (RSS) Uncategorized | January 28th, 2010 11:16am CDT | 2 Comments
B.E.G.-2015 is a not-so tongue-in-cheek plan to: a) Spend $5 million to attract smart people or BRAINS to Memphis. The M-Prize for Brains was discussed in the last post. b) Inspire commitment or ENERGY from existing Memphians to finish something big. c) Exploit profit motivations or GREED to keep the process rolling along. Leland Speed [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | January 28th, 2010 12:05am CDT | 5 Comments
Ever heard this before? “Slow-moving, backwards Southern town with an inferiority complex.” Nope, it’s not an extended version of Time magazine’s infamous description of Memphis as a “backwater river town.” Rather, it’s a description of Jacksonville that was given of Jacksonville a year before Time‘s slap in our face. No one’s making fun of Jacksonville [...]
by John Lawrence (RSS) Uncategorized | January 27th, 2010 11:15am CDT | 14 Comments
Urban revitalization really needs three things: available buildings or property, loyal developers or investors, and the right incentives to make the deal as profitable as a suburban project. Sounds simple enough and, after all, this is the way everyone has been doing it. However, this represents a tactic that does not fundamentally change very much [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | January 27th, 2010 11:13am CDT | Comments Off
It’s been said that the Wharton Administration will announce some striking changes in City Hall soon, and in light of that, we reprise this post of September 13: The listening tour on merging governments was based on a central premise: the business models for Memphis and Shelby County Governments are broken. There may be disagreements [...]
by Leah Wells (RSS) Uncategorized | January 27th, 2010 12:04am CDT | Comments Off
Local sustainability efforts and a heartwarming story about a Memphis-Haiti connection.
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | January 26th, 2010 12:07am CDT | 4 Comments
If Memphis was a real estate business, we would say that it suffers from a low occupancy rate. If we ran a shopping center with this problem, we could spend some money making it more attractive and offering special leases, we could lose money and suck it up, or we could raise rents, but [...]
by Aaron Shafer (RSS) Uncategorized | January 26th, 2010 12:03am CDT | 3 Comments
My first post addressed the urgent need for a economic renewal of our inner cities. In this post we look at an amazing precedence established in Spain that gives us inspiration to consider how we might achieve this type of economic transformation in Memphis. The Story of the Mondragon Corporation The year is 1941 and [...]
by Greg Thompson (RSS) Uncategorized | January 25th, 2010 12:08am CDT | Comments Off
In the education world, heaps of debates have raged over the decades about how American schools should be structured, what should be taught, how it should be taught and the like. But most of those discussions are snoozers for the main stream – better left to ivory tower types to grapple with. What has been [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Memphis City Schools | January 25th, 2010 12:05am CDT | 6 Comments
It’s the worst kept secret at Memphis City Schools that almost every one of its schools is expected to hit the state’s failing schools list later this year. That’s because Tennessee Department of Education is finally getting serious about academic standards and no longer will parents and taxpayers be lied to by their own governments [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | January 22nd, 2010 12:10am CDT | 1 Comment
As the tenures of two city leaders – one in the arts, one in downtown development – come to an end, we’re hard-pressed to think of a better legacy for them than the Memphis College of Arts Graduate School in the South Main Historic District. There is little left that we can say about our [...]
by Zach Hoyt (RSS) Uncategorized | January 22nd, 2010 12:02am CDT | 1 Comment
I recently moved to Memphis and, in a nutshell, I was brought here by the overall character of the city. I was curious how many other transplants were drawn here recently. Turns out, from 2000-2008, while the total population grew thanks to births and international migration, domestically, Memphis actually lost 2,176 people. Why? There are [...]
by John Lawrence (RSS) Uncategorized | January 21st, 2010 12:21am CDT | 6 Comments
If travelling through Colorado, make time to enjoy Downtown Denver. With five hours to kill last week, I did just that. I can’t say this was enough time to uncover benchmarks and best practices. But it is hard not to be inspired by the small things that add up to be one impressive place. Arriving [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | January 21st, 2010 12:05am CDT | 7 Comments
Great cities are able to do more than one thing at a time. They build great parks, they help revitalize neighborhoods and they provide safety net services. In the city version of thinking we can’t chew gum and walk at the same time, a skate park for the Glenview neighborhoods has been pulled because the [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Memphis City Schools | January 20th, 2010 12:02am CDT | Comments Off
No one says it better than Memphis City Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash. “Getting an effective teacher cannot be a lottery ticket for our students,” he said. “This is simply not acceptable.” That’s the most exciting part of this Gates Foundation-funded Teacher Effectiveness Initiative. It is a direct hit on the lottery taking place in schools [...]
by Lurene Cachola Kelley (RSS) Uncategorized | January 19th, 2010 3:39pm CDT | 4 Comments
It’s a new year and for me – it means the end of a bold experiment. For the past year-and-a-half I haven’t watched the nightly local news. This may not sound “bold” for many of you; after all, viewers have been abandoning local television news in droves – not just in Memphis, but across the [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Taxation, Uncategorized | January 19th, 2010 12:02am CDT | 1 Comment
Here’s the conclusion from a state think tank’s report that will be no surprise to anyone here: Memphians’ taxes are high and inequitable. It’s the unequivocable conclusion from the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations’ report, “Who Pays More: Local Tax Burdens on Tennessee Households by County.” The report analyzed the tax burden of people [...]
by Kenya Bradshaw (RSS) Uncategorized | January 18th, 2010 3:13pm CDT | 1 Comment
I am proud to say that I am a Memphian. We have so many great things happening. I am extremely excited about that Memphis City Schools recently receiving an award of $90 million dollars from the Gates Foundation. With this grant, Memphis is well positioned to become the premier urban school district. The districts framework [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Memphis City Schools, Taxation | January 18th, 2010 12:01am CDT | 2 Comments
When Willie W. Herenton left Memphis City Schools as its superintendent following his election as Memphis mayor, the City of Memphis budget that he inherited was just slightly smaller than the one he managed at the school district. When he left office 18 years later, City of Memphis budget had increased about 45%, which corresponded [...]
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.
