by Steve Bares (RSS) Uncategorized | January 17th, 2010 8:17pm CST | Comments Off
As the New Year began, Memphis Bioworks Foundation was awarded a $2.9 million Energy Training Partnership Grant under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Green Jobs Training Program. The two-year initiative will fund programs to train area workers at local colleges for jobs in energy-efficiency and renewable energy occupations. Memphis was one of only [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Memphis City Schools | January 15th, 2010 3:34pm CST | Comments Off
John Branston of Memphis Flyer suggests that there is math homework that Memphis City Council needs to attend to before giving Memphis City Schools any more money. He writes: Call it “The Case of the Missing 7,000 Students.” But you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out. The Tennessee Court of [...]
by Melissa Petersen (RSS) Uncategorized | January 15th, 2010 11:24am CST | 3 Comments
The other day I heard about plans for an upcoming fundraiser. A few hundred dollars a plate going toward a worthy cause. Of course these types of events need food, so a multitude of chefs/restaurants were asked to donate food and labor. Everyone—the security, the band, decorators, bartenders, the rental company, and coordinators, pretty much [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | January 14th, 2010 11:47am CST | 4 Comments
We guess that we should be as surprised that the state administration is shafting us as Charles Carpenter is that he’s losing city government’s bond business. Here’s the deal: voters in this solidly blue city have strongly supported our blue governor at the polls twice, and as a result, he only gives us the blues [...]
by Brad Leon (RSS) Memphis City Schools, Uncategorized | January 13th, 2010 1:21pm CST | 2 Comments
I ran into Knoxville’s mayor and, gubernatorial candidate, Bill Haslam at the Starbucks on Union and McLean last week. He graciously invited me to his table to hear more about Teach For America’s work in Tennessee. I shared with him the recent Tennessee Value-Add System analysis that illustrated, “Teach For America corps members (what we [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Memphis City Schools | January 12th, 2010 9:34pm CST | 4 Comments
Memphis City Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash has said: “Arguing over who should fund schools is not good for children.” Wrong. Editorial writers have said Memphis City Council acted rashly and as a result, it left the city schools in a precarious financial position. Wrong again. To the superintendent, we can only say that debating who [...]
by Josh Whitehead (RSS) Uncategorized | January 11th, 2010 10:09pm CST | 7 Comments
In my last post, I discussed the fallacy of a city – any city – approving new developments at its periphery when all available evidence shows that said developments, be they residential or retail, are simply cannibalizing existing neighborhoods and businesses elsewhere in that city. This is precisely what is occurring in Fisherville, the large [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Economic Development | January 11th, 2010 9:56pm CST | 2 Comments
While Memphis has never been categorized as an old industrial city, it’s always had similarities – deep urban challenges, grittiness and demographics – that give us more in common with these cities than Sunbelt cities. We thought this again as we were re-reading a report byThe Brookings Institution about the revitalization of older industrial cities, [...]
by Margot McNeeley (RSS) Uncategorized | January 11th, 2010 9:51pm CST | 7 Comments
A friend of mine recently posted on her facebook page that she wished wine were sold in grocery stores in Memphis. She had no idea the can of worms she opened. She received a gambit of responses from her facebook friends, some strongly agreeing with her, some adamantly disagreeing with her, each for a variety [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | January 10th, 2010 9:21pm CST | 2 Comments
The drumbeat of the asphalt lobby is getting louder, and as it has been so often, its persistent beat hypnotizes elected officials who should know better. What is it anyway about otherwise logical people who suspend all logic and sense of balance when roads come into play? How do so many of these hypnotized people [...]
by Gene Pearson (RSS) Uncategorized | January 10th, 2010 6:45am CST | Comments Off
Whenever I tell someone that I’m a city planner, the response is either “what do you plant in the city?” or “This city sure needs some planning!” The first response owes to my north Mississippi accent, the second to the chaos of streets and land development that don’t appear to have any order other than [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | January 9th, 2010 12:48am CST | Comments Off
Ten years ago, two undergrads from Yale noticed the fundamental gap between their university and the community surrounds it. To bridge this divide they formed the volunteer training organization that’s now known as LIFT. We’ll speak with Ben Reuler, the executive director of LIFT Chicago, about harnessing the energy of students to engage them in [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | January 8th, 2010 3:40pm CST | Comments Off
It’s too cold to shop this weekend and there’s a heat wave coming, so save up your grocery shopping list for next Tuesday when it will be 45 degrees. On that day at Whole Foods Market, 5% of the day’s net sales will benefit one of our local favorites, Project Green Fork. Margot McNeeley is [...]
by Doug Imig (RSS) Uncategorized | January 8th, 2010 3:10pm CST | Comments Off
A report released by the Southern Education Foundation notes that the South has become the first region of the country where more than half of public school children are poor and more than half are members of ethnic minority groups. According to the report, the shift was fueled by influx of Latinos and the return [...]
by Susan Adler Thorp (RSS) Uncategorized | January 7th, 2010 10:05pm CST | 1 Comment
In our race to embrace the future, to figure out how we can encourage the young creative class to settle here and make Memphis a better place to live, often we forget to stop for a moment and appreciate some of the folks who already have spent a lifetime trying to make Memphis the kind [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | January 7th, 2010 12:10am CST | Comments Off
The hardest part about being a candidate for change is delivering it when you’re elected. It’s even harder when the call for change is delivered in a mandate, because expectations are higher and patience is shorter. That’s particularly true here because City Hall has been limping along for eight years with no sense that anyone [...]
by John Lawrence (RSS) Economic Development | January 6th, 2010 4:58pm CST | Comments Off
Let’s all take a deep breath and chant together, “we all love both FedEx and Memphis.” In the last post, I dared to ask if it was okay to think about life after FedEx, a company that has given many of us jobs, insurance and tuition reimbursement. My intent was not to cast dispersions of [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | January 5th, 2010 11:09pm CST | 26 Comments
Say it ain’t so, Joe. Reports from inside the Shelby County Administration Building are that Interim Mayor Joe Ford is pulling the plug on the functional consolidation of Memphis and Shelby County Fire Departments. To compound that mistake, it’s also said that Mayor Ford is throwing a monkey wrench in the two-years of work to [...]
by John Lawrence (RSS) Economic Development | January 5th, 2010 5:19pm CST | 3 Comments
Elvira Nabiullina, the Russian Minister of Economic Development and Trade, is developing a program to restructure “monotowns” or cities built around a single industry. She is also grappling with industry failures in some monotowns leaving thousands in desperate peril. The minister has said bluntly that people in these towns “physically do not have any alternative [...]
by Barry Chase (RSS) Uncategorized | January 3rd, 2010 10:36pm CST | 5 Comments
For the very first time in American history, after about 100 years of discussion, the United States Senate has passed a comprehensive health care reform bill. This is an historic accomplishment, but it comes at an unacceptable price for American women. Obstacles to private health insurance coverage for abortion were included in the bill to [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Economic Development | January 3rd, 2010 10:29pm CST | Comments Off
A Friday lunch at Flying Fish led to an impromptu focus group on minority business that needs to be replicated in the conference rooms of our economic development officials. It was a refreshingly honest and productive discussion which left little doubt that people working at the grassroots are unswayed by the rhetoric of minority business, [...]
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.
