by John Lawrence (RSS) Uncategorized | April 29th, 2011 12:49am CDT | 1 Comment
Business retention and expansion are priorities Governor Haslam announced this week that the Department of Economic and Community Development will pour most of its energy and resources into retaining and expanding existing Tennessee businesses. This is good news and a long ignored strategy. The Governor is correct to recognize that many new jobs can come [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 29th, 2011 12:05am CDT | Comments Off
From The Urban Child Institute: Memphis is three years too late with the investments that give every child a fair start in life. That’s because public spending on education essentially ignores the first three years of a child’s life, and that’s the time when most of his brain is being developed. A child’s brain doubles [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 28th, 2011 12:53am CDT | Comments Off
Several months ago, we wrote a post about the growing movement in some cities to get obtain PILOT (payment-in-lieu-of-taxes) payments from major nonprofits like hospitals. Boston, with large swaths of its land taken up by universities, was a pioneer in this trend, and this week upped the ante by mailing “bills.” City officials mailed [...]
by John Lawrence (RSS) Uncategorized | April 28th, 2011 12:40am CDT | 1 Comment
I know Miami is not Memphis and nothing solidifies that feeling like a visit to the heart of South Florida’s business district. Brickell is not your typical modern business district. It is directly adjacent to the historic downtown, very compact and also one of the most dense residential neighborhoods in America on a per square [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Economic Development | April 27th, 2011 12:02am CDT | 2 Comments
There are many objectives that need to be more strongly on our economic development agenda, chiefly plans to develop more entrepreneurs, to wean ourselves from subsidizing companies with tax freezes to get them to love us, to attract and develop more talent, and to create a stronger, more vibrant sense of place. Add another [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 26th, 2011 10:00am CDT | 1 Comment
This was first posted on April 30, 2007: Contrary to news media reports, the future of former Tennessee Senator John Ford – convicted on a federal charge of bribery – does not now rest with U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Breen. Rather, Mr. Ford’s fate largely lies in the hands of an overworked employee of [...]
by John Lawrence (RSS) Uncategorized | April 26th, 2011 12:37am CDT | 11 Comments
Yes, I’m serious I was at Miami’s South Beach recently and caught myself marveling at the same three things over and over again. Okay, I marveled at quite a few things. But three design features kept appearing again and again. South Beach is great because it is the perfect scale, offers extraordinary public access and [...]
by John Lawrence (RSS) Uncategorized | April 25th, 2011 12:50am CDT | 37 Comments
It is time for a new gimmick Can we please give artists a rest? They are asked to save everything. Please paint a mural here. Please put a sculpture there. Please play my benefit for free. And my favorite of all… “Wouldn’t these old buildings just make the best arts district?” Memphis now has at [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Economic Development | April 25th, 2011 12:36am CDT | 16 Comments
We may talk a good game about talent, but it’s time that at the top of our leaders’ priorities is to make Memphis a city of choice for college students. We may tend to lean on the ropes and take punch after punch from study after study, but it’s time to realize that we may [...]
by SCM (RSS) Uncategorized | April 24th, 2011 12:31am CDT | Comments Off
From Wall Street Journal: To the list of those dinged by states’ budgetary woes—from Illinois vendors to Wisconsin public employees—add YUSA Corp., an auto-parts supplier in the city of Washington Court House, Ohio. YUSA received a $35,000 development grant from the state of Ohio five years ago, pledging to expand a plant and employ 816 [...]
by SCM (RSS) Uncategorized | April 23rd, 2011 1:44pm CDT | Comments Off
On April 27 from 8:30 – 4 p.m., the Alliance will be hosting the signature event for the Mid-South nonprofit sector — the sixth annual conference of the Alliance for Nonprofit Excellence. For anyone who is interested in raising money for their organization, this conference provides an opportunity to hear from some of the best [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 23rd, 2011 12:40am CDT | 1 Comment
We can’t wait for the Tennessee Legislature to pass the law allowing us to get vouchers so we can set up the Scientology school we’ve been wanting to organize. Meanwhile, we’re urging some friends to set up that madrasa they’ve talked about for years. It’s such an unexpected burst of fair-mindedness by a Legislature [...]
by SCM (RSS) Uncategorized | April 23rd, 2011 12:28am CDT | Comments Off
We’ve written before that cities that want to succeed in today’s economic realities need a serious strategy involving women. We were reminded of this by McKinsey & Company: The ability to retain and promote more women middle managers is a key point of leverage. April 2011 Source: Organization Practice Women are crucial to US economic [...]
by SCM (RSS) Uncategorized | April 22nd, 2011 3:01pm CDT | Comments Off
From Stateline: The chancellor of the University of Alabama System, the football coach at Troy University and doctors at state medical schools all made headlines in Alabama recently. They all were on a list of state employees enrolled in a lucrative retirement plan that will earn them lump sums of $500,000 on the day they [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 22nd, 2011 12:08pm CDT | Comments Off
It’s always good to have something to look forward to, so we hope you’ll agree with us that a week’s worth of blog posts by one of our favorite people, John Lawrence, does just that. John is a regular guest blogger here, and he always offers a provocative, thought-provoking look at Memphis and offers new [...]
by SCM (RSS) Uncategorized | April 22nd, 2011 12:24am CDT | 3 Comments
American public support for the free market economy has dropped sharply in the past year, and is now lower than in China, according to a GlobeScan poll released today. The findings, drawn from 12,884 interviews across 25 countries, show that there has been a sharp fall in the number of Americans who think that the [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 21st, 2011 12:54am CDT | 16 Comments
There’s a lot of talk right now about plugging the City of Memphis budget hole by “monetizing” parking meters. There are City Council members who are concerned about using one-time revenue opportunities to solve this year’s budget challenges while setting up a similar problem for the next fiscal year. The Center City Commission is [...]
by SCM (RSS) Uncategorized | April 21st, 2011 12:15am CDT | 1 Comment
WASHINGTON, DC–(Marketwire – April 4, 2011) – Americans favor walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods, with 56 percent of respondents preferring smart growth neighborhoods over neighborhoods that require more driving between home, work and recreation. That’s according to a recent study, the Community Preference Survey, by the National Association of Realtors®. “Realtors® care about improving communities through smart [...]
by SCM (RSS) Uncategorized | April 21st, 2011 12:10am CDT | Comments Off
To read entire post by Richard Florida in The Atlantic, click here. State population growth does not necessarily translate into higher incomes, notes Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, who points out that median family incomes were $56,200, $60,800, and $56,600 in fast-growing Georgia, Nevada, and Texas, significantly lower than the $83,000, $81,000, and $66,900 found in slow-growing [...]
by SCM (RSS) Uncategorized | April 20th, 2011 3:48pm CDT | Comments Off
From dc.streetsblog.org: Paradigm Shift in Charleston: County Leaders Reject Highway Expansion by Angie Schmitt on April 18, 2011 Chalk this up as a major victory in the livable streets movement: Thanks to a heroic effort by advocates for smart growth and rural preservation, officials in Charleston, South Carolina have unanimously rejected a plan for a [...]
by SCM (RSS) Uncategorized | April 20th, 2011 12:36am CDT | 2 Comments
To read entire commentary from Urban0phile, click here. …I gradually became aware that many of the stops were at Sim-city like attractions – the kind you are allowed to build when your city gets to a certain size- such as the convention center, an arena, a baseball park, a football stadium, and a casino. Each [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | April 19th, 2011 9:51am CDT | 24 Comments
From Forbes magazine: More than 10 million Americans moved from one county to another during 2008. This map visualizes those moves. Click on any county to see comings and goings: black lines indicate net inward movement, red lines net outward movement. We won’t state the obvious, except to say that these migration patterns underscore the [...]
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.
