Last week a teenager in Mississippi was sentenced to two life sentences for murder. Deryl Dedmon ran over James Craig Anderson with a pick-up truck because he was black. On the surface Dedmon looked like a typical American kid. What we used to call “All American” – white, blue eyed and blond. But clearly something [...]

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From Atlantic Cities: The Sacramento City Council voted recently to approve a planto build a new downtown arena to replace the current suburban home of the Sacramento Kings. It’s seen as a major victory for Mayor Kevin Johnson – himself a former NBA player – and for the city’s downtown. But with tight budgetary times [...]

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                    Thank God the majority of the Tennessee Legislature are small government right wingers . We’d hate to see what they’d do if they weren’t. If the suburban rush to judgment on its own school districts wasn’t enough to remind us of the anti-Memphis venom always [...]

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From TruthOut: It’s been exactly 50 years since Americans, or at least the non-poor among them, “discovered” poverty, thanks to Michael Harrington’s engaging book The Other America. If this discovery now seems a little overstated, like Columbus’s “discovery” of America, it was because the poor, according to Harrington, were so “hidden” and “invisible” that it [...]

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It is clear from Memphian Bill Day’s recent three cartoons that he takes the killing of Trayvon Martin personally. The award-winning cartoonist is well-known for his cartoons on themes of equal rights, justice, and reason. His recent cartoons have special meaning: he was raised in Sanford, Florida, where the shooting place.  In fact, it was [...]

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From Atlantic Cities: The regional planning authority for the Nashville, Tennessee, metropolitan area has embarked on a new philosophy to put the notoriously sprawling region on a less polluting and less consumptive path, anchored by walkable neighborhoods, public transportation and maximizing the efficiency of current roadways. Meeting the laudable goal of shaping a more sustainable [...]

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                  We have an inviolate rule: we don’t argue with women who say something is sexist and we don’t argue with African-Americans who say something is racist. They know it when they see it, and these days, African-Americans see it writ large in Sanford, Florida, and writ [...]

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From citiwire.net: Would you prefer to live in a community where you had to drive everywhere for everything, or would you prefer to live in a community where you could walk, ride a bicycle, take public transportation, or drive to get to where you want to go? This question is at the heart of the [...]

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From Grist: When we asked readers and friends on Facebook and Twitter to help us find the goofiest city slogans, nicknames, and rebranding campaigns ever, we had no idea what we were getting into. Really. Turns out this country is CHOCK FULL of marketing consultants who don’t have the foggiest clue what they’re doing — [...]

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We’ve written a lot about FedEx’s three-hub global strategy that links Paris’ DeGaulle Airport; Guangzhou, China aiport, and Memphis International Airport.  We know that freight boxes don’t care what airports look like, but because of the billions of dollars being invested in this strategy by FedEx, the spotlight will be shining on these three airports [...]

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From Atlantic Cities: The Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, the Metropolis in Seattle, the Cog Factory in Omaha: all legendary music venues that fostered scenes later embraced by local leaders as catalysts for economic development. But despite these successes, there’s little formal research into how these venues emerged or what economic value they truly hold. [...]

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We continue our MEM theme this week by looking at some other peer cities’ airports: Jacksonville   Raleigh   Orlando            

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From Atlantic Cities: In almost every way in which we humans view the world, scale and context are crucially important. When we build a skyscraper, it’s impressive because it’s so much taller than what’s around it, or what’s come before it. When we learn of a new chameleon, it’s wonderful because it’s so much smaller [...]

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When you ask the people of San Diego what they want in a transportation system, the answer is usually balance. In a 2009 survey [PDF] by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, 75 percent of San Diego residents thought the region should complement its existing highway system by expanding the transit network and implementing programs [...]

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In the past 15 years, Memphis has pursued an NBA team and spent $250 million for Pyramid improvements and construction of  the FedExForum to lure the Grizzlies. We have devoted years to considering how to make our convention center more competitive, we analyzed the best places for a new $400-500 million facility, and we convened [...]

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All eight Tennessee members of the National Academy of Sciences — including a Nobel laureate — have signed a statement (PDF) expressing their firm opposition to House Bill 368 and Senate Bill 893. Both bills, if enacted, would encourage teachers to present the “scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses” of “controversial” topics such as “biological evolution, [...]

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                There is an emerging sense of frustration by some members of the Memphis and Shelby County Airport Authority that may make it more assertive about dealing with the economic threats looming over Memphis because of our dismal options for air travel. “I can’t go to a party [...]

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From Governing: It’s amazing — although depressingly unsurprising — how bad ideas are recycled time and again. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, almost two dozen states are considering bills that require drug testing those either applying for or receiving public benefits, a policy that has been cut down in the courts before [...]

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America’s airline service is collapsing fast, and businesses across Heartland America are taking the brunt of the hit. A new article in the Washington Monthly by Phillip Longman and Lina Khan explains what’s happening and why the problem is rooted in the same kind of policies that brought on the financial crisis. As America’s few [...]

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              “We are a nation of idiots about infancy.” It was unquestionably a slap-in-the-face wake-up call, but there was no rebuttal to offer after recently listening to the convincing case laid out by Robin-Karr Morse, author of Scared Sick: The Role of Childhood Trauma in Adult Disease, family therapist, [...]

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Perhaps it was the idea that somehow Memphis got the short end of the stick on Beale Street. But in the past few years our city has decided that it is a property developer. Think The Pyramid and The Fairgrounds. Memphis city government is about to develop a third high profile project. The Union Avenue [...]

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