by SCM (RSS) Uncategorized | May 30th, 2012 3:08pm CDT | Comments Off
Five Facts That Put America to Shame By Paul Buchheit, Common Dreams 19 May 12 ive me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses … I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” These words, from poet Emma Lazarus, were inscribed on the Statue of Liberty over 100 years ago. Today the golden door [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Education, Memphis City Schools | May 29th, 2012 9:35pm CDT | 5 Comments
Anytime there’s a lag in political intrigue in Memphis and Shelby County, we can always depend on our school issues to produce some. That’s particularly true when it involves longtime board Shelby County School board chairman and now unified school board member David Pickler and the pending decision [...]
by SCM (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Politics and Government, Shelby County government | May 29th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | Comments Off
From Government Technology: By Colin Wood, Government Technology Staff Writer “If you want to know the truth of a city, you need look no further than its infrastructure.” This quotation is not an excerpt from a book by the influential urban planner Kevin Lynch; it’s dialog from Diablo III, a hugely popular computer game released [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government | May 29th, 2012 12:38am CDT | 1 Comment
It’s a sure sign spring is here when the azaleas bloom and City of Memphis officials say they are facing the most difficult budget hearings ever. It’s the political instinct to lower expectations so that whatever is to come can be seen as success. Just a year ago, city [...]
by SCM (RSS) Arts and Culture | May 28th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | Comments Off
Memphian and colleague Carol Coletta heads up ArtPlace, which is doing fascinating work on creative placemaking. We thought more information about ArtPlace’s work would interest you: Launched one year ago, ArtPlace works to accelerate creative placemaking by making grants and loans. So what does that actually look like on the ground? A new video from [...]
by SCM (RSS) Livability, Transportation | May 25th, 2012 3:10pm CDT | Comments Off
At first glance Broward County, Florida, doesn’t look like the friendliest place for public transportation. The metro area just north of Miami has a couple downtown areas — Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood — but lacks a strong central business district. It also lacks much transit-oriented development. On the contrary, Broward has a very typical postwar, [...]
by SCM (RSS) Economic Development, Transportation | May 24th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | 1 Comment
From Dan Conaway’s weekly commentary, Memphasis published in the Daily News and Memphis News: This Doesn’t Fly May 24th, 2012 They built the Texas-size flying cluster somewhere between Dallas and Fort Worth, and everything went through there. You had to fly through there to get back to your car. Then they built the monster bunker [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Economic Development, Transportation | May 24th, 2012 12:13am CDT | 4 Comments
It’s been two weeks since we created the Facebook group, Delta Does Memphis, because of our concern about the damaging impact that unfair airfares are having on the Memphis regional economy. Part of it was to just draw some attention to this problem since it hardly seems [...]
by SCM (RSS) Economic Development | May 23rd, 2012 3:09pm CDT | Comments Off
From Architectural Record: After decades of being dissed, New York’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center is finally getting some respect: A $463 million renovation, designed by the Manhattan firm FXFOWLE, will play to the building’s strengths (preserving its once-revolutionary space frame) while bringing massive aesthetic, organizational, and environmental improvements. And with a subway line being [...]
by SCM (RSS) Planning and Urban Design, Transportation | May 22nd, 2012 2:55pm CDT | 2 Comments
One of the challenges for citizens who care about the quality of life and environment of Memphis and Shelby County and envision a community that is less about cars and more about people is that we are called on to be constantly watchful and to always be mindful that the devil is in the details. [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Planning and Urban Design, Regionalism, Transportation | May 22nd, 2012 12:54am CDT | 7 Comments
We’ve decided that highway projects are the modern equivalent of the old Bela Lugosi Dracula movies. You can drive a stake in him but he’ll always rise again. That’s certainly true for two projects that stalk us like vampires despite the lack of any cogent justification for why [...]
by SCM (RSS) Trends and Issues | May 21st, 2012 3:45pm CDT | Comments Off
From Atlantic Cities: New population estimates were recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau showing that, for the first time, the majority of Americans under the age of 1 are minorities. Or more specifically that white, non-Hispanic babies now make up less than half of the population younger than 1. It’s part of a demographic [...]
by Steve Bares (RSS) Economic Development | May 18th, 2012 1:06pm CDT | Comments Off
Memphis Bioworks Foundation Memphis is currently in the midst of one of its most important tourism months of the year. For most people, May in Memphis means music, barbecue, cultural events and a sunset symphony. What is often overlooked is that the Memphis in May International Festival is also about business exchange. It is in [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Education | May 18th, 2012 12:37am CDT | 12 Comments
It’s been a tough few days for the ‘burbs. Shelby County Commissioner Mike Ritz released his analysis of the municipal schools’ costs and the taxes needed to fund them, and Memphis City Councilman Edmund Ford Jr. proposal for non-Memphians to pay for vehicle inspections summoned up a [...]
by SCM (RSS) Uncategorized | May 16th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | Comments Off
From Atlantic Cities: American urban history is dotted with failed (and occasionally infamous) pedestrian malls. But there are success stories too, which offer lessons in designing walkable, mixed-use districts. The world’s first planned pedestrian mall was built in 1953 in Rotterdam. Six years later, Kalamazoo, Michigan, became the first American city adopt the concept. Austrian-born [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Economic Development, Transportation | May 16th, 2012 12:37am CDT | 5 Comments
Returning to Memphis a few weeks ago after participating in a Washington, D.C., panel sponsored by the Washington Monthly and New America Foundation about the damaging effects of high airfares on Memphis, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, I had a new sense of urgency about Memphians and [...]
by SCM (RSS) Economic Development, Taxation | May 15th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | Comments Off
From Economic Policy Institute: EPI had a tremendously productive week, releasing research on CEO pay and income inequality, the rough labor market 2012 graduates must navigate, the impact of state and local government job cuts on women and African Americans, and the challenges facing low-wage workers. CEOs made 231 times more than workers did in [...]
by Jimmie Covington (RSS) Uncategorized | May 14th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | 7 Comments
Recently released population estimates show things are not looking up for Shelby County and the Memphis metro area in terms of growth. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates–for July 1, 2011–show that more people moved away from the entire eight-county Memphis metro area than moved in during the 15 months since the official 2010 Census was [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Civil Rights | May 14th, 2012 12:41am CDT | Comments Off
There are those who believe that there are Biblical admonitions against miscegenation. Should we put it up to a vote to see if African-Americans and Caucasians can marry? There are those who think that the Bible says that wives should be obedient to their husbands. [...]
by SCM (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Economic Development | May 11th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | Comments Off
From Salon: If you ask Whole Foods why it’s breaking ground on a store in Midtown Detroit this month, it’ll say it wants to be part of “an incredible community” and “make natural foods available to everyone.” And that may be. But it’s also true that the Austin, Texas-based retailer has made a science of [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Economic Development, Transportation | May 11th, 2012 12:09am CDT | 1 Comment
Here’s your chance to send Delta Airlines a message. We’ve written previously about the declining service provided by Delta Airlines to Memphis International Airport and about the increasing airfares. We’ve set up a Facebook group called Delta Does Memphis so you can speak your piece to the [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Economic Development, Transportation | May 10th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | 1 Comment
Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns was in Memphis recently to share his passion about America’s places and what can be done to build a town or neighborhood the right way..by obtaining the highest return on infrastructure investments. During his visit, he gave special emphasis to the Elvis Presley Boulevard improvements that we wrote about earlier [...]
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.
