Tennessee’s new way of evaluating classrooms “systematically failed” to identify bad teachers and provide them more training, according to a state report published Monday. The Tennessee Department of Education found that instructors who got failing grades when measured by their students’ test scores tended to get much higher marks from principals who watched them in [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Education, Shelby County government | July 31st, 2012 12:13am CDT | 4 Comments
It’s been a tough few days for the First Amendment. Between our university and our county government, it’s hard to figure out which is the most ham-handed and well, in the interest of complete accuracy, stupid. Most of all, both institutions have lost any sense of proportionality, and [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Economic Development, Transportation | July 27th, 2012 12:04am CDT | 10 Comments
There’s nothing more fundamental for consumers than to express their opinions to a business from which we are buying a product. But we’ve learned that airline and airport consultants are about as likely to encourage this when it comes to airlines as a physician is to encourage [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Shelby County government | July 25th, 2012 12:10am CDT | Comments Off
Our friend, blogger Steve Ross, also a candidate for Shelby County Board of Commissioners, continues his public service reporting on the troubling issues at the Shelby County Election Commission. His investigation has spotlighted problems and priorities that require the Election Commission’s immediate attention. We posted a commentary by him last week, and he continues to [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Uncategorized | July 24th, 2012 12:11am CDT | Comments Off
There have been 60 mass shootings in the United States since the January 8, 2011, massacre in Tucson, Arizona. Below are three from recent weeks. Click here for the entire list since 2005. – Chicago, IL: Four youngsters were among the latest victims caught in Chicago’s gun violence epidemic, including two middle school-aged girls who [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Shelby County government | July 20th, 2012 12:18am CDT | 1 Comment
Maybe The Commercial Appeal should keep this week’s headline handy so it can be cut and pasted for each election cycle: Shelby County election officials say they’ve corrected voting problems. Of course, it’s rarely the case that the Shelby County Election Commission actually fixes the problems, and as a result, we see headlines about “voting [...]
by SCM (RSS) Uncategorized | July 18th, 2012 3:01pm CDT | Comments Off
From Fast Company: An NPR-designed decision tree makes an educated guess about whether or not you live in a city. We’re living in the early years of what many call the “Urban Century.” Cities aren’t just growing, they’re transforming–at unprecedented speeds and scales. A new series from National Public Radio, The NPR Cities Project, aims [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Politics and Government | July 18th, 2012 12:43am CDT | 7 Comments
It’s a favorite refrain of voters outside Memphis: If only Memphis would quit electing incompetent elected officials, we would be willing to love the city that we depend on for jobs and entertainment. Of course, it’s all rhetoric. There’s nothing that’s ever going to be [...]
by SCM (RSS) Parks and Greening | July 17th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | Comments Off
From Atlantic Cities: A couple weeks ago the folks at Cracked told readers that “living in a city makes you dumber.” There are a number of flaws here — beyond the obvious one of getting your science news from Cracked — but the research at the center of the claim has some relevance to cities [...]
by SCM (RSS) Economic Development, Talent | July 16th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | Comments Off
By Richard Florida on Atlantic Cities: Tolerance—the third of my 3Ts of economic development—provides a critical source of economic advantage that works alongside Technology and Talent. Places that are open to new ideas attract creative people from around the globe, broadening both their technology and talent capabilities, gaining a substantial economic edge. (Click the map [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Education, Shelby County government | July 16th, 2012 12:49am CDT | 3 Comments
U.S. District Court Judge Samuel (Hardy) Mays said that there is no irreparable harm to Shelby County in allowing the municipal school referendums to be held August 2. He must not have been thinking about Shelby County Assessor Cheyenne Johnson and Interim General Sessions Court Clerk Ed Stanton Jr. [...]
by SCM (RSS) Livability | July 15th, 2012 3:14pm CDT | Comments Off
From Southern Poverty Law Center: With chronic budget shortfalls, dangerously overcrowded prisons and the nation’s biggest municipal bankruptcy filing, we here in Alabama have a lot on our minds. But at least we can cross one worry off the list: Our property cannot be confiscated by the United Nations or any of its myriad stealth [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Arts and Culture, Downtown Revitalization, Economic Development, Livability, Neighborhoods, Parks and Greening, Planning and Urban Design, Politics and Government, Talent, Transportation, Trends and Issues | July 13th, 2012 12:42am CDT | 5 Comments
Five years or so ago, we were talking here about what a smart city looks like, and we wrote down statements that we thought described one. After compiling our list, we then added more than 200 questions to form what we called “Smart City Diagnostics.” It’s an assessment tool which allows for [...]
by SCM (RSS) Livability | July 12th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | Comments Off
From Planetizen: A few weeks ago, the Economist Intelligence Unit (the business side of Economist magazine) released its annual global Livable Cities rankings. Like the similar Mercer rankings, the EIU efforts aren’t officially meant for urbanist’s bragging rights – such rankings are used in human resource circles in corporate placements, related to such tools as [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Economic Development, Education, Transportation | July 12th, 2012 12:31am CDT | Comments Off
Memphis’ economy showed signs of new life last year but whether it is sustainable depends in large measure on the presence of talented workers easily connected to national and global economies. Two troubling factors throw a shadow over the sunny economic outlook: climbing tuition costs at the University of Memphis and the high cost of [...]
by SCM (RSS) Livability, Parks and Greening | July 11th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | Comments Off
From Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: As the bus lumbered through the city on a day that cried for shade, Arthur “Butch” Blazer fanned the barely conditioned air with his black Western hat. At every turn, trees swept past the windows — the mature canopy in Allegheny Cemetery, the new line of saplings in the median on Penn [...]
by SCM (RSS) Economic Development, Neighborhoods | July 10th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | 2 Comments
From Atlantic Cities: As many of Cleveland’s big corporate employers have left town over the last few decades – first U.S. Steel, then General Motors, then Westinghouse and General Electric – a cluster of long-running nonprofit institutions has remained intact on the city’s east side. Case Western Reserve University, the University Hospitals and the Cleveland [...]
by SCM (RSS) Livability, Talent | July 9th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | Comments Off
From Atlantic Cities: I had been warned. When I decided to end my eight-year stint in Washington, D.C. and decamp to Los Angeles last summer, my friends in the capital looked at me like I had announced plans to eject myself into space. They rolled their office chairs toward my cubicle and pressed their hands [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Livability, Planning and Urban Design, Transportation | July 9th, 2012 12:51am CDT | Comments Off
A major obstacle to a successful future of Memphis is our tendency toward incrementalism. The problem is that at a time when we need to leap ahead of other cities, we are running in place. We are making progress, but so is everyone else and as a result, we [...]
by SCM (RSS) Livability | July 6th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | Comments Off
From The Economist: Democracy in America ON JULY 31st, Georgia’s voters will decide whether to impose upon themselves a one-cent sales tax for the next ten years to fund transportation projects. Voters in each of Georgia’s 12 regions will have seen (or at least, will have had the opportunity to see) the list of projects [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Taxation | July 6th, 2012 12:01am CDT | 12 Comments
We’ve been writing since December, 2010, about voluntary PILOT payments by nonprofit organizations to city governments. We’re reposting our most recent commentary about these payments in light of Memphis City Council’s exploration of them as a potential revenue source. It’s a worthy subject to consider. These days, it is impossible at times to discern [...]
by SCM (RSS) Trends and Issues | July 5th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | Comments Off
From Atlantic Cities: We already know big cities in the U.S. are growing, according to new estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Places like New Orleans, Austin, and Denver saw above-average population growth rates between April 2010 and July 2011. To add a little context, Brookings Institution demographer William Frey dug through the data to [...]
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.
