by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Downtown Revitalization | May 17th, 2013 12:08am CDT | No Comments
In June, 2006, we posted a commentary about the FedEx Forum as the controversy about its construction and financing continued even after the new arena opened. It’s hard now, almost seven years later, as the city basks in the victories of the Memphis Grizzlies, to remember the depth of the controversy back then over almost [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Livability, Parks and Greening | May 10th, 2013 12:29am CDT | 1 Comment
Jeff Speck is a city planner and architectural designer who, through writing, lectures, and built work, advocates internationally for smart growth and sustainable design. As Director of Design at the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003 through 2007, he oversaw the Mayors’ Institute on City Design and created the Governors’ Institute on Community Design, [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Livability, Transportation | May 3rd, 2013 12:43am CDT | 4 Comments
This is the month when we all get to see what a better Riverside Drive could look like – two lanes of traffic driving slower on a safer street with more parking than presently exists in the two parking lots marring Tom Lee Park. In fact, the ugly parking lots could be moved completely out [...]
by SCM (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Economic Development | April 30th, 2013 3:00pm CDT | Comments Off
From Atlantic Cities: It’s ridiculously easy to think about the benefits of historic preservation in immensely walkable Providence, Rhode Island. I’m not sure I’ve seen a better collection of downtown historic architecture this side of New Orleans. Elsewhere there are fine smaller historic downtowns, of course, such as in Annapolis, and wonderful urban historic districts [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Livability | April 12th, 2013 12:24am CDT | 13 Comments
While we are disappointed in the poor design decisions that have marked Beale Street Landing as of late, we want to make it clear that we aren’t interested in joining those who look for any reason to dismiss and vilify the project in its entirety (none of these applies to the commenters to our recent [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Shelby County government, Uncategorized | April 9th, 2013 12:53am CDT | 15 Comments
It’s hard to think of anyone who has more strongly supported Beale Street Landing than us. But these days, we look at the project and mostly think of what might have been as a result of a series of decisions that have weakened Beale Street Landing’s impact and destroyed its urban design integrity. It’s hard [...]
by SCM (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Economic Development | March 29th, 2013 2:18pm CDT | 1 Comment
From CitiWire.net: Once again, the City of Atlanta is defying its relatively small population base and its own economic challenges to invest in Georgia’s future – a new, state-owned stadium for the Atlanta Falcons football team. The agreement between the City of Atlanta and the Atlanta Falcons holds great significance – far beyond the building [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Livability, Parks and Greening | March 20th, 2013 12:11am CDT | 9 Comments
Nationally-known planner, architectural designer, author, and New Urbanist co-creator Jeff Speck laid out six simple ideas Monday night for the Memphis riverfront, but those simple ideas could transform it. He managed to weave a new fabric from the 25 years of studies that have been written about the riverfront – 19 were listed in his [...]
by SCM (RSS) Downtown Revitalization | February 26th, 2013 2:54pm CDT | Comments Off
From Atlantic Cities: Big roads and parking garages are so common in American cities that it’s easy to forget these places once functioned exceptionally well without them. However, in their persistent battle to satisfy the demands of motorists, many urban areas are losing out. In the early 1960s – when highway construction was at its [...]
by SCM (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Livability | February 1st, 2013 3:08pm CDT | 1 Comment
It’s a shame that the Center City Commission could never get its “Light It Up” project off the ground. From Neal Peirce: PHILADELPHIA – Paris has historically been the world’s celebrated “City of Light.” New York glitters in the dark, its Times Square literally drenched in light. Nighttime scenes glitter from London to San Francisco [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Livability, Planning and Urban Design | February 1st, 2013 12:55am CDT | 9 Comments
To paraphrase a downtown leader, do you know of a “real” city whose Main Street looks like ours? Do you know of a “real” city that leaves plywood patches to Main Street for more than a decade to the point that the wood repairs start decaying? Do you know of a “real” city that would [...]
by SCM (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Livability | December 18th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | Comments Off
Jeff Speck’s new book, Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time, is worth a read for its acerbic wit, alone. The author fits a remarkable collection of data and anecdotal evidence from his long career in urban design (which included a four-year stint at the helm of the National Endowment [...]
by SCM (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Taxation | December 14th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | 3 Comments
The idea of a downtown TIF to pay for improvements to downtown and its neighborhoods is awash with bad information, misstatements, and confusion, all of which is preventing a rational, calm discussion about the potential of the TIF as another tool downtown improvements absent the hysteria that’s attendant with this idea in some quarters. Whether [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Economic Development, Uncategorized | December 12th, 2012 12:05am CDT | Comments Off
Published as City Journal column in November edition of Memphis magazine: Pyramids in ancient Egypt ushered the entombed into the afterlife, but in Memphis’ case, it’s The Pyramid itself that’s headed to its next life. Egyptian pyramids contained the supplies needed for a boat journey through the underworld on the way to the afterlife. Memphis’ [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Downtown Revitalization, Neighborhoods | December 6th, 2012 12:11am CDT | 7 Comments
In the midst of public policy debates, nothing is as astonishing as how little people really know about government budgets and taxation. We were reminded of again this week with the police union reflexively opposing any discussion about public salaries and benefits while some downtown leaders opposed a proposal for a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) [...]
by SCM (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Planning and Urban Design, Trends and Issues | November 20th, 2012 3:02pm CDT | 1 Comment
Our friend, Jeff Speck, was interviewed on NPR’s Weekend Edition last Saturday: Listen to the Story Weekend Edition Saturday Playlist Download Transcript Enlarge image Jeff Speck is a city planner, architectural designer and coauthor of the best-selling Suburban Nation. Watching Mary Tyler Moore while he was growing up, city planner Jeff Speck saw a different [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) City of Memphis Government, Downtown Revitalization, Economic Development, Taxation | November 19th, 2012 12:52am CDT | 3 Comments
Shelby County Government is coming face-to-face with the difficult realities of adequately funding a new countywide school district, and it’s likely that there are no painless solutions for the future. City of Memphis faces serious financial decisions for the future, ranging from how to fund post-employment benefits to how to do more than fund fire [...]
by SCM (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Livability, Planning and Urban Design | November 1st, 2012 3:16pm CDT | Comments Off
From ICIC: Jeff Speck, author of The Walkable City, spoke to the CEOs for Cities conference today about designing walkable downtowns. He outlined not just why they are important, but how cities can take action to encourage more walkable environments. There are three primary benefits to being walkable: economic, health and environment. Economic: The reality [...]
by SCM (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Economic Development, Planning and Urban Design | October 31st, 2012 3:00pm CDT | Comments Off
From Next American City: When the Barclays Center opened in Brooklyn earlier this month, its developer, Bruce C. Ratner, was the subject of enough hagiography that you would think he were an urban visionary on par with Frederick Law Olmstead or Daniel Burnham. Long forgotten was the cold, placeless Metro Tech Center, which Ratner developed [...]
by SCM (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Livability, Planning and Urban Design | October 16th, 2012 3:00pm CDT | Comments Off
From Architectural Record: New Life For the American City Today one-third of the U.S. population lives in central cities, the highest proportion since 1950. How are urban centers responding to growth, and how do they find imaginative ways for creating vital places to live and work? We investigate three metropolitan areas in the process of [...]
by SCM (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Livability | September 14th, 2012 3:02pm CDT | Comments Off
From citiwire: It’s a dark andark and wintry Thursday night in Copenhagen, and the streets are bustling. The temperature stands above freezing, but winds blow hard enough to knock down a good share of the bicycles parked all around. Scandinavians are known for stolid reserve, but it’s all smiles and animated conversation here as people [...]
by Smart City Memphis (RSS) Downtown Revitalization, Economic Development, Livability | August 27th, 2012 12:47am CDT | 2 Comments
It is easier to imagine Memphis without music than without the Mississippi River. After all, the city’s name itself stems from the impact that the river flowing by the wilderness settlement had on the founders of Memphis, inspiring mental images of the legendary Egyptian [...]
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.
