Turning The Racist Rant Into Racial Progress
So, the question now is what can the outrage over the racist rant by a Memphian that strafed a Caribbean service worker accomplish? Yes, it’s a potent reminder of how...
Read MorePosted by Smart City Memphis | Apr 17, 2017 | Poverty
So, the question now is what can the outrage over the racist rant by a Memphian that strafed a Caribbean service worker accomplish? Yes, it’s a potent reminder of how...
Read MorePosted by Smart City Memphis | Apr 13, 2017 | Criminal Justice, Politics and Government
Abe Fortas – the forgotten Memphian – has been back in the news lately. Or more precisely, he has been in the background of the news lately. First, there was his relevance...
Read MorePosted by Smart City Memphis | Apr 11, 2017 | Uncategorized
The idea that the Memphis Zoo and the Overton Park Conservancy should equally split the costs of parking on the greensward isn’t logical or fair. After all, it’s the zoo that has the much larger budget, and as a...
Read MorePosted by Smart City Memphis | Apr 10, 2017 | City of Memphis Government, Downtown Revitalization, Taxation, Tennessee Legislature
When The Commercial Appeal can write an article riddled with mistakes about the Tourism Development Zone like it did last week, it seems a good time to separate fact from...
Read MorePosted by Smart City Memphis | Apr 7, 2017 | City of Memphis Government, Livability
Well, it’s deja vu all over again. Once again, the Mid-South Coliseum’s future is back in the news, and because of it, we are reprising...
Read MorePosted by Smart City Memphis | Apr 5, 2017 | City of Memphis Government, Livability, Planning and Urban Design
If it wasn’t bad enough that the U.S. Supreme Court put our political system up for sale when it inexplicably ruled that corporations are people, our local U.S. District Court has...
Read MorePosted by Smart City Memphis | Mar 30, 2017 | Leadership, Trends and Issues, Uncategorized
What has Gannett wrought? The country’s largest newspaper chain has already accomplished the unfathomable in Memphis. It’s made us look back to when E. W. Scripps...
Read MorePosted by Smart City Memphis | Mar 28, 2017 | Economic Development, Education
We’ve written for several years about “opportunity youth,” 16-24 year-olds who are neither in school nor working, and how this is one of the two key measurements for...
Read MorePosted by Smart City Memphis | Mar 22, 2017 | Education, Tennessee Legislature
We’re simply unable to join the growing push for school vouchers, chiefly because it’s simply impossible for us to imagine that the Tennessee Legislature is really...
Read MorePosted by Smart City Memphis | Mar 20, 2017 | City of Memphis Government, Neighborhoods
It’s hard for the timing to be worse for Memphis when it comes to the proposed Trump budget. With signs of an economic revival that would finally take us to...
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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 →
Since 2005, this has been Smart City Consulting’s blog with the aim of connecting the dots and providing perspective on issues and policies shaping Memphis. Editor and primary author is Tom Jones, City Journal columnist at Memphis magazine, author of two books and a museum exhibition, and consultant on public policy and strategic planning. He has written articles for MLK50, The Commercial Appeal, and USA Today. The blog was called one of the most intriguing blogs in the U.S. by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change; The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal said it “provides some of the most well-thought-out thinking about Memphis’ past, present, and future you’ll find anywhere,” and the Memphis Flyer said: “This incredibly well-written blog sets out to solve the city’s ills – from the mayor to MATA – with out-of-the-box thinking, fresh approaches to old problems, and new ideas.” If you have questions, submissions, or ideas for posts, please email Tom Jones, at tjones@smartcityconsulting.com.