Another List: Crazy Cities
Daily Beast has put together its own ranking of cities – America’s craziest cities. Now here’s a list that’s more up our alley, although we’re disappointed to only being ranked #10 in eccentricity....
Read MorePosted by Smart City Memphis | Mar 12, 2010 | Uncategorized
Daily Beast has put together its own ranking of cities – America’s craziest cities. Now here’s a list that’s more up our alley, although we’re disappointed to only being ranked #10 in eccentricity....
Read MorePosted by Smart City Memphis | Mar 12, 2010
Here’s the tale of the tape for Technicolor Inc., the latest company to get a tax freeze from Memphis and Shelby County: Annual revenues for Technicolor Inc: $3 billion Median salary for new Memphis jobs: $26,000 Poverty...
Read MorePosted by Smart City Memphis | Mar 11, 2010 | Shelby County government
The grand experiment that began 32 years ago to reinvent Shelby County Government as an urban government is coming to a close. It began with such promise on a clear, unseasonably warm New Year’s Day in 1976 when Shelby...
Read MorePosted by Smart City Memphis | Mar 10, 2010 | Economic Development, Uncategorized
There are times when it just seems that Memphis can’t get its economic development strategies into the 21st century. It’s as if we just don’t want to compete in a knowledge economy in a global marketplace. Our economic...
Read MorePosted by Smart City Memphis | Mar 8, 2010
Sometimes, something takes on so much symbolic power that it comes to define something much broader. For Memphis city government, that something is auto inspection. The unconscionable waste of the only thing that really matters...
Read MorePosted by Smart City Memphis | Mar 5, 2010 | Uncategorized
Nothing is quite as confusing as government financing, and that’s never been truer than now. There seems to be big numbers every where – the $30 million or so for The Pyramid, there’s the idea of a new convention center likely...
Read MorePosted by Smart City Memphis | Mar 3, 2010 | Memphis City Schools, Poverty
Hopefully, now that we’ve all worked through the catharsis brought on by hitting the list of miserable U.S. cities by Forbes magazine, maybe we can now follow it up with an epiphany. Most urbanists and public policy types have...
Read MorePosted by Smart City Memphis | Mar 1, 2010 | Uncategorized
John Elkington played his trump card last week, and after several years of innuendoes, rumors and charges, it’s hard to conclude anything except that he’s won the high-stakes game of money and reputation that characterized the...
Read MorePosted by Smart City Memphis | Feb 27, 2010 | Uncategorized
Adolfo Carrion leads President Barack Obama’s urban initiatives. Smart City talked to him to find out what urban leaders can expect after his first year of organizing the new office and coordinating cabinet officials to...
Read Moreby 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, columnist at Memphis magazine, author of two books and a museum exhibition, and consultant on public policy and strategic planning. Smart City Memphis was called one of the most intriguing blogs in the U.S. by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change; The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal wrote: “Smart City Memphis 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 solves 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.