Author: Smart City Memphis

This week, Smart City will examine cities in history and how their past shapes their future.Ed Glaeser is the first guest, and he is always asking the question, “What makes cities work?” He is a prolific researcher...

There’s the widely-held belief in corporate American that in times of great financial stress, an effective manager can cut as much as 15 percent of the budget at any time without doing serious damage to the company.It’s hard to...

University of Akron President Luis M. Proenza could have been talking to us.Speaking to the convocation of Florida International University late last year, he talked about “how urban universities create a competitive advantage,”...

There’s a certain level of angst that surfaces this time each year because the football team at University of Memphis isn’t in the top 100 in pre-season rankings.As University of Memphis graduates, all of us here do care about...

In the aerotropolis sweepstakes, Detroit is the first city to take flight.There, the Detroit Region Aerotropolis has used the nation’s latest economic development big idea as a vehicle for regionalism, bringing together...

This week on Smart City Richard Florida is our guest. He predicted the rise of the Creative Class, and now he says where you live is the most important decision you’ll ever make. His latest book is called:...

Being an urban superintendent is a tough job on its best day, but a fundamental fact of life about the public sector makes it even more difficult: style can trump substance, attitude can overshadow achievements and people skills...

If the Sustainable Shelby project is looking for a symbol for its smart growth agenda, it can find in it in a most unexpected place – the Shelby County Division of Public Works.After all, conventional wisdom is that government...

Persistence is always a mandatory attitude when dealing with government, and that’s even the case when it’s a county commissioner dealing with state government officials.It’s taken Shelby County Commissioner Mike Ritz more than...

WWJD?Apparently, in the minds of many Memphians, He would scream, hurl epithets, demean and bully.In fact, if we’ve ever seen the antithesis of Christ-like behavior, it was in the reaction by too many Memphians following the...