Author: Smart City Memphis

Greg Fuson and Sandra Kulli are the people behind The Vine, an annual west coast gathering of creative architects, builders, thinkers and artists. Their topic at this year’s Vine Conference is the nature of...

Shelby County Commissioner Mike Carpenter continues his one-man campaign to spark a serious discussion about school funding. In fact, at a time when the fallout from Memphis City Council’s cut in school funding could conceivably...

In the end, there were just too many reasons to vote against Shelby County charter amendment 360. There was the sizable group of term-limit supporters who resented the fact that commissioners used the imperative to correct a...

Memphis City Council owes no apologies for taking the long view on tax equity when it withheld $66 million funding for Memphis City Schools.Some may trivialize their motives, others may vilify them as opportunists and a few may...

It’s encouraging that the University of Memphis has clearly adopted a new attitude toward the future of its adjacent neighborhoods, and hopefully, there will be a time when it shows up on the list of universities who are doing...

Smart City is talking with people who have discovered new ways of attracting and retaining a creative community.First we’ll speak with Helen Johnson and Josh McManus. They lead a group called CreateHere, which focuses on...

It’s widely predicted that climbing gas prices will force suburbanites out of their cars and back to city neighborhoods. Shelby County is likely to be one of the last places where it will happen. That’s because our...

Nashville/Davidson County floats in a sea of green – greenbacks, that is – while Shelby County floats in the stagnating economic backwater of West Tennessee.It’s the graphic disparity in each city’s region that underscores the...

In light of the Shelby County Board of Commissioners unanimous vote for the master plan for Shelby Farms Park, it seems an appropriate time to reprise a post from March 27, 2007, because Monday’s vote was an exercise in déjà...

Urban parks across the U.S. are getting historic attention, and the lack of priority given to them by our City Hall summons up fond memories of the Memphis Park Commission.Abolished largely because of a feud between Memphis City...