Author: Smart City Memphis

Memphis manages somehow to hold two countervailing attitudes. On one hand, a lack of self-worth leads to a tendency to accept any big idea that rides into town claiming to be the magic answer to turning things around. On the...

Seeing the world through new eyes can uncover a whole new set of possibilities. In his new books on London and New York, Fred Dust attempts to teach his readers how to look at the world with “eyes open” by showing them the...

We were standing in an anteroom in the Hart Senate Office Building some years back when Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy walked in.Instantly, there was a surge of energy in the room, and although the room was filled with...

The 15th incarnation of the Memphis Poll came out a few days ago, and although it always seems to have something for everyone, it just left us worried.The percentage of the public satisfied with Memphis’ quality of life has...

Interim Superintendent Dan Ward was right. It was just hard to hear him over the “don’t confuse me with the facts” approach of Bill O’Reilly. Mr. Ward said on Mr. O’Reilly’s cable network program that the Mitchell High School...

And then there were three.Would the last person standing please run Memphis City Schools for us?If superintendent-wannabe Memphis Mayor Willie W. Herenton had written a script to move him toward the helm of the district, he...

Why is it that we typically separate planning for highways, transit, and trains in the U.S.? Worse, why do we plan for transportation and land use as if they don’t relate to one another? Those are subjects we’ll explore this...

It seems the perfect time to revisit two ideas about downtown streets that deserve new life.One deals with Fourth Street from Union to Beale and the second is Main Street, which is neither main nor a street.During the design of...

What do you do with a gritty city lagging in economic growth and with a decades-old music heritage as its main claim to fame?No, not that one. We’re talking about Liverpool, England.If we were in charge of putting together a...

Poor Dan Ward. Surely the suggestion that the interim Memphis City Schools superintendent should appear on Bill O’Reilly’s national cable show was groupthink gone terribly awry.Surely, nobody in the Memphis City Schools...